It is conventional wisdom that policy outcomes within consolidated democracies are based on a compromise between preferences of the general public and those of politicians. However, it is questionable whether these divergent incentives are truly translated into migration policy, and if so, how that process occurs. By treating actors' preference formation process as a causal mechanism, this paper hypothesizes the citizenship regime plays a central role in constructing threat perception harbored by the general public while altering politicians' strategic calculations on electorate. Specifically, I argue natives under a jus sanguinis (by ancestry) regime are less welcoming toward migrants, because they are less exposed to an environment where migrants have equivalent social and political rights, fulfilling their duties as full members of the host country. Thus, natives do not re-categorize these initial outsiders as in-group members. Meanwhile, politicians in a jus sanguinis regime have less incentive to enact generous policies toward migrants, because they are excluded from the voting group. In sum, countries adopting this citizenship principle are likely to be less willing to incorporate migrants. This paper uses Japan as a case to trace how this causal mechanism has operated in a country under a strict jus sanguinis principle.
Along with flows of goods and capital, the movement of people adds another dimension to complex interdependence in the international economy. Scholars in the field of international political economy have long been searching for causal relationships among these factors since none of them can function alone without a consequence on the others. Thus, it is no surprise that migration policies of countries demand an in-depth study, since they function as core determinants of the direction and volume of people's movements. In order to understand the enactment of certain types of migration policy, we need to examine the underlying incentives behind these policies as well as how these motivations are influenced by external conditions. As an attempt to study this issue, this research is motivated by a puzzle: Why do democratic countries enact different types of migration policies when they face macroeconomic decline?I argue that citizenship law (law of soil or blood) sets a fundamental frame for migration policymaking in consolidated democracies, which function largely as destination countries from a global perspective. Here, I focus on politician's preference formation process, and assume that politicians would push for a migration policy that would enlarge his probability of remaining in office. To achieve this, he needs to strategically calculate how to maximize his vote share.Under such a circumstance, citizenship law plays two essential roles. First, it shapes public attitude on migrants. This mechanism speculates that natives in jus soli (law by soil) regime will feel less threatened by migrants. This is because migrants tend to have a wider avenue to obtain citizenship of the host country under this principal. Thus, frequent and consistent interaction between natives and those migrants allow for the natives to re-categorize the migrants into ingroup members, and this would reduce overall anti-migration sentiment. In this sense, politicians in jus soli regime gain leverage on decision-making procedure on migrant issues, compared to those in jus sanguinis (law by blood) regime. Second, citizenship law changes the size of electorate. This mechanism posits that politicians in jus soli regime have a stronger incentive to enact a policy that favors migrants, because this citizenship law indicates a higher probability that migrants would obtain voting rights, and thus, their votes count. In sum, I argue that migration policy (especially on entry) would be more generous (both on entry and rights) in jus soli regime.This political calculation based on public tolerance and electoral concern toward migrants is what brings about divergence on migration policies during macroeconomic downturns. While there is a general tendency that politicians prefer to impose severer migration policies during economic decline, this pattern would be more apparent in jus sanguinis countries' entry policies since politicians face higher anti-migrant sentiment as well as a lower probability to coopt votes from migrants.In order to assess ...
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