Abstract:

Demographic transformations, which are a natural result of migration movements, are structural changes that need to be prepared in the context of these movements. It is a predictable result that migration movements will create changes in all data on the labor market, social system, and population. Since identity and culture are critical factors in the existence of the foreign and the “other”, they constitute the one who is not “us” as a symbol of the identity and culture of the other. The underlying perception of us and others is fueled by populism and refugees are marginalized. This study focuses on the party manifestos of political parties, which are seen as the strongest political actors in the conception of representative democracy. Election manifestos are important data sources as they are official documents showing the positions of the parties. The Italian general election manifestos before and after the Refugee Crisis were included in the analysis (2006-2008-2013-2018). This article, using the mixed method, claims that immigration takes place in the political discourse in the categories of populism, securitization, Euroscepticism and xenophobia, and Islamophobia and it reveals how election manifestos that employ immigration/immigrant/refugee/asylum seeker discourses are associated with political attitudes and the transformation of the issue of migration into the perception of “imagined refugees”.

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