Just three weeks before the Swiss vote on “stopping mass immigration“, and still reeling off the fact that research on immigration in Switzerland has received a substantial (financial) boost, I found it refreshing to read (and code) more party manifestos this week. Apparently the definition of a political party includes something on having policy positions on more than one issue. Working in an area so highly politicized, it is easy to forget that there are other issues we can quarrel about. It is in this sense that reading for example Irish manifestos was so refreshing: so many other issues were included (e.g. providing good services to citizens, boosting tourism), somehow immigration didn’t even fit in — a reminder that there is more to politics.
Sociologist. Quantitativist. University of Neuchâtel.
Didier Ruedin 