Radical Right Parties’ Indirect Effect on Subareas of Immigration Policy

My paper analyzes the influence of radical right parties (RRP) on changes of immigration policies, placing emphasis on indirect effects of oppositional parties. Scholarship has heretofore mainly addressed the RRP’ impact on manifestos of their political competitors. In line with a recent turn focusing on their effects on public policies, my paper introduces a novel and detailed perspective by investigating six distinct subareas of immigration policy such as asylum, labor migration and family reunification. Drawing on Sulkin’s theory of issue uptake, indirect effects are conceptualized as issue politicization, consisting of salience as well as polarization, and electoral threat. Latest data sources like the updated Immigration Policies in Comparison (IMPIC) dataset allow obtaining a cross-national perspective. Hence, my analysis covers 12 Western European countries from 1990 until 2018. Preliminary results indicate that issue politicization and electoral threat by RRP are related to restrictive shifts of general immigration policies. However, noticeable differences in policy responses materialize depending on the subarea. My paper therefore highlights the importance to address RRP’ indirect policy influence on subareas of immigration. Additionally, it provides insights into the effect of oppositional parties on legislative behavior.