Parties and Immigration

The ways that mainstream parties have engaged with issues of immigration and integration are characterised by contradiction and tensions. The political mainstream faces several challenges therefore with regards to framing, positioning, and electoral competition. Although conventional wisdom suggests that this relationship emerged after the populist radical right (PRR) cemented its position across Western Europe and following the asylum crisis of 2015, the chapter argues that these strains have a much longer history, which can be traced back to end of the post-war labour migration era. As the migration flows diversified and developed into multi-dimensional questions, they also crystallised a set of ideological inconsistencies within and between the political mainstream. The chapter explores the effects of these tensions as mainstream parties sought to incorporate immigration and integration into existing dimension of conflict. Before suggesting some avenues for future research to pursue, the chapter also highlights a few important political science publications that connect research on parties and elections to migration studies.