Political elites and immigration in Italy: party competition, polarization and new cleavages

ABSTRACT

The massive wave of migration that has affected Europe since 2015 has placed European and national institutions under considerable strain, with significant implications for both EU integration and for politics within the member states. Italy, one of the first points of access for immigrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea, provides the basis for a case study showing how and why the immigration crisis has affected elitesʼ and partiesʼ positions on the issue. Our findings show that, as far as instrumental/economic positions are concerned, party competition and polarization significantly changed during the acute phase of the refugee crisis. On the other hand, left-right ideology continues to explain more of the variation in elitesʼ and partiesʼ positioning on the immigration issue than does the transnational cleavage.

KEYWORDS:

• Refugee crisis
• elite
• parties
• cleavage
• polarization
• competition

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See Eurobarometer data on issue saliency.

2. Source, ISMU (http://www.ismu.org/) and Italian Ministry of the Interior.

3. According to the ISMU, in 2017 Italy was second only to Germany in terms of the number of asylum applications it received (about 130,000) and was first in terms of the number of applications on the part of those under 18. Source http://www.ismu.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Comunicato-Asilo_2magg18.pdf (accessed August 2018). However, other sources contest the overload effects of appeals by rejected applicants, see https://openmigration.org/fact-checking/tribunali-intasati-per-il-boom-dei-ricorsi-dei-richiedenti-asilo-falso/.

4. See the website of the Ministry of Defence http://www.marina.difesa.it/cosa-facciamo/operazioni-concluse/Pagine/mare-nostrum.aspx (accessed August 2018).

5. For more information on data collection, and for documentation, see http://www.comparativecandidates.org/. For a complete presentation of the data collected in Italy see Di Virgilio et al. (2015).

6. An exhaustive presentation of the empirical research involved in the EUENGAGE project is provided in Cotta and Isernia (forthcoming). A comprehensive analysis of the EUENGAGE survey questions concerning the policy domain of immigration, based on a structured elite-mass comparison, can be found in Basile and Olmastroni (forthcoming).

7. See http://www.euengage.eu/data/for description and downloads.

8. 90% of EUENGAGE respondents are national MPs (10% are MEPs). CSS respondents are both MPs and parliamentary candidates. Intra-party frequencies for the variables used in our analyses show no differences between those who were successfully elected, and the unsuccessful candidates. The surveys focus on respondents who were candidates for election to the same legislature.

9. There is a small prevalence of males (72% in CSS and 66% in EUENGAGE) and the well educated (68% in CSS and 64% in EUENGAGE have a university degree or higher qualification) among the CSS respondents. Our models, in any case, include controls for socio-demographic variables.

10. The question wording differs between the two surveys. The EUENGAGE 2016 survey asks about the extent to which respondents agree or disagree with the statement, ʻImmigrants contribute more in taxes than they benefit from health and welfare Servicesʼ; the 2013 survey does the same for the statement, ʻImmigrants are good for [country’s] economyʼ. Nevertheless, we maintain that they both identify the economic benefits (or threats) of immigration. Using the former, we obtained respondents’ opinions on the impact of immigration on the economy on balance (immigrants’ taxes < or > than ‘their costs’ in terms of welfare and health); using the latter, we obtained their opinions about the impact of immigration on the national economy in general. Answers have been recoded as follows: strongly agree = 1, agree = 2, disagree = 3, strongly disagree = 4. The ‘neither’ (2013) and ‘don’t know’ categories were treated as missing.

11. Control variables include gender, education, and year of birth. No variable showed significant results for p < 0.1 except age (B = −0.023, SE = 0.011). Coefficient of crisis period B = −1.421 (SE = 0.311, ExpB = 0.241) is significant for p < 0.001, N. 665.

12. The question included in the 2013 CSS survey registers opinions ranging from ‘We receive too many immigrants’ (0) to ‘We could receive many more immigrants’ (10), mean 6.56, st. dev. 13.8. The EUENGAGE question considers opinions on countries’ motivations for rejecting incoming migrants, ‘They have already accepted too many immigrants’ (from very convincing to very unconvincing, 35% convincing and 51% unconvincing, 14% missing). We standardized the two variables in a new binary variable where extreme positions (specifically, 0 to 1, and 9 to 10 in 2016; 0 and 4 in 2013) are coded as 1 and others as 0.

