A main avenue for influencing public policy available to unions and business is public opinion campaigning. As groups with substantial credibility in the minds of the public, unions and employers have the potential to move immigration attitudes and, thereby, have a long-term indirect influence on immigration policy. The article asks, first, who is (not) convinced by arguments from business or labour leaders and second, what messages are most convincing. We present the results of a survey experiment in three very different immigration regimes and interest group environments (Canada, the UK and Germany). The results suggest that the net effects of public arguments are small, but vary widely across demographic groups.

影响工会和企业可用的公共政策的主要途径是舆论运动。作为在公众心目中具有重大信誉的团体，工会和雇主有改变移民态度的潜力，因此对移民政策具有长期的间接影响。文章首先询问，谁（不）被企业或劳工领袖的论点说服，其次，哪些信息最令人信服。我们介绍了在三种非常不同的移民制度和利益集团环境（加拿大，英国和德国）中进行的一项调查实验的结果。结果表明，公众争论的净影响很小，但是在不同人群之间差异很大。