Reassessing the opinion–policy gap

The rising numbers of asylum seekers have revitalized the debate on immigration and cultural diversity in Germany. On the one hand, a substantial amount of volunteers lived the notion of Germany as a “welcoming society”. On the other hand, movements like PEGIDA, the “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident”, and political parties like the AfD, the “Alternative for Germany”, have entered the stage. They do not only stand for a right-wing populism that is well-known all over Europe but also for an attitude which Groß and Hövermann (2014) name “marktförmiger Extremismus” (economic extremism). For some scholars of migration politics, the rise of PEGIDA and AfD is just another proof of the so-called opinion-policy gap hypothesis in migration studies. Gary Freeman (1995) famously argued that there is a gap between public opinion, which is constantly calling for restrictive immigration policies, and factual immigration policies in Western democracies, which are becoming more expansive over time. This contribution will reflect on the positions and demands of PEGIDA and the AfD against the backdrop of the opinion-policy gap hypothesis. It will do so by analyzing the alleged gap between PEGIDA/AfD and factual policies in three main arenas of the immigration debate: identity, security, and economy (Rosenblum/Cornelius 2012). It will argue that the gap shows different characteristics depending on the respective arena.