Waldinger, R. and M. Lichter. "How the Other Half Works."

·         Started with the objective of updating Lieberson’s work: interested in how unskilled migrants have found jobs that “should not” exist, maintaining high levels of employment despite being less educated, less fluent speakers of English, etc. than the lower-classes of native Americans (ie, black people)

·         Uses dual labor market theory to explain how the need for immigrant labor began; observes that many employers won’t hire people they consider “overqualified” and that native-born workers have a bad attitude that stops them from being desirable workers

o   Argues that immigrant workers will tolerate longer hours, lower wages, and poorer working conditions because it compares favorably to what is available “back home” in the Third World; native-born workers don’t make that comparison and demand more from their employers

o   “Thus the rebelliousness experienced by all native-born bottom-level workers, fueled by the mismatch between expectations and the very different reality of their work, will be sharpened by the greater alienation that native-born members of any racialized minority are likely to undergo.” (p. 153)

o   “All that we need for now is to assert that employers have an everyday theory of immigrant labor, perceiving immigrants as the class of worker that evaluates conditions ‘here’ in light of how bad they are ‘there,’ and, given the right conditions, is to be preferred for precisely this reason.” (p. 154)

·         The “skill” required to perform these jobs can typically be learned in a relatively short time; however, the biggest “skill” seems to be a good attitude, which immigrants have in greater quantity than natives

o   Criticism: does not go into discussion about the power dynamic between immigrants and their employers, who may possess the ability to have them deported, revoke their work permits, etc – thus giving an added incentive for migrant labor to have a particularly “good” attitude

·         The growth of certain ethnic groups in various sectors is due to the use of social networks in hiring decisions; workers know about the job openings even before they are made public, and then invite their friends/relatives to apply; managers appreciate the recommendations from other good workers and use these shortcuts to fill positions

o   “Since informal networks channel job seekers into industries or occupations where other like persons are already concentrated, categorically different groups of workers end up sorted into distinctive places in the labor market.” (p. 209)

·         This results in social closure; networks are actively inclusive but passively exclusive; however workers may also be actively exclusive and sabotage new hires from outside the ethnic group; suggests that diversity may be the source of the most tension between groups

·         Diversity may be encouraged to represent the ethnic composition of the client-base, or when imposed from above (ex: public hospitals with federal funding cannot discriminate on an ethnic basis), but in sectors where the workers rarely interact with the public this will not be as valued

o   Criticism: this book addresses low-skill labor, which is often a euphemism for “undocumented.”  Yet the authors do not mention the ease of hiring undocumented workers in certain sectors versus others (ie, perhaps there are fewer undocumented workers at the VA hospital than at a furniture factory or restaurant?) and how this might influence ethnic composition of “undesirable” jobs

·         Posits that as migrant groups become assimilated/incorporated, they will join the ranks of native workers who find these jobs distasteful

o   “Americanization renders immigrants less desirable; it also makes their US-raised children unlikely candidates for labor at the very bottom.  In the short run, immigration solves the problem it was designed to handle – the procurement of workers willing to fill the jobs no one else wants.  But in the long run, it reproduces the original dilemma in intensified form – as the second generation may have to start where the first generation began, but will surely aspire to much more.”  (pp. 227-228)

Patricia R. Pessar. “The Role of Gender, Households, and Social Networks in the Migration Process: A Review and Appraisal.”

a.       HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

                                                  i.      Women were absent from migration literature in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s because scholars were influenced by neoclassical theory which viewed males as more apt to be risk-takers and achievers while women remained guardians of community tradition

1.      This period is also characterized by a tendency to ignore women’s contributions to economic, political, and social life

2.      Women were viewed largely as dependents rather than as willing migrants themselves

                                                ii.      The advent of feminist theory in the 1970s brought women’s migratory experiences into the scholarship

1.      However, at this time gender was viewed simply as a variable rather than a new theoretical concept

2.      The discovery that migrant women worked at much higher rates in the receiving country than in the sending country was not contextualized in the effect it had on society

                                              iii.      Social networks and households have been used to help social scientists explain the contingent agency in migration between pure rational choice models and structural determinism models

