The politicisation of immigration in Spain

Large-scale immigration to Spain has been recent and sudden. International migration flows to Spain have been very intense in the last 15 years and the history of immigration spans over a relatively short period. As a consequence, legislation relating to immigration and immigrant integration has developed more recently in comparison to other European countries studied in this volume. In this chapter we examine the way in which immigration has become politicised in Spain and we provide the necessary information about the socio-demographic, political, institutional and economic factors that might help us account for the dynamics of this politicisation. We set in context the Spanish case by providing a brief overview of the considerable demographic changes that Spain has experienced in the last two decades. We then summarise the main aspects of the Spanish political system and the legislative and policy developments around immigration. The chapter then proceeds to describe the patterns of politicisation in the Spanish case, followed by a section where we discuss in detail the various factors that might account for these patterns, as outlined in the first chapter of this volume. The final section provides some conclusions as to the factors that best help us understand the patterns and dynamics of the politicisation of immigration in Spain.