Economists misframe immigration

Mainstream economists and centre‑right politicians treat immigration primarily as an economic question and select evidence to fit that theory, overlooking cultural dynamics—how people absorb meanings from family and social networks—and thus misreading voter responses. This misframing helps explain repeated political shifts toward national populism and the elite tendency to delegitimise dissent on cultural issues. — If true, it implies policy and political strategy based on economic models will keep failing, and restoring democratic feedback requires treating immigration as a cultural governance problem as well as an economic one.