1.      “While macrostructural transformations are understood to unleash migration pressures, it is families and social networks, we are told, that respond to these pressures and determine which members of households and communities actually emigrate” (p. 55)

b.      HOUSEHOLDS, SOCIAL NETWORKS, AND GENDER IN MIGRATION THEORIES

                                                  i.      Neoclassical theory suggests that the macroeconomic wage gap between countries inspires individual workers to make the rational choice to leave their low-wage homeland for the gains of the higher-wage host country

1.      Gender is considered just one variable in the cost-benefit calculation and does not consider the differences in social contexts between male and female migrants

                                                ii.      “New economics of migration” (NEM) suggests that the decision to migrate is undertaken at the household level, and not the level of the solitary migrant; households both seek to increase earnings and minimize risks

1.      This model still ignores gender, as it focuses solely on the economic cost-benefit analysis but does not consider the household’s political economy of migration (for example, a Dominican woman may go abroad not only to earn money but also to gain sexual freedom)

                                              iii.      Network theory argues that the social capital of migrants also makes up an important part of the individual and household economic strategy, including migration

1.      Network analyses have been used to explain individual intentions to migrate, the process of migrant adaptation, and the probabilities of emigration to specific places

                                              iv.      Historical-structuralist perspective says subsistence economies have been destabilized by capitalism, creating a surplus of labor which is then carried from the periphery to the core by the same forces of globalization responsible for creating the surplus in the first place

1.      This approach moves away from the micro-level individual decision and looks at the interplay of capitalism, globalization, imperialism, and so on, but is perhaps “good political-economy but insufficient migration theory”

                                                v.      Transnational migration theory looks at the political, economic, and social conditions that promote transnational network formation, as well as the material and social capital that crosses national borders

1.      Household members often develop economic strategies that transcend national labor markets, and perform social reproduction across national borders; however, gender is still underrepresented in this field of scholarship

c.       SHORTCOMINGS IN THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF HOUSEHOLDS AND SOCIAL NETWORKS

                                                  i.      Households are viewed as collective decision-making units, when in fact not all members of the household may be comfortable with the decision to migrate and power structures exist within the household itself

1.      Researchers have also viewed households as passive units whose members are the “losers” in the larger market economy; this is not always the case

2.      The household as a rational decision-maker also limits the number of economic strategies that households can adopt, and suggests that there is no dissention over the objectives of “economic maximization”

3.      Kinship, gender, and class ideologies can play a role in shaping how individuals and households view consumption needs, labor power, and the range of opportunities available

                                                ii.      Social networks are often gendered, as access to certain parts of the network may depend on gender and kinship

1.      Patriarchal norms may have to be weighed against the needed earnings of female family members, which may influence the people in the networks trusted to take care of the female migrant

2.      Men and women often have entirely different social networks even within the same households

3.      Networks may have altruistic values, but may also be avenues for exploitation

d.      ENGENDERING MIGRATION THEORY AND RESEARCH

                                                  i.      Various economic conditions differently affect men and women, which may provide them with contrasting incentives and constraints on immigration

1.      The lack of desirable mates in Ireland prompted some women to migrate to the U.S.; the growth of female-dominated service professions, such as health care and domestic work, may have greater “pull” for women than men

2.      Immigrant women and men receive differential returns for their education and experience; this is also racialized, as Indian, Iranian, and Japanese men are able to use their education to obtain higher status than native-born workers, while no women were able to (and presumably no other nationalities)

                                                ii.      Migration can be emancipating or subjugating for women, with gains made in one arena (perhaps the household) while gender subordination may continue in others (the workplace or community)

                                              iii.      Men and women experience settlement, return, and transmigration differently

1.      Gains in gender equality are central to women’s desire  to settle abroad permanently, while men may want to return home rapidly to regain their status; this sometimes manifests in women spending more money to make their life abroad comfortable while men are more frugal, saving for their return

e.       A REENCOUNTER WITH FEMINIST STUDIES

                                                  i.      Immigrant families are buffeted by external forces, including racist/sexist legislation and structural impediments to the male breadwinner role; immigrant women have thus assumed wage-earning positions as a result of severe economic need

