Whose Interests Do Radical Right Parties Really Represent? The Migration Policy Agenda of the Swiss People’s Party between Nativism and Neoliberalism

Abstract

This paper analyses the economic interests which underpin the immigration policy agenda of the strongest radical populist right party in Western Europe, the Swiss People´s Party. Rather than understanding this agenda merely as the manifestation of anti-immigration resentment or the exploitation thereof, it proposes to analyse it as a political-economic agenda seeking to articulate the contradictory interests of its two main electoral clienteles, namely small business owners and blue-collar workers. Hence, while it claims to oppose immigration to protect the domestic indigenous workforce, the Swiss People´s Party also seeks to maintain sources of cheap migrant labour for small businesses. Drawing upon an analysis of party stances over policy reforms in the domains of cross-border mobility and undeclared work, it shows that the interests of small business owners tend to prevail when issues are not very salient politically, while party elites shift back to a more anti-immigration agenda when issues become very salient politically.