The il/liberal paradox: conceptualising immigration policy trade-offs across the democracy/autocracy divide

"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....I begin by discussing those characteristics of immigration politics found in all liberal democracies. I then investigate the distinctive modes of immigration politics in the three subsets of Western democratic states with distinctive immigration histories. I conclude by considering whether these three patterns will persist or how they might change as a result of future migration pressures and the further institutionalization of immigration politics and policies in Europe." Comments by Rogers Brubaker (pp. 903-8) and a rejoinder by the author (pp. 909-13) are included.

This article explores why liberal states accept unwanted immigration, discussing the cases of illegal immigration in the United States and family immigration in Europe. Rejecting the diagnosis of state sovereignty undermined by globalization, the author argues that self-limited sovereignty explains why states accept unwanted immigration. One aspect of self-limited sovereignty is a political process under the sway of interest-group politics (“client politics,” as Gary Freeman says). The logic of client politics explains why the United States accepts illegal immigration. The case of family immigration in Europe suggests two further aspects of self-limited sovereignty: legal-constitutional constraints on the executive, and moral obligations toward historically particular immigrant groups. However, these legal and moral constraints are unevenly distributed across Europe, partially reflecting the different logics of guest worker and postcolonial immigration regimes.