1.      Immigrant women frequently perform the lowest-paid and most insecure work, suggesting that work is not an indication of their strength within the home and marketplace

2.      Immigrant women thus are expected to hold together their families and use their economic gains to escape from husband-dominated subordination

                                                ii.      Some immigrant families may benefit from household extension, ie, incorporating other adults into the household to provide additional income

                                              iii.      Among Dominican and Cuban immigrants, women’s “retirement” to the domestic sphere is seen as a sign of higher status; women thus must choose whether they will elevate the whole family’s status by “retiring” or whether they will maintain the gender parity gains they’ve made by continuing to work outside the home

1.      “Some women of color, in contrast to their white counterparts, view unpaid domestic work – having children and maintaining families – more as a form of resistance to racist oppression than as a form of exploitation by men” (Espiritu 1997)

                                              iv.      Racial and class inequalities abroad are felt more strongly than those based on gender, uniting female migrants with their male conationals

A. R. Zolberg. “The Next Waves: Migration Theory for a Changing World.”

a.       GLOBAL INEQUALITY

                                                  i.      Global population increase and decline of subsistence economies, plus lower transportation costs, mean more people will move

                                                ii.      Most people will move within their own countries, but some may relocate abroad

                                              iii.      Migration destinations will be determined by geographical proximity as well as political and economic linkages and migrant networks

                                              iv.      Border control is an effective tool for controlling the extent of migration between countries

b.      BORDERS AS BARRIERS TO MOVEMENT

                                                  i.      Classical migration theory omits the effect of border controls on migrant flows; this dates back to Ravenstein’s 1889 work

                                                ii.      In reality, migration “entails not only physical relocation, but a change of jurisdiction and membership” (p. 406)

                                              iii.      Few states restrict the exit of their citizens; all states restrict entry of new migrants

1.      This means that the policies of the receiving countries determine what kind of migration can take place

2.      International migration policy is therefore characterized by “disincentives” instead of “incentives” (Bhagwati 1984)

3.      This applies to refugees as well, who can only flee their home if there is another country to welcome them

                                              iv.      The system of border controls preserves global inequality and allows receiving states to admit only migrants considered desirable

c.       EXPLOITATION OF FOREIGN LABOR

                                                  i.      Classical migration theory looks at immigration as the aggregate movement of individuals seeking new opportunities, while modern migration theory sees a movement of workers propelled by the “push/pull” dynamics of the capitalist system

                                                ii.      The Kennedy-Johnson immigration reforms in the U.S. in the 1960s imposed a set limit for immigration from the Western Hemisphere, driving migration between the U.S. and Latin America underground and leading to greater exploitation of workers

                                              iii.      Portes (1978) linked migration and dependency, noting that Latin America’s dependence on the U.S. created structural distortions that exacerbated “push” conditions and triggered migration networks

                                              iv.      In Europe, guestworker programs (similar to U.S.’s bracero program) linked admission and residence to economic performance, and served as a buffer to slow population growth

1.      The purely economic function of this migration allowed the development of an institutional or a Marxist approach to understanding European migration in the mid-1900s

                                                v.      Understanding migration as benefitting capitalists begs the question why haven’t they advocated for open borders; they haven’t because unions protect native workers from labor importation and because workers and capitalists have shared interests as native taxpayers in keeping migrants away from state resources

                                              vi.      There will continue to be a need for low-skill immigrant labor in the “core” despite industry moving to the “periphery,” as low-skill labor in the services sector may replace this

                                            vii.      Economic reasons are not the only grounds for opposing immigration; restrictions are also implemented to “minimize the growing social tensions created by the presence of a large number of foreigners” (OECD 1979)

                                          viii.      Institutionalized racism, created to separate European colonizers from their colonial subjects, renders migrants both suitable as labor and undesirable in society; cultural and political differences also compound the problems of accepting migrants in liberal democracies

