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Abstract
The existence of a gap between public preferences for more restrictive immigration policies and relatively expansive immigration policy in Western democracies has received considerable attention. Sometimes, this gap has been explained by the nature of immigration policies: dominated by elites while the public remained uninterested. In many countries, however, immigration has gained considerable salience among the public. There are competing expectations and accounts relating to whether policy-makers ignore or follow public demands on immigration. In this article we examine the potential drivers of variations in the opinion–policy gap on immigration in seven countries (1995–2010). We analyse the effect of the politicisation of immigration on this opinion–policy gap. The strength of anti-immigrant parties is unrelated to the opinion–policy gap on immigration. The salience of the issue and the intensity of the public debate are associated with the opinion–policy gap, and the combination of negative attitudes with extensive media coverage seems particularly conducive to policy congruence.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
The underlying research materials for this article can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/27517.
Notes
[1] We follow Givens and Luedtke (Citation2004) by referring to restrictive vs. expansive immigration policies. Restrictive policies refer to strict entry control mechanisms as well as to limited rights and social benefits legally guaranteed to migrants already settled in the country. Expansive immigration policies refer to legal frameworks with few entry barriers as well as to legal norms guaranteeing multiple rights to migrants and giving them access to welfare benefits under the same conditions than country nationals.
[2] The SOM project has received funding from the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement number 225522. Full information is available on http://www.som-project.eu/, including links to data files.
[3] The surveys used are: for Austria, Election surveys (SW9409, SW9902, SW2006_01, AUTNES 2009); for Belgium, Belgian National Elections Studies (1991, 1995, 1999, 2003); for Ireland, IMS data extracted from the Irish Political Studies journal and the ISSDA at UCD (2001, 2003, 2004, 2007); for the Netherlands, the Dutch Parliamentary Elections Study/NKO joint data-set (1995, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2010); for Spain, the CIS September barometer (2000–2011); for Switzerland, the annual Sorgenbarometer (every August, 1996–2011); and for the UK, the IPSOS-Mori Issues Index with yearly data (every June, 1997–2011). Despite undertaking a thorough search of all relevant national and cross-national data sources, these were the only surveys that covered a reasonable number of time points for the three decades.
[4] The proportion disagreeing strongly with (ISSP), or with values 0–2 in a 0–10 scale for (ESS), the statement ‘Immigrants are generally good for the [country]'s economy’. Source: ISSP 1995 (V48) and ISSP 2003 (V51), ESS Round 2 (2005) and Round 4 (2008) (IMBGECO).
[5] Full details in supporting materials available at http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/27517.
[6] AJUS patterns for the MIP question and the policy activity indicator: Austria = J-F; Belgium = A-J; Switzerland = S-J; Spain = A-F; Ireland = A-J; Netherlands = J-J, UK = A-J. Correlations are moderate: 0.28 (Pearson), 0.21 (Kendall's tau). The cross-correlograms suggest a temporal positive ‘lead’ of public opinion concern on policy activity only in the UK, and a negative one (more concern results in less activity) in the Netherlands.
[7] AJUS patterns for attitudes and, respectively, Labor, Family, Residence, Asylum, and average MIPEX: Austria = J-L-S-L-J-L; Belgium = A-U-S-L-A-U; Switzerland = A-U-U-J-F-U; Spain = J-U-A-L-L-L; Ireland = SU-J-L-J-S; Netherlands = A-S-U-S-L-S; UK = J-U-S-U-A-S. The correlations between attitudes and the average MIPEX indicator, or the labour indicator, is very small (around 0.02); with family and residence policy indicators is moderate and negative (i.e. the more restrictive the attitudes the less restrictive the policies) at –0.11 and –0.33 respectively; and it is more substantial and positive with the asylum policy indicator (0.40). The cross-correlograms confirm that increases in negative attitudes only lead to more restrictive policies in Ireland and the UK, and suggest that they lead to more expansive policies in Austria and Switzerland.
[8] AJUS patterns for media reporting, attitudes and policy: Austria = S-J-L; Belgium = S-A-U; Switzerland = S-A-U; Spain = S-J-L; Ireland = A-S-S; Netherlands = S-A-S; UK = S-J-S. The inspection of the correlations confirms our comments about congruent and incongruent trends for these series, and the cross-correlograms confirm that media attention only leads policy direction in Ireland and the UK.
[9] AJUS pattern for seats, opinions and MIPEX indicators: Austria = S-J-L; Belgium = J-A-U; Switzerland = J-A-U; Spain = F-J-L; Ireland = F-S-S; Netherlands = A-A-S; UK = F-J-S. The cross-correlograms confirm the impression that the success of anti-immigration parties plays no leading role on policy direction in most countries, and (if anything) the opposite to that expected in Belgium and the Netherlands (more seats leads to more expansive policies).
[10] See supplementary material for a figure. AJUS patterns for claims, attitudes and policies respectively: Austria = S-J-L; Belgium = S-A-U; Switzerland = S-A-U; Spain = S-J-L; Ireland = S-S-S; Netherlands = S-A-S; UK = S-J-S. The correlations confirm the contrasting association between claims and policy across countries (inexistent, positive and negative). The cross-correlograms confirm that negative claims only leads policy direction in the expected way in Ireland and the UK and, to a certain extent, Switzerland.