Constrained Politics: Labour Market Actors, Political Parties and Swedish Labour Immigration Policy

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frida Boräng ◽  
Lucie Cerna
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Labour Market ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Union Power ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Party Manifestos ◽  
Labour Immigration ◽  
Elite Interviews ◽  
The 1960S

Sweden used to be one of the most restrictive countries in the Organisation of Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) in terms of labour immigration policy. This was drastically changed in 2008 when a very liberal immigration law was passed. Why did one of the most restrictive labour immigration countries suddenly become one of the most liberal ones? The article argues that it is necessary to consider labour market institutions and their consequences for labour migration. These factors will influence the preferences, strategies and chances of success for various policy actors. A decline in union power and corporatism in Sweden had important consequences for its labour immigration. Following this decline, employers and centre-right parties became more active and adopted more liberal policy positions than previously. The article analyses policy developments since the 1960s and draws on official documents, position statements, party manifestos, media coverage and original elite interviews.

Coalition Predictions with Ordinal Policy Position Data

1994 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Van Roozendaal
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Policy Position ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Position Data ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Ordinal Level ◽  
Over Time

The policy-oriented coalition models that were developed in the 1960s and 1970s generally required that the positions of political parties were measured at ordinal level. More recent models of coalition formation, however, have tended to assume that interval-level data on parties' policy positions are available. This need for interval-level data has raised serious practical problems for empirical research. Analysts frequently wish to examine patterns of coalition formation after several, or many, elections. Unfortunately, detailed interval-level data on parties' positions are generally available at only one or two points in time. While it can often be plausibly argued that parties will occupy fairly stable ordinal positions over time, it is extremely doubtful whether this is also the case for their interval positions.

scholarly journals Voter policy emphasis and party electoral manifestos: Assessing parties’ reflections of voter policy shifts in the 2010 and 2013 Czech parliamentary elections

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-54
Author(s):  
Lenka Homolková
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Party Manifestos ◽  
Lower House ◽  
Ideological Space ◽  
Key Policy ◽  
Economy Globalization ◽  
Policy Shifts

The party manifesto is a crucial document identifying a party’s ideological position.  Measuring the response of political party manifestos to both the mean voter as well as party constituency positions remains extensively difficult given the lack of available data, but also the complex political realities and factors which the parties must take into consideration e.g. the economy, globalization, the demands of the market, and pressure from rival parties.  In spite of these complexities, this article analyses the extent to which political parties reflect voter policy emphasis in their political manifestos. Through the content analysis of electoral manifestos the article determines the policy positions of Czech political parties during the 2010 and 2013 elections to the Lower House of the Parliament. Identifying also key voter policy preferences the article looks into the possible congruence between shifts in voter emphasis and changes in party electoral manifestos. Employing an approach not yet fully applied in academic research, the article examines shifts within ideological space, while focusing also on specific key policy areas. It concludes that in the short term – from the 2010 to 2013 parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic - political parties responded to shifts in voter policy emphasis in just one quarter of cases. The responsiveness differed significantly from one party to another.

From Wedge Issue to Partisan Divide: The Development of Immigration Policy Opinion after 2016

The Forum ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
James G. Gimpel
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Party Preference ◽  
Policy Opinion ◽  
Improved Performance ◽  
Mitt Romney

Abstract President Trump won an Electoral College majority in 2016 bolstered by voters who supported him, but not the previous nominee, Mitt Romney. Evidence suggests that a campaign promising a more restrictive immigration policy was the key to this improved performance among cross-pressured voters. In the months since inauguration day 2017, however, voters did not remain unaware of the administration’s programmatic steps on immigration and the opposition they encountered. I interpret evidence from a panel survey to suggest that voters gained knowledge about immigration policy after 2016, and began to align their policy views with the positions of their favored political parties. Inasmuch as voters’ policy positions become identical with their party preference, the potential for immigration policy to again act as a wedge issue in 2020 is greatly reduced. President Trump’s 2020 campaign may be able to mobilize more base voters given this increase in policy-party congruence but he may not be as successful as in 2016 in attracting crossover voters.

Yearly quotas and country-reserved shares in Italian immigration policy

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Cuttitta
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Foreign Workers ◽  
Irregular Migration ◽  
Quota System ◽  
Italian Immigration ◽  
Migration Flows

Regular immigration to Italy is based on a quota system setting annual ceilings to legal entries. Reserved shares are granted to single countries or categories of countries. Reserved shares have been increased; they are used as an incentive to obtain the cooperation of countries of origin in stemming irregular migration flows. The total quota of regular immigration has gradually increased too. Still, it does not fully respond to the growing demand of foreign workers on the labour market, and quotas seem to be used as crypto-regularisations rather than as an instrument for regulating legal entries.

