We used MIPEX II’s set of 140 indicators as the basis for our data collection for the previous time points. MIPEX II identifies six strands of policy areas related toimmigration that are evaluated by country experts: labour market access, familyreunion, long-term residence, acquisition of nationality, political participation andanti-discrimination...We have also collected, for the same points in time, our own indicators for asylumpolicies, partly inspired by Thielemann’s (2003)indicators...
Our data also support only partially our second main hypothesis: Policy-making will respond to significant shifts in public opinion, such that whenever the public mood becomes considerably more negative, policies will become more restrictive (with a certain time lag), and when the opinion is ambivalent or favouring the status quo, policies will remain unaltered.
As we have seen, policies have become more restrictive in the UK and, to someextent, in Ireland, where the public has become considerably critical of immigration, and in the British case, considerably concerned about it. Also, in line with thehypothesis, policies have remained unaltered in the Netherlands and Switzerland, two countries where the opinion dynamics have been ambivalent. However, the cases of Austria and Spain contradict our hypothesis, given that there is absolutely noambivalence in the opinions of the Austrian people, who have consistently become critical of immigration and increasingly concerned about it and yet policies have remained mostly stable or have become slightly less restrictive. Equally unresponsivehave been the policies enacted in Spain, where the public has shown a sharply increasing concern towards immigration and a certain restrictive mood, while policies have only become gradually less restrictive for immigrants. In conclusion, our results suggest that while the chain of responsiveness and representation seems to work as expected overall, there are a number of cases that contradict the expectations and we need further research to clarify the exceptions that we find...
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