Migration and Ethnic Relations as a Field of Political Contention: An Opportunity Structure Approach

Abstract

Abstract Immigration politics, that is, a state’s capacity to regulate immigration, is intimately related to the field of ethnic relations politics, the contentious politics where a state’s policies deal with resident migrants and minorities, and where influential political actors such as parties and interest groups, and majority and minority publics, dispute the criteria for entry to the national community. Since countries in Europe put up restrictive policy barriers to new immigration in the early 1970s (Baldwin-Edwards and Schain 1994), conflicts over ethnic relations have become explicitly politicized issues focused on the social, political, and cultural integration of resident migrants, minorities, and their offspring into the nation state. Meanwhile debates over new immigration have been framed predominantly through the issue of political asylum.

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