ABSTRACT
Having discussed what we study, we now turn to the question of how to study politicisation. Our study is a cross-national comparative investigation of the ways in which the issue of migration has been politicised or de-politicised in several West European countries. In this chapter, we first discuss the advantages of a cross-national design and outline the country selection. Subsequently, we discuss why a focus on immigration as an issue is an ideal way to study politicisation, and we assess the extent to which we can generalise to politicisation. In addition, this chapter provides general background information and descriptive information on patterns of migration in the countries under study in this volume, including public opinion towards migrants. These data indicate that there are a priori substantial differences in the potential explanations for politicisation between the countries. A final section deals with the measurement of the dependent variable: politicisation.
