Politicisation of Immigration in Switzerland: The Importance of Direct Democracy
The role of language in the automatic coding of political texts
Automatic approaches to coding party manifestos and other political texts have become more widespread. This research note addresses the question to what extent the source language of a text affects the results. To do so, Swiss manifestos in German and French are coded automatically, comparing a keyword-based dictionary approach and Wordscores. Because of language differences, both stemming and particularly stop words are important to obtain comparable results for Wordscores. If both are used, the predicted scores are almost identical in both languages. With the right preparations, the challenge of language differences can thus be overcome.
Increasing Validity by Recombining Existing Indices: MIPEX as a Measure of Citizenship Models
Researchers often reuse existing data and indices even in cases where theory demands different measures. Here, I argue that with little additional effort, it is possible to increase the validity of research by recombining individual indicators of existing indices. This approach is demonstrated by using data from the widely used Migration Integration Policy Index (MIPEX), recombining some of the 148 indicators to approximate Koopmans et al.'s (2005) two-dimensional conception of citizenship models. The recombined MIPEX data match the desired conception of citizenship models and can be applied to all countries covered in the MIPEX. For the first time theoretically predicted ethnic-pluralistic citizenship models (segregationism) are observed.The approach presented can be applied to different data and research questions, leading to research making use of more appropriate data that match specific research rather than relying on what is readily available—thus increasing validity.
Citizenship regimes and the politicization of immigrant groups
Previous research has examined the various ways individuals and organizations react to immigration. This article explores how immigrants and their integration are debated across citizenship regimes, with a focus on ‘voiceless’ groups without formal franchise and a precarious residence status: asylum seekers, refugees, and irregular immigrants. A yearly measure of citizenship regimes is used together with a large-scale claims analysis of newspapers from seven Western European countries between 1995 and 2009 to systematically describe the relative frequency of and frames in different claims by political actors. The debate on immigration and integration varies by citizenship regime, including the way immigrant groups are referred to. Having an ethnic citizenship regime is associated with more claims about voiceless immigrant groups. At the same time, the association between immigrant group size and the extent to which immigrant groups are politicized is moderated by the citizenship regime. Debates on immigrants and their integration vary across citizenship regimes.
Patterns of Claims-Making on Civic Integration and Migration in Europe: Are Muslims Different?
Of the various immigrant and minority groups in Western Europe, Muslims are frequently singled out for their alleged cultural distance and lack of interest to participate in social and political life. Mutual distrust between Islamic organizations and political actors seems to be rising. This paper is interested in patterns of discursive interaction between Muslim groups on the one hand, and other political actors on the other hand. It examines seven European societies with varying proportions of Muslims among the population, distinct traditions of citizenship policies, and different levels of electoral success of parties voicing anti-Islam positions. Using a political claims analysis covering 1995 to 2009, we show that there are substantial differences between countries in the use of migrant-group categories. These differences do not fit the policy tradition typology suggested by Koopmans 2007, and we identify significant changes over time. Of the various groups, we find that Muslims are differentiated in the news media. The proportion of claims by Muslim organizations is nowhere in proportion to their size in the population, and indeed claims about Muslims are more common. This suggests that the construction of Muslim groups as a politically relevant category is largely done by non-Muslim political actors. The frames used in claims about Muslims differ significantly from those used for other immigrant groups. Whereas the most common frames for immigrants more generally are instrumental, for Muslims identity-based arguments are invoked more frequently. Moreover, we find that Muslims are talked about almost exclusively in connection with integration rather than immigration. This paper was presented at the Muslims and Political Participation in Britain conference in Edinburgh
The Politicization of Asylum Seekers and Other Immigrant Groups in a Comparative Perspective
Obtaining party positions on immigration in Switzerland: Comparing different methods
The position of political parties on policy issues is crucial for many questions of political science, including studies of political representation. This research note examines different methods for obtaining party positions on immigration in retrospective. Party positions are obtained using pooled expert surveys, manual coding of party manifestos with a conventional codebook, manual coding of manifestos using check-lists, and automatic coding of manifestos using Wordscores and a dictionary of keywords respectively. In addition, positions from a media analysis and a retrospective evaluation of researchers in the field of immigration are used. The results suggest that most methods differentiate the same order of party positions. While there are high correlations between many methods, the different methods tend not to agree on the exact positions. The automatic dictionary approach does not seem to measure party positions reliably.
The reliability of MIPEX indicators as scales
This paper examines the reliability of the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) as a scale. The MIPEX indicators are organized into several dimensions which are combined into six strands. The results of the reliability analysis suggest that overall, MIPEX is a reliable scale. Moreover, the individual strands are also reliable, although in most instances the scales could be improved by removing specific items. In contrast, however, most of the dimensions identified are not reliable. Using principal component analysis, it appears that the different strands and dimensions of MIPEX are not as distinct as presented. It seems that the number of indicators in MIPEX could be reduced, and the data are probably better presented in a different way than the six strands MIPEX uses.