Between Numbers and Political Drivers: What Matters in Policy-Making

Abstract This chapter aims to investigate whether (restrictive) policy measures on migration across seven European countries (the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and the UK) are better explained by political factors, rather than actual number of migrants/refugees/asylum seekers, their integration process or effective societies’ demographic economic needs, within each national context. The analysis shows, indeed, that restrictive legislative immigration issues seem be not justified reality in selected countries. Conversely, these can some relevant factors: prevalence negative attitudes towards among citizens salience issue; electoral relevance populist radical-right parties who mostly mobilized significant diffusion authoritarian/traditionalist/nationalist positions country’s party system. These data confirm citizens’ perceptions systems’ features closely related phenomena, which influence one another all key factors need considered explain law policy-making recent years issues.