Parties take, blur and frame positions on integration and immigration policy (IIP) differently. Some parties take clear stances in order to emphasize the issue, others avoid it by remaining vague. Using the convenient testing ground of Germany’s multi-level political system where similar parties com-pete for votes on both the federal level and in 16 states we investigate what influences the taking, blurring and framing of party positions on immigration and integration. Analysing many thousands of statements on integration policy from over 500 electoral manifestos and coalition agreements between 1990 and 2013 we identify an interesting variance both across different parties but also within parties across different states. Our results show that issue ownership with regard to IIP is heavily influenced by electoral markets (e.g. prevailing attitudes towards immigrants) and structural factors (e.g. share of immigrant population). Furthermore, shocks in the environment of party competition induce interesting changes to the issue attention.
