The politicization of European integration and support for restrictive migration policies
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14651165231185269 |
| Author | Roman Hlatky |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
The politicization of
European integration and
support for restrictive
migration policies
Roman Hlatky
Department of Political Science, University of North Texas,
Denton, Texas, USA
Abstract
Why do individuals in Central and Eastern Europe support parties and candidates that
hold restrictive positions on migration? I argue that the mobilization of public opinion
against the European integration of external migration management is a cause. To
test, I employ an experiment in Slovakia that combines a between-subjects experiment
with a candidate-choice conjoint. Results indicate strong support for restrictive migra-
tion policies generally and that ideology moderates reactions to messages about
European Union influence. In response to these messages, liberals shift toward restrict-
ive policy preferences; conservatives do not. These differential effects suggest that mes-
sages about European Union influence run up against ceiling effects, where entrenched
anti-migration preferences prevent attitudinal change. This paper identifies the limited
set of conditions under which the mobilization of public opinion against European inte-
gration influences attitudes and electoral preferences.
Keywords
Migration, politicization, conjoint experiment, Slovakia, European Union
Across the European Union (EU), parties with nationalist and xenophobic policy stances
are increasingly popular among electorates. While these stances have traditionally been
associated with the radical right (Mudde, 2007), far-left and mainstream parties increas-
ingly hold nationalist and xenophobic policy positions as well, and often these stances are
Corresponding author:
Roman Hlatky, Department of Political Science, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #305340,
Denton, Texas, 76203, USA. roman.hlatky@unt.edu
Article
European Union Politics
2023, Vol. 24(4) 684–707
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14651165231185269
journals.sagepub.com/home/eup
accompanied by thin ideological commitments to populism. This is particularly true in
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the research context of this study (Jenne, 2018;
Pytlas, 2015). Among the various exclusionary stances these parties hold, restrictive posi-
tions on external migration have proven particularly widespread and popular (Wagner
and Meyer, 2017).
The electoral success of nationalist and xenophobic political parties has adverse con-
sequences for ethnic minorities, migrants, refugees, and gender and sexual minorities.
Moreover, these parties challenge good governance by threatening independent media,
universities, and judiciaries. At the same time, their electoral success can cause main-
stream political parties to radicalize their own policy positions (Abou-Chadi and
Krause, 2020). The adoption of nationalist and xenophobic positions by mainstream
parties may have even more of an adverse impact than the success of the radical right
alone. Given these consequences, it is important to ask: Why do individuals vote for
these parties?
The growing domestic salience of European integration facilitates “the political mobil-
ization of mass public opinion”(Börzel and Risse, 2018: 84) against the EU by political
entrepreneurs and challenger parties, and leads to heightened opinion polarization on
EU-related issues (De Wilde et al., 2016). Postfunctionalist theories contend that these
increases in politicization reorient political competition from an economic cleavage to
a transnational cleavage, which centers sociocultural and integration-related issues
(Hooghe and Marks, 2018). This reorientation increases the viability of parties that
promote exclusive conceptions of national identity, xenophobia, and Euroscepticism.
While deepening integration, regardless of policy area, may spur opposition (e.g.,
Kleider and Stoeckel, 2019), I argue that support for xenophobic, anti-migration candi-
dates and parties arises from the mobilization of public opinion against the EU’s role
in external migration management specifically. During the 2015 refugee crisis, functional
pressures spurred the EU to undertake reforms that deepened the integration of external
migration management, a core state power (Genschel and Jachtenfuchs, 2018). Some
reforms, like the 2016 restructuring of Frontex, were successful. Others, like resettlement
quotas, were abandoned after staunch opposition from some member states. The crisis
and resulting attempts at deepening integration opened room for mobilizations against
the EU, especially from nationalist, primarily radical-right, challenger parties (De
Vries et al., 2021; Hutter and Kriesi, 2022).
The mobilization of public opinion against EU influence over external migration is
particularly effective in motivating voters to support parties with restrictive stances on
migration for three reasons. First, these parties can portray permissive migration policy
and the privileging of outgroups as a threat to the standing of majority groups, potentially
spurring opposition via economic and cultural concerns (e.g., Buštíková, 2020). Second,
the EU has done little to convince the public that it can maintain control over external,
irregular migration (Lutz and Karstens, 2021), allowing parties to exacerbate sentiments
of threat related to a lack of control and ineffective migration management (Harell et al.,
2017). Finally, external migration management is a core national competence (Genschel
and Jachtenfuchs, 2018), the integration of which facilitates rhetoric about lost
sovereignty.
Hlatky 685
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