Although Italy is a “new” destination country, immigration has recently gained considerable leverage in electoral debates. Challenged by public-opinion, media, and radical-right actors, Italian parties are increasingly forced to take up the issue. Still, so far we do not have a clear picture as to what drives their politicization strategies: What explains partisan argumentative choices? Why do they focus on certain aspects of immigration to structure their campaign? This paper tackles these questions by looking at local party competition on immigration in Italy. Our analysis emphasizes the thematic and multidimensional nature of the immigration issue, focusing on dimensional party choices and on local structural factors. Based on content-analytical data from media reports, the empirical results confirm the importance of dimensional issue politicization in electoral campaigning, indicating that the strategies of mainstream parties depend on the salience of the issue, the choices of the radical-right and the weight of security arguments.
