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Rethinking immigration policy theory beyond ‘Western liberal democracies’

How do political systems shape immigration policy-making? Explicitly or implicitly, comparative politics and migration policy theories suggest a ‘regime effect’ that links specific dynamics of immigration policy to liberal democracy. The literature’s dominant focus on so-called ‘Western liberal demo...

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Autor principal: Natter, Katharina
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer International Publishing 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5830462/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29515969
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40878-018-0071-9
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author Natter, Katharina
author_facet Natter, Katharina
author_sort Natter, Katharina
collection PubMed
description How do political systems shape immigration policy-making? Explicitly or implicitly, comparative politics and migration policy theories suggest a ‘regime effect’ that links specific dynamics of immigration policy to liberal democracy. The literature’s dominant focus on so-called ‘Western liberal democracies’, however, has left the ‘regime effect’ largely untested and research on variations and similarities in immigration policymaking across political systems strikingly undertheorized. This paper challenges the theoretical usefulness of essentialist, dichotomous categories such as Western/non-Western or democratic/autocratic and calls for a more nuanced theorizing of immigration policy-making. It proposes a two-dimensional classification of immigration policy theories, distinguishing between ‘issue-specific’ theories that capture immigration policy processes regardless of the political system in place and ‘regime-specific’ theories whose insights are tied to the characteristics of a political system. The paper also advances the ‘illiberal paradox’ hypothesis to explain why illiberal, autocratic states may enact liberal immigration policies. This theoretical expansion beyond the ‘Western’ and ‘liberal’ bubble is illustrated by an analysis of immigration policy-making in 21st century Morocco and Tunisia. Showing how domestic and international institutions, interests, and ideas shape immigration policy-making in Morocco’s monarchy and Tunisia’s democratic transition, the paper investigates the broader role of political systems in immigration politics and herewith seeks to contribute to a more general and global theorization of immigration policies.
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spelling pubmed-58304622018-03-05 Rethinking immigration policy theory beyond ‘Western liberal democracies’ Natter, Katharina Comp Migr Stud Original Article How do political systems shape immigration policy-making? Explicitly or implicitly, comparative politics and migration policy theories suggest a ‘regime effect’ that links specific dynamics of immigration policy to liberal democracy. The literature’s dominant focus on so-called ‘Western liberal democracies’, however, has left the ‘regime effect’ largely untested and research on variations and similarities in immigration policymaking across political systems strikingly undertheorized. This paper challenges the theoretical usefulness of essentialist, dichotomous categories such as Western/non-Western or democratic/autocratic and calls for a more nuanced theorizing of immigration policy-making. It proposes a two-dimensional classification of immigration policy theories, distinguishing between ‘issue-specific’ theories that capture immigration policy processes regardless of the political system in place and ‘regime-specific’ theories whose insights are tied to the characteristics of a political system. The paper also advances the ‘illiberal paradox’ hypothesis to explain why illiberal, autocratic states may enact liberal immigration policies. This theoretical expansion beyond the ‘Western’ and ‘liberal’ bubble is illustrated by an analysis of immigration policy-making in 21st century Morocco and Tunisia. Showing how domestic and international institutions, interests, and ideas shape immigration policy-making in Morocco’s monarchy and Tunisia’s democratic transition, the paper investigates the broader role of political systems in immigration politics and herewith seeks to contribute to a more general and global theorization of immigration policies. Springer International Publishing 2018-03-01 2018 /pmc/articles/PMC5830462/ /pubmed/29515969 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40878-018-0071-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Original Article
Natter, Katharina
Rethinking immigration policy theory beyond ‘Western liberal democracies’
title Rethinking immigration policy theory beyond ‘Western liberal democracies’
title_full Rethinking immigration policy theory beyond ‘Western liberal democracies’
title_fullStr Rethinking immigration policy theory beyond ‘Western liberal democracies’
title_full_unstemmed Rethinking immigration policy theory beyond ‘Western liberal democracies’
title_short Rethinking immigration policy theory beyond ‘Western liberal democracies’
title_sort rethinking immigration policy theory beyond ‘western liberal democracies’
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5830462/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29515969
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40878-018-0071-9
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