Premium
Partisanship and Views about Immigration in Southern California: Just How Partisan is the Issue of Immigration?
Author(s) -
Neiman Max,
Johnson Martin,
Bowler Shaun
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
international migration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.681
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1468-2435
pISSN - 0020-7985
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2435.2006.00363.x
Subject(s) - immigration , elite , immigration policy , polarization (electrochemistry) , public opinion , political science , politics , political economy , democracy , development economics , sociology , law , economics , chemistry
Given the prevailing levels of elite partisan contentiousness over immigration issues, we expect to see mass attitudes towards immigration replicate this polarization. We explore the partisan implications of this issue by examining popular attitudes towards immigrants in California, where attitudes towards immigration and immigrants have formed central themes in a series of highly charged political campaigns and elite discourse on the issue is polarized. Yet even in California we find that many different kinds of voters share a surprisingly similar set of concerns about the flow of immigrants into the nation. We are particularly interested in whether Democrats and Republicans view the public policy consequences of immigration in similar or different ways. We find that Republicans more likely indicate they think immigration will have harmful effects on social and policy outcomes in the United States, but Democrats tend to share similar concerns. One consequence of this pattern is that the US Republican Party ‐ at least the party in California ‐ may be able to use the immigration issue as a wedge to attract support from people who tend to support Democratic candidates, often thought friendlier to immigrants.