ABSTRACT

This article asks how policy responses to migration in Italy have been shaped both by issue salience and by changing configurations on the centre right of Italian party politics both prior to and following the 2015 ‘migration crisis’. We show that, first, the increased politicisation of ‘irregular’ arrivals into Italy after 2015 changed migration from a relatively ‘quiet’ policy issue to one of ‘loud’ politics meaning that it was highly salient to the public. This salience significantly advantaged the Lega, who by this point had already transformed into an archetypal, European populist radical right party, but could now campaign successfully nationally and dominate the nominal ‘centre-right’ coalition. Second, the imposition when in government between June 2018 and September 2019 by the Lega of policies for migrants and asylum-seekers that focussed solely on prevention and removal and ended what remained of prior policy drift. We show that both trends conform to theoretical expectations regarding the relative power of interest groups and public opinion over public policy that are contingent on public issue salience, which we show to be the most plausible determinant of variation in migration policy, rather than public attitudes or party positions, during the period.

摘要

本文探讨了在 2015 年“移民危机”之前和之后，意大利对移民的政策反应是如何受到问题突出性和意大利政党政治中右翼结构变化的影响的。我们表明，首先，2015 年之后“非正常”移民进入意大利的政治化程度提高，将移民从一个相对“安静”的政策问题转变为一个“响亮”的政治问题，这意味着它对公众来说非常重要。这种显着性极大地有利于Lega，此时他们已经转变为典型的欧洲民粹主义激进右翼政党，但现在可以在全国范围内成功竞选并主导名义上的“中右翼”联盟。第二，立法会在 2018 年 6 月至 2019 年 9 月期间对政府实施的移民和寻求庇护者政策仅侧重于预防和驱逐，并结束了先前政策漂移的剩余部分。我们表明，这两种趋势都符合关于利益集团和公众舆论对公共政策的相对权力的理论预期，这取决于公共问题的突出性，我们证明这是移民政策变化最合理的决定因素，而不是公众态度或党的立场，在此期间。