ABSTRACT
Immigration policy has emerged as an important area for European centre-right parties to assert their distinctiveness in the battle for votes. Indeed, the centre-right has consistently championed more restrictive approaches than its left of centre counterparts. Such positions appear to offer extensive possibilities for mobilizing electoral support and in many ways sit comfortably with the culturally conservative and patriotic values of many such centre-right actors. Yet, a focus on these issues carries its own risks. Conservative and Christian Democratic parties may lose legitimacy or electoral support from ethnic minority voters by ‘playing the race card’; anti-immigrant positions may run counter to human rights or humanitarian values that are traditionally defended by the Christian church; and restrictive policies may conflict with a range of policy goals embraced by the centre-right — especially in the areas of economic policy and free trade (Boswell 2007). Moreover, a range of institutional constraints can impede governments from implementing restrictionist goals, with the result that they may fail to deliver on their electoral promises (Hollifield 1990). Given these risks, there is no golden rule stating that Conservatives or Christian Democrats will automatically move to occupy the space available for populist mobilization on migration issues; or, if they do so, that this will yield electoral dividends.
