Public opinion on immigration and refugees and patterns of politicisation

CEASEVAL Working Paper No. 3
 

Since the arrival of large numbers of asylum seekers during the year 2015, the question how to deal with asylum seeking immigrants in political but also in practical terms has become one of the most important policy issues on all governance levels throughout Europe. Practical struggles how to distribute, accommodate and integrate asylum seekers were paralleled by increasing public and media
discourses, polarization processes and the development of sometimes diverging governance strategies on this issue.

The analysis presented in this paper will particularly investigate, from a comparative and longitudinal perspective (from fall 2015 onwards), the development of public opinion towards asylum, refugee integration, burden sharing and connected issues for the respective countries with reference to contextual characteristics. As a result, it will identify country clusters with regards to politicization patterns and deliver a first estimation why those clusters developed. Furthermore, it will examine if and how the development of public opinion on refugees and their reception is paralleled by changes of the public opinion towards other topics (as for example evaluation of the European integration process, renationalization tendencies etc.). The analysis of this issue will prepare the ground for further research in the field of politicization, notably the analysis of parliamentary debates and media articles on the topic of responsibility sharing and relocation.