Migration Politics

Despite experiencing high immigration inflows and strong economic downturns in recent times, Spain has been surprisingly resilient against anti-immigrant attitudes and parties. While the radical party Vox might bring the Spanish exceptionalism to an end, its long-term prospects in national politics and its status as new or old radical right are still unclear. This chapter reviews the state of the art in migration politics research in Spain, and analyses the merits of different theories when accounting for why immigration has lacked a pivotal role in Spanish politics. When putting things in comparative perspective, the unidimensionality of the political space benefitting the centre-right and the particular structure of labour market dualism emerges as the most promising explanations for the Spanish exceptionalism.