Immigration, Political Parties and the Mass Media in Italy: Framing Strategies in Electoral Competition At the Local Level

So far, literature on immigration politics has focused mainly on the policy making activities of national parliaments and on discursive practices within national and supranational institutional arenas. Very little attention has been dedicated to how "national" issues such as immigration have entered local electoral competition, and how institutional differences between local settings influence the portrayal and understanding of immigration in local arenas. Indeed, although most of the actual policy making with respect to immigration concerns national parliaments, local political actors have often strong incentives to politicize this issue, exploiting the ‘symbolic’ power of immigration politics. Moreover, the dynamics of interethnic competition and threat often speak of patterns of concentration over the local territory, urban issues of cohabitation, and the distribution of locally-based resources and locally-managed welfare assets. In line with this understanding, this paper proposes a model for the understanding of the supply side of electoral competition on immigration at the local level, with a particular focus on the framing choices of local electoral actors in Italy across different local settings and circumstances. Based on the input-output content analysis of electoral campaign material and news media articles, this paper offers a frame based account of the competition strategies over the immigration issue by Italian parties across two local elections in Rome, Milan and Prato.