The more policy positions change, the more they stay the same: mainstream party strategies on the issue of immigration

How did the West European mainstream manage conflicting positional demands on the issue of immigration? This submission unpacks party positional changes on immigration, integration and national identity, and explores potential reasons why they were made. After probing the type and extent of changes by the five major party families in Western Europe, the results suggest a cautious mainstream primarily intensifying or de-escalating its positions within existing policy dimensions. Yet the direction of these changes also was counterintuitive and predominantly went against relevant prompts in the external political environment. The advantage of this strategy is the political mainstream may claim positions have changed although they largely remained the same. The disadvantage, however, is mainstream parties also must explain how a more liberal or restrictive, assimilative or multicultural, or, cosmopolitan or nationalist position qualifies as “change” to satisfy opponents and supporters alike.