Navigating the Immigration Policies and Discourses: Exploring the Perspectives of Social Democratic Party Leaders

Immigration policies have been a significant source of conflict for European social democrats, contributing to the party family’s decline. While the literature discusses this decline, further research can reveal how social democratic party actors navigate and articulate immigration policies. This article addresses this gap by analysing party leader speeches from social democratic congresses in Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. These congresses, aimed at intra-party dynamics and public discourse, provide insights into party stances. Using a qualitative approach, this study employs a two-dimensional framework to understand leaders’ discourse on positioning (restrictive or expansive) and framing (pragmatic or principled). Findings are analysed from the outlook of social democrats in the post-Third Way political landscape and their intra-party dynamics in the aftermath of European crises. The results indicate that the party’s ideological direction and the leadership’s ability to maintain intra-party cohesion significantly influence their approach and discourse, as well as their emphases and avoidances of certain aspects of immigration.