Long confined to historians and sociologists, the study of immigration has garnered increased interest among political scientists. Two dominant schools—the globalization and embedded realist theses—have attempted to account for the gap between restrictionist intentions of governments and continuing immigration (the gap hypothesis). The globalization thesis argues that international norms and institutions limit governments' ability to control migration; the embedded realist thesis counters that limits on state autonomy are domestic. This article argues that although the embedded realist thesis is on stronger conceptual ground, both fail to account for two central categories of immigrants to Europe: colonial immigrants to France and Britain and asylum seekers to Germany. Drawing on historical institutionalist work, this article employs a path-dependent analysis to account for these categories. Against their own wishes, governments found themselves accepting larger migrations and naturalizations because of the path-dependent effects of their own citizenship and constitutional regimes.
A burgeoning literature in comparative politics has sought to incorporate ideas into political analysis. In this article the authors categorize the main ways in which this incorporation has occurred—ideas as culture, ideas as expert knowledge, ideas as solutions to collective action problems, and ideas as programmatic beliefs—and explicate the different assumptions about causality and the permanence of ideas implied by these different frameworks. This theoretical exercise is then applied to an empirical examination of eugenic ideas about sterilization and immigration and their influence on public policy in Britain and the United States between the world wars. Given that ideational ideas were (broadly) equally powerful in both countries, the cases provide a basis for shedding light on when and how extant ideational frameworks influence public policy. Employing primary sources the authors conclude that ideas remain powerful expressions of societal interests but depend upon key carriers to realize such expressions.
This article examines the policy responses of Western countries in the realm of asylum. We begin by explaining the reasons why the asylum issue has made its way up the political agendas of liberal democratic countries in recent years. While applications for asylum have risen in the last two decades, we also highlight the way rights-based constraints and financial costs have contributed to controversy around the issue. We then examine in detail the major policy responses of states to asylum, grouping them into four main categories: measures aiming to prevent access to state territory, measures to deter arrivals, measures to limit stay, and measures to manage arrival. Moving then to explore the efficacy of these measures, we consider the utility of policy making from the viewpoints of states, asylum seekers and refugees, and international society. The article concludes with the presentation of four new directions in which policies could move in order better to square the professed interests of Western states with the needs of refugees for protection.
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