Keywords: Political behavior, participation and culture

The immigration topic has increasingly polarized European politics. Accordingly, migration policies and the integration of immigrants were among the most vividly discussed issues in many EU-countries in recent years. Quantitative evidence on the relationship between the actual national political climate and individual attitudes is scarce, however. I aim to contribute to this field by investigating how different forms of political elite discourses relate to individual attitudes toward different immigrant subgroups, arguing that ignoring such differentiation is likely to underestimate the actual relationship between elite discourse and public opinion. To this end, I combine the European Social Survey with the Manifesto Research on Political Representation project and other data sources. Based on 19 countries, findings suggest that, in contrast to most objective demographic and economic aspects, exclusionary discourses on the level of political elites are indeed associated with more negative attitudes and inclusionary discourses with less negative attitudes. Moreover, this relates primarily to attitudes toward ethnically distinct migrants and Muslims, who were particularly present in public debates in the period of investigation. Deeper analyses reveal that the relationship between elite discourses and attitudes varies with certain political characteristics of respondents: in line with theoretical expectations, it is stronger for those who are more interested in politics. The politically interested are less positive about immigrants in countries where political elites release more negative statements while they are more positive in countries where political elites are more positive. Voters adhering to the political right, on the other hand, become more negative toward immigrants in both countries where political elites are more negative and more positive toward immigration. This points to potential limits for liberal politicians. Taken together, I argue that the importance of national debates on the macro-level has been largely underrated in research on public opinion toward immigration and immigrants so far.