The political debate on immigration in the election campaigns in Europe

Abstract

Migration has become an increasingly pressing topic on the national and European political agendas and in general public debate. The migratory phenomenon, as well as its humanitarian and health implications, are presented nowadays as a challenge for national and supranational governments which requires coordinated responses to ensure citizen security. During the election campaigns in the last three years, right-wing parties have largely depicted the right of freedom of movement as a risk factor, taking advantage of this issue for political propaganda. A significant part of the political debate takes place on social media, which has become the preferred platform for openly expressing political sentiment, including that considered politically incorrect. This study explores the political debate on immigration during the election campaigns of France and Italy over the last three years. More specifically, we perform Emotional Text Mining with the aim of identifying the sentiment surrounding immigration, and how immigrants are portrayed, in the online Twitter debate during the French presidential election (2017), the Italian general election (2018), and the Italian European elections (2019). Results were compared to identify the similarities and differences, and the effect on the election results that characterized two of the European Union’s founding countries.