Immigration and political party positioning in Europe
PS8-3
Presented by: RYAN BAKKER
How do political party positions on immigration relate to the dimensions that or-
ganize European politics? In this paper, we use Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES)
data from 2006-2019 to show that European party positions on immigration have an
increasingly strong connection to party stances on European integration, consistent
with recent arguments on the emergence of a transnational cleavage. However, we go
on to show that it is not only the European dimension with substantial immigration
content. In pooled analyses we find that a party's immigration position outperforms
any other single issue indicator in predicting where a party stands on the economic
left-right, GAL-TAN, and EU dimensions. Our results highlight the outsize signifi-
cance of immigration as a political issue in Europe during the first two decades of the
21st century.
ganize European politics? In this paper, we use Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES)
data from 2006-2019 to show that European party positions on immigration have an
increasingly strong connection to party stances on European integration, consistent
with recent arguments on the emergence of a transnational cleavage. However, we go
on to show that it is not only the European dimension with substantial immigration
content. In pooled analyses we find that a party's immigration position outperforms
any other single issue indicator in predicting where a party stands on the economic
left-right, GAL-TAN, and EU dimensions. Our results highlight the outsize signifi-
cance of immigration as a political issue in Europe during the first two decades of the
21st century.