Authors Meet Critics: “Immigration, Security, and the Liberal State”

Session Submission Type: Author meet critics

Session Description

In addressing APSA’s conference theme on democracy, this “authors meet critics” panel for Gallya Lahav and Anthony M. Messina’s forthcoming book, Immigration, Security and the Liberal State: The Politics of Regulation in Europe and the United States (Cambridge University Press, 2024), brings together seven distinguished scholars of the politics of migration, from both sides of the Atlantic, in conversation to discuss its merits and conclusions.

The overarching objective of the book is to assess the capacity of liberal states to manage immigration and human mobility in a post-Cold War global threat environment. Toward this end, it raises and addresses two major questions. To what extent can liberal states effectively manage the contradictions of a “migration trilemma” that pits the liberal norms and imperatives of liberal markets and human, civil, and immigrant rights against the political pressures to circumscribe them? Is the capacity of liberal states to implement liberal immigration and human mobility policies severely constrained, as many scholars claim?

In addressing these questions, the book provides a window on the inherent tradeoffs confronting policy makers whenever economic imperatives (e.g., satisfying the economy’s demand for foreign labor), long-standing civil (e.g., non-discrimination, due process, personal privacy) and humanitarian commitments (e.g., safeguarding rights, sheltering asylum-seekers and refugees), and physical safety concerns (e.g., averting crime and terrorism) conflict. In doing so, it offers an original perspective on the dominant mode of politics, norms, and opportunity structures shaping the immigration policies and politics of the contemporary liberal democracies.

Drawing on evidence from numerous sources, including media and elite discourse, policy tracking, and political party manifesto and public opinion data, the book illuminates the implications, especially for civil liberties, of restrictive immigration policies and politics whenever immigration is framed as a security threat. The book’s central observation is that a contemporary migration control paradigm has emerged that significantly deviates from the norms, policies, and practices of the post-Bretton Woods era. Its central argument is that in a rapidly changing domestic and international security environment, liberal states can and do exercise a relatively high degree of control over immigration and immigrant policy outcomes

Sub Unit

• Division 52: Migration & Citizenship

Chair

• Fiona B. Adamson SOAS University of London

Presenters

• Gallya Lahav Stony Brook University

• Anthony M. Messina Trinity College

• James F. Hollifield Southern Methodist University

• Jeannette Money University of California, Davis

• Daniel Tichenor University of Oregon

• Ariane Chebel d'Appollonia Rutgers University, Newark