While Italy was turning from a country of emigration in a ‘new immigration country’ in the early 1990s, it was also restructuring its party system. Therefore, the immigration issue entered the Italian political market in a period of high volatility, and was part of the more general restructuring of the party system and patterns of party competition. Based an original dataset of party claims in Italian newspapers, this paper explores party competition on migration in Italy between 1994 and 2008 during election campaigns. We trace the politicization of migration by analysing how issue salience and framing varied across political parties and election campaigns. In so doing, we ask questions about agenda access, issue ownership and party competition: When did migration enter the Italian political agenda? Did avoidance or engagement characterize issue competition? How did the framing of migration vary between across parties and across elections?