13. B = −0.325 (SE 0.270), not significant for p < 0.1, N = 541. We also tested a model with extreme positions on acceptance/rejection of immigrants’ cultural customs again finding no significant effects. We coded positions of strong support/rejection for the adjustment of immigrants’ culture to national customs as 1 and others as 0. Coefficient of crisis period (−0.532; SE = 0.425) is not significant for p < 0.1; N = 697.

14. We coded very positive and very negative positions as 1 and others as 0.

15. The question is, ‘In politics we talk of left and right. Where would you place yourself on a scale where 0 means extreme left and 10 extreme right?’. ‘Do not know’ and ‘no answer’ were omitted in the model.

16. Questions concerned opinions on the following statements: 1) Stronger measures should be taken to protect the environment; 2) Same sex marriages should be prohibited by law; 3) People who break the law should be given stiffer sentences; 4) Women should be free to decide on matters of abortion. Answers are ‘strongly agree’ (1), ‘agree’ (2), ‘neither agree/disagree’ (3), ‘disagree’ (4), ‘strongly disagree’ (5), ‘no answer’. Answers for neutral items (neither agree nor disagree) were coded as 0, answers for second and third statements were recoded on a reverse scale (value 4 for strongly agree, 3 for agree, 2 for disagree, 1 for strongly disagree). ‘Do not know’ and ‘no answer’ were omitted.

17. The question is, ‘Some say we receive too many immigrants; others say we can receive many more immigrants. What is your position on a 0 to 10 scale, where 0 means “We receive too many immigrants” and 10 “We could receive many more immigrants”?’ ‘Do not know’ and ‘no answer’ were omitted. VIF values were all less than 1.3.

18. VIF values below 1.3 for each variable.

Additional information

Funding

Piano della Ricerca 2016/2018- Università di Catania.

Notes on contributors

Danilo Di Mauro

Danilo Di Mauro is assistant professor of political science at the University of Catania. He holds a PhD in political science from the Italian Institute of Human Sciences -SUM (now Scuola Normale Superiore). He was Marie Curie Research Fellow at the European University Institute (EUI) and post-doc fellow at the University of Siena, the university of Catania and the Unitelma Sapienza-University of Rome. He has participated in a number of FP7 and Horizon2020 projects (Europolis, Tranword, EUENGAGE, and ELECDEM) focusing on public opinion, Euroscepticism, elections, deliberation and European integration. He has worked as a research collaborator for the European Democracy Observatory (EUDO) and for the Global Governance Program (RSCAS) at the EUI.

In 2018 he was awarded the Giovanni Sartori Prize for the best article published in the Italian Political Science Review, the “prereg prize” of the Center for Open Science (COS – US) and the Italian Society for Electoral Studies (ITANES) prize for the “Prereg Challenge”. His articles have been published in European Union Politics (EUP), the Italian Political Science Review, Acta Politica, Perspectives on European Politics and Society, European Integration online Papers, Cooperation and Conflict (PACO) and the Journal of Contemporary European Research. He is the co-author (with V. Memoli) of the monograph, Attitudes Towards Europe Beyond Euroscepticism: Supporting the European Union Through the Crisis, Palgrave, 2016

Luca Verzichelli

Luca Verzichelli is professor of political science at the University of Siena, PhD in political science (Florence, 1995), Visiting Scholar at the Universities of Granada (2002), Jena (2002), Oxford (2005–2006), Montreal (2009), Australian National University of Canberra (2011). He has published extensively in the fields of comparative political institutions and political elites. His articles have appeared in the European Journal of Political Research, West European Politics, South European Society and Politics, the Journal of Legislative Studies, European Political Science, European Politics and Society, the Swiss Political Science Review, Irish Political Studies. He is co-author of Political Institutions in Italy (Oxford UP, 2007, with Maurizio Cotta) and the editor of The Europe of the Elites (Oxford UP, 2012, with Heinrich Best and Gyorgy Lengyel).