Modes of Immigration Politics in Liberal Democratic States

Abstract

The politics of immigration in liberal democracies exhibits strong similarities that are, contrary to the scholarly consensus, broadly expansionist and inclusive. Nevertheless, three groups of states display distinct modes of immigration politics. Divergent immigration histories mold popular attitudes toward migration and ethnic heterogeneity and affect the institutionalization of migration policy and politics. The English-speaking settler societies (the United States, Canada, and Australia) have histories of periodically open immigration, machineries of immigration planning and regulation, and densely organized webs of interest groups contesting policies. Their institutionalized politics favors expansionary policies and is relatively immune to sharp swings in direction. Many European states (France, Britain, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Belgium) experienced mass migration only after World War II and in a form that introduced significant non-European minorities. Their immigration politics is shaped by what most see as the unfortunate consequences of those episodes and are partially institutionalized and highly volatile and conflictual. European states until recently sending countries (Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece) deal with migration pressures for the first time in their modern histories, under crisis conditions, and in the context of intensifying coordination of policies within the European Union. We should expect the normalization of immigration politics in both sets of European states. Although they are unlikely to appropriate the policies of the English-speaking democracies, which should remain unique in their openness to mass immigration, their approach to immigration will, nevertheless, take the liberal democratic form.