Political Opportunity Structure

The political opportunity structure (POS) is the topic of this work package. Research in this area is concerned with the barriers to entry into the political system (e.g. a system that is more inclusive or more exclusive). The analysis in this package relied on archive research and secondary sources.

A country report for each of the selected countries contain information about the POS, and cover changes over time. Great care was taken to ensure that the data collected are comparable. The reports include:

• a description of the political culture in the different countries linked to institutional features, such as corporatism, single party governments versus coalitions. These descriptions focus on the opportunities for immigrants (or their opponents) to make claims
• a description of characteristics of the party systems
• information on the barriers for new parties to enter
• an overview of the parties in power (e.g. when aright-wing party or coalition is in government the opportunities for anti-immigration parties may be higher).
• a discussion whether the topic of migration/integration is a cross-cutting cleavage
• a discussion whether migration and integration divide parties internally, or whether the issue separates parties from each other