The Analysis of the Immigration Politicization Issue in France Based on the Issue Evolution Theory.
Sarra Rahoui

Department of law and political science, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary

Abstract

The growing number of immigrants in Europe and the eruption of the recent refugee crisis in 2015 raised several questions related to the issue of the integration of migrants. The scholarly attention remains, however, limited when examining whether or not there is any mechanical link between these questions and the impact of extreme right-wing parties on partisan change in party competition. Exploring recent elections in certain European countries, mainly France, was clear that the topic of immigration was often brought to electoral debates.
The present paper aims to examine the phenomenon of issue entrepreneurship and how the topic of immigration was invested in party competition while using France as an example to study the dynamics of issue competition within French elections. The research was conducted based on analyzing the issue evolution theory to study the behavior of party change in past elections. What can be concluded from this study is that the mobilization of an issue of crucial importance resulted in adopting a policy position that is substantially different from the mainstream status quo. Thus immigration transformed into a politicized topic that attracts voters. Therefore, this research can assist in the field of political science and can contribute to the area of immigration policies.

Keywords: Immigration- politicization- French election- party competition.

Topic: Other Social Sciences and Humanities