Political Cleavages and Political Parties

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell J. Dalton
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Dimensional Space ◽  
New Left ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
Policy Choices

This chapter uses the cleavage positions of Candidates to the European Parliament (CEPs) to as representative of their parties’ political positions. Three surveys of CEPs track the evolution of party supply in European party systems. In 1979 parties were primarily aligned along a Left–Right economic cleavage. Gradually new left and Green parties began to compete in elections and crystallized and represented liberal cultural policies. In recent decades new far-right parties arose to represent culturally conservative positions. The cross-cutting cultural cleavage has also prompted many of the established parties to alter their policy positions. In most multiparty systems, political parties now compete in a fully populated two-dimensional space. This increases the supply of policy choices for the voters. The analyses are based on the Candidates to the European Parliament Studies in 1979, 1994, and 2009.

scholarly journals Party Responsiveness to Public Opinion in Young Democracies

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172199363
Author(s):  
Raimondas Ibenskas ◽  
Jonathan Polk
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Surveys ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Established Democracies ◽  
Expert Surveys ◽  
Cross National

Are political parties in young democracies responsive to the policy preferences of the public? Compared to extensive scholarship on party responsiveness in established democracies, research on party responsiveness in young democracies is limited. We argue that weaker programmatic party–voter linkages in post-communist democracies create incentives for parties to respond to their supporters rather than the more general electorate. Such responsiveness occurs in two ways. First, parties follow shifts in the mean position of their supporters. Second, drawing on the research on party–voter congruence, we argue that parties adjust their policy positions to eliminate previous incongruence between themselves and their supporters. Analyses based on a comprehensive dataset that uses expert surveys, parties’ manifestoes and election surveys to measure parties’ positions, and several cross-national and national surveys to measure voters’ preferences provide strong support for this argument.

scholarly journals Sweden and the Migration Crisis: Political and Security Aspects

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 45-61
Author(s):  
Artur Gruszczak
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Transformation Process ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Adopted Model ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Government ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
Political Scene

This article aims to make an insight into the conditions of immigration policy and actions undertaken by the Swedish authorities and political parties in the face of the migration crisis in Europe after 2015. A hypothesis presented here assumes that a decisive evolution of the attitudes of the Swedish authorities, political parties, and society towards a restrictive approach to immigration arose from the awareness of the negative consequences of migration management for the Swedish socio-economic model and the political scene. The theoretical framework used in this article is the concept of policy responsiveness, including the ability of political authorities to respond effectively and lawfully to the needs and expectations of the citizens. Process tracing was applied as a research method useful for following the transformation process of Sweden’s immigration policy. Statistical data, documents issued by the government and political parties, as well as the subject literature were the sources utilised in the research. Conclusions drawn from the research point to the tightening of immigration policy as a result of the fear of a prolonged pull effect on foreigners and concern surrounding the appropriate handling of immigration in full accordance with the adopted model of immigration policy.

scholarly journals Politics Under Electronic Simultaneity

2014 ◽  
pp. 37-44
Author(s):  
V. P. Terin
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Information Overload ◽  
Electronic Media ◽  
Information Environment ◽  
The Other ◽  
Electronic Information ◽  
Final Cause ◽  
Pattern Recognition Problem ◽  
Guiding Principle ◽  
The 1960S

In contradistinction to the book and the other typographic products, the electronic media operates on a 24-hour-a-day basis evoking simultaneity as the guiding mode of perception and thinking for all those under its influence. The discovery of this fact manifested itself in the formation and development of the managerial technologies operating by means of the electronic information environment and following the principle of simultaneity in the first place. Thus, at the end of the 1960s already the election campaigns in the U.S.A. began to operate on the basis of the final cause as the guiding principle of the country's mass consciousness motivating to carry out each particular event as if already rejoicing at the victory. With this in mind, there emerged a problem of applying this approach with its enormous managerial potential elsewhere. To add, simultaneity as a norm of perception and thinking turned out to be increasingly important with the advent of the electrical telegraph and the press relying on its short disconnected messages instantaneously arriving from all parts of the world. All the other media, which emerged in the wake of this development, has served to fortify this mode of thought as governing in the electronic information environment. The potential of the electronically operating global managerial technologies is quickly growing. The article also deals with the information overload and pattern recognition problem understood in managerial terms as well as mythologization and demythologization processes as they are necessitated by the electronic media coverage worldwide.

The effects of party identification on perceptions of pledge fulfilment: Evidence from Portugal

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 627-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Maria Belchior
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
Insufficient Attention ◽  
Party Manifestos ◽  
The Government ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Performance Research

Empirical research has found that, despite citizens’ perceptions to the contrary, political parties tend to deliver on their campaign promises. What are the reasons for this mismatch between perceptions and performance? Research to date has paid insufficient attention to the reasons for such a mismatch, neglecting the effects of political predispositions such as party identification and sympathy for the government. This article argues that it is such political predispositions that cause biased perceptions of pledge fulfilment. Bias towards perceiving pledges as unfulfilled is expected to be higher for voters whose political predispositions are more unfavourable to government. The argument is supported by data on Portuguese voters and party manifestos in the 2011 election, contributing to better understanding of the mechanisms of political accountability.

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