IMMIGRATION AND POLITICS

2009

We analyze a newly available dataset of migration policy decisions reported by governments to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs between 1976 and 2007. We find evidence indicating that most governments have policies aimed at either maintaining the status quo or at lowering the level of migration. We also document variation in migration policy over time and across countries of different regions and income levels. Finally, we examine patterns in various aspects of destination countries' migration policies (policies towards family reunification, temporary vs. permanent migration, high-skilled migration). This analysis leads us to investigate the determinants of migration policy in a destination country. We develop a political economy framework in which voter attitudes represent a key component. We survey the literature on the determinants of public opinion towards immigrants and examine the link between these attitudes and governments' policy decisions. While we find evidence broadly consistent with the median voter model, we conclude that this framework is not sufficient to understand actual migration policies. We discuss evidence which suggests that interest-groups dynamics may play a very important role.

Annual Review of Political Science, 2018

The topic of migration raises important and challenging normative questions about the legitimacy of state power, the boundaries of political membership, and justice within and across state borders. States exercise power over borders , but what, if anything, justifies this power? Is it morally permissible for liberal democratic states to prevent their citizens from exiting the country and exclude prospective migrants from entering? If liberal democratic states are justified in excluding some and accepting others, how should they decide whom to admit? This review examines how contemporary political theorists and philosophers have answered these questions. First, I examine the conventional view that says states have the right to control immigration; second, I discuss arguments for open borders. The third section examines critique of open borders, and the fourth section considers more recent arguments that have been advanced in favor of the conventional view. I conclude with some suggestions for future research.

West European Politics, 2006

The chapter develops an approach that has two key elements. The first is a focus on states as the key locations for the regulation of migration. However, rather than seeing international migration as a challenge to these states (as some kind of external threat or challenge), this chapter explores the ways in which states, relationships between states and the constitution of governance systems play a key role in shaping international migration. The second is a focus on what has been called ‘boundary build-up’, which explores the dynamics of regulation by looking at how and why greater openness to certain flows such as of goods, capital and services can be accompanied by attempts to exert tighter controls on movement of people. In short, the chapter seeks not to assess how states respond to international migration (which tends to construe the role of states as relatively passive) but, instead, to look at ways in which states shape international migration.

Problema. Anuario de Filosofía y Teoría del Derecho, 2023

Citizenship regimes are institutionalized systems of formal and informal norms that define access to membership, as well as associated rights and duties. This paper studies illegalized migration as one of the major tests to assess whether citizenship regimes are fair institutions, based on a historical analysis of legisla¬tion meant to reduce illegalized migration in the United States between 1995 and 2022. We build our empirical research starting from a simple observation: despite the great number of bills introduced to reduce illegalized migration to the US, most of such initiatives fail to become law. In fact, 93.5% of all immigration ini¬tiatives did not even pass the chamber of Congress in which they were originally presented. Such a high rate of failure shows that these proposals are motivated by electoral aspirations, rather than coming from a genuine wish to help migrants or grant them citizenship. Furthermore, there is also an economic interest that justifies the maintenance of low-cost disposable immigrant labor, with no right to citizen¬ship. Our analysis is an example of how state regulation processes seem to work to formalize, rather than alleviate or eradicate, the precarious legal statuses of ille¬galized migrants. We conclude that a globalized phenomenon such as citizenship requires going beyond merely institutional and formal conceptions. We need to rethink the institutional notion of citizenship, as a merely status held under the au¬thority of a state and consider it from a cosmopolitan perspective and a multilateral basis. But as long as citizenship remains under the responsibility of states, illegal¬ized migrants will continue to experience precarious citizenship.

Comparative Migration Studies, 2020

The world appears to be moving into a new era of international migration during which gaps between policies needed to manage migratory flows and those enacted in practice will widen. Whereas immigrants in the late 20th century were motivated by a desire to improve their wellbeing by accessing opportunities in richer countries, in the early 21st century they are increasingly motivated by a desire to escape threats at places of origin, yielding very different patterns of migration and selectivity. Using the United States as an example, this paper reviews how mismatches between the underlying realities of international migration and the policies adopted to manage them, in both eras have produced and continue to produce dysfunctional outcomes. Although deleterious policy outcomes might be avoided in the future by combining a well-grounded conceptual understanding of the forces producing immigration with a clear statement of the goals to be achieved through specific policy interventions,...

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014

We study migration policy enforcement by an elected government. The policy-maker faces uncertainty on the supply of migrants, but has more information than the public on its preferences and the extent and effectiveness of its enforcement activities. We show that a utilitarian government preferring more migrants than the majority may find it optimal to set a restrictive target to please the median voter, while relaxing its enforcement to admit more foreigners in a concealed way. Lax enforcement may be achieved either by deploying inadequate resources on cost-effective activities (domestic enforcement) or by allocating a larger budget on less effective tools (border enforcement). The attractiveness of one instrument over the other depends on the size of the immigrant flow: if the supply is large, border enforcement might be preferred because, although more costly, it brings the number of migrants closer to the utilitarian optimum. Hence, re-election concerns might provide a rationale for the widespread use of less a effective enforcement tool, such as border control.

Routledge Handbook of Immigration and Refugee Studies, 2015

International Migration Review, 2007

This article critically reviews theories of migration policy according to two criteria: methodological rigor and explanatory plausibility. It finds that political economy accounts are theoretically robust, but at the price of oversimplification. Neo-institutional theories offer more sophisticated accounts, but fall short on a number of methodological and explanatory counts. As an alternative, this article suggests a theory focusing on the functional imperatives of the state in the area of migration, which shape its responses to societal interests and institutional structures.