Politicisation of Immigration in Central and Eastern Europe: Evidence from Plenary Debates in Two Countries

ABSTRACT The research on the party politicization of immigration almost exclusively focuses on West European countries. To address the lack of studies of party politicization (hereafter understood as salience) of immigration in Central and East European countries, we investigate all the parliamentary speeches in Czechia and Slovakia between 2013 and 2017. Descriptively, we show that immigration was almost invisible before the 2015 refugee crisis. On the explanatory level, we show that party placement toward the TAN-pole of the GAL–TAN dimension, Eurosceptic positions, and government participation make it more likely for parliamentarians to politicize immigration.