Contextual Determinants of the Impact of Immigration on Mainstream Electoral Competition

Previous research on immigration and vote choice fails to account for the impact of immigration on non-radical sides along the overall political spectrum, and for the impact of immigration in political systems where radical right parties are irrelevant or inexistent. This paper aims to fill this gap by modelling the impact of attitudes towards immigration on vote choice through spatial models of party competition across 28 European political systems. More specifically, this paper provides evidence that the impact of attitudes towards immigration on the overall political spectrum depends on how liberal or restrictive the immigration policy is regarding the integration of migrants in different spheres of the host society. The type and restrictiveness of national immigration policies are theorised to be mediators of perceived threat among native populations, and therefore a catalyst for the immigration issue to be more influential in the party competition structure...Read more