Open Access

Franziska Eva Loschert

• What drives the positions taken by EU member states in the Council? Liberal Intergovernmentalism most prominently argues that governments enjoy the leeway of a ‘permissive consensus’ to represent the interests of strong domestic producer groups in the Council. Yet, in a Postfunctionalist Union, where citizens are no longer ‘rationally ignorant’ about their governments’ decisions in Brussels, identity politics are expected to override issue-specific business interests. The key mechanism that brings us from Moravcsik’s insulated ‘client politics’ to Postfunctionalist ‘mass politics’ is the phenomenon of politicisation. EU labour migration policies targeting third country nationals is a policy field where both clientelist business interests and politicised mass public interests are likely to surface, clash, and influence policymakers. While business demands liberalised and harmonised labour migration policies, governments under public scrutiny and pressure from right-wing populist parties are concerned that meeting the employers’ demands when legislating in Brussels will be costly in upcoming elections. This dissertation poses the question whether and to what extend politicisation of the EU and of immigration moderates the responsiveness of government to issues-specific interests of employers or mass public interests when negotiating EU labour migration policies. Drawing on a time-consistent quantitative measurement of politicisation of the EU and immigration in four member states, I study the impact of politicisation on the state preferences regarding five draft directives on EU labour migration policies. My research finds that the evidence for a moderating effect of politicisation on the responsiveness of governments is weak. Instead, whether governments respond to business or mass public interests is largely determined by the issue-specific dependence of employers on a common EU policy to attract labour migrants. If dependence is considered high, governments tend to represent employers’ interests and harmonise labour migration policies. Yet, this dissertation shows that identity and sovereignty related concerns matter as well but manifest more strongly in governments’ preferences when issue-specific dependence is low, because unilateral policies are considered more effective. Only against this background of an ‘ignorant or sceptical business’ does politicisation have at times a reinforcing effect upon the responsiveness of governments to the communitarian parts of their electorate.