Who is worth integrating? Populist right parties’ framing of good and bad migrants in Belgium and Switzerland

In this article, we consider how populist radical right (PRR) parties’ position within their political system affects the framing of a key ideological area for the PRR: immigration and integration policies. PRRPs have sought to, and often succeeded, in agenda-setting around these issues. However, while immigration and integration policy are at the core of PRR ideology, parties’ framing of these issues has also been a place for vagueness, through ‘doublespeak’ and euphemising. Building on over 100 interviews with political representatives and political party members in Belgium and Switzerland, across three different regions of each country, we investigate how the Swiss People’s Party (in coalition government) and the Vlaams Belang (in opposition) portray migrants. Through critical analysis of interview data, combined with the assessment of party programmes, we identify this doublespeak and provide rich empirical explanation of the parties’ current portrayals of migrants. We particularly find that in both cases, some migrants are framed as ‘good’ while others are framed as ‘bad,’ and further find intra-party variation in these portrayals. We argue that parties’ representatives and members strategically moderate their portrayals of migrants to suit party competition and office-seeking goals.