                                              ix.      The idea of “membership” is broadening to include members of international communities (like the European Community, and the U.S.-Canadian trade partnership) as well as groups sharing ancestral origins (volksdeutsche in Germany, Jews in Israel)

d.      LIBERALIZATION OF EXIT FROM THE SOCIALIST WORLD

                                                  i.      The USSR viewed emigration as a potential threat, as those who went abroad were assumed to join other enemies abroad; this opinion was shared by other totalitarian regimes in the 20^th century

                                                ii.      Emigration may be seen as “voting with one’s feet” and thus poses a challenge for regimes that claim to rest on democratic principles

                                              iii.      The West’s acceptance of Communist “defectors” was mostly for show, as few people could actually leave, and was highly racialized as Asian defectors were not welcomed in the same way

                                              iv.      The article predicts relaxation of exit policies as glasnost and perestroika take off; this could lead to a reduction of propaganda value in welcoming “defectors” and cause them to be treated like ordinary migrants

e.       THE REFUGEE CRISIS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD

                                                  i.      Mid-1970s saw massive refugee movements in Asia and Africa, as well as Latin America’s Southern Cone; by the end of the 1980s, an estimated 18.5 million people were refugees living abroad, with millions more living as internally displaced persons

                                                ii.      The rise in refugee population coincided with the 1970s economic slump, causing most wealthy countries to tighten their refugee and asylum policies; this caused most refugees to remain in camps in neighboring countries, aided only by UNHCR

                                              iii.      The refugee crisis is rarely a result of ordinary war between sovereign states, but can be seen as a by-product of the formation of new states and confrontations over the social order

f.       FORMATION OF NEW STATES IN ASIA AND AFRICA

                                                  i.      Colonial wars of independence produced refugees and displaced people (especially European colonizers who returned “home” to Europe), but “all possible cases have already surfaced and reached a definitive outcome”

                                                ii.      Ethnic diversity can be a cause of conflict and produce refugees, but is not the primary cause as is widely believed

1.      Instead, the disruption of the balance of power among various ethnic groups caused by the worldwide financial crisis can be seen as the source of conflict and refugee displacement in Asia and Africa

                                              iii.      “Ethnic hierarchies” are particularly explosive structures wherein social class and ethnic membership coincide; members of groups in unfavorable positions within the ethnic hierarchy may use their networks to go abroad, or may be expelled from the country

                                              iv.      Regional concentrations of groups exacerbate conflicts over power and resources; this often leads to separatist movements, with the international system favoring the government and irredentist movements favoring the secessionists; these separatist movements in turn may cause people to flee from the violence

g.      CONFLICTS OVER THE SOCIAL ORDER

                                                  i.      Conflicts over the social order involve a struggle between dominant and subordinate classes leading to revolution; revolutions (attempted and successful) in Africa, Asia, and Latin America since the end of WWII have produced major international population movements

                                                ii.      Revolutions produce refugees by generalized violence and dislocation; the ruling elite may flee in fear of retribution (“anticipatory refugee movement”); and a larger refugee flow may follow of those individuals negatively affected by the post-revolution reconstruction

                                              iii.      Land-based dictatorships (El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala) often have simmering conflicts and popular rebellions which generate migrant flows seeking to escape both the violence and the poor socioeconomic conditions, allowing receiving states to question whether they are “genuine” refugees

                                              iv.      Bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes in mid-range economies typically generate a trickle of activist exiles rather than large migrant flows; however the fascist “national security states” of the Southern Cone in Latin America and Brazil in the 1970s were an exception

                                                v.      The amalgam of small-scale societies, as in Africa, may lead to structural instability, coups, and localized popular protest, which can produce migrant flows if protests occur near national borders; the violence may feed on itself and lead to the emergence of a warlord system, as well as massive deaths

                                              vi.      Détente among superpowers after the Cold War will likely reduce future conflicts producing refugees, but structural issues in Africa and Asia will persist in displacing persons, and the tighter asylum laws in developed countries will mean most refugees continue to live in camps in neighboring poor countries

h.      CONCLUSION

                                                  i.      “Given the persistence of huge disparities of conditions among rich and poor countries, the pool of potential international migrants will continue to grow; and since the affluent countries have erected a collective protective wall, we should anticipate a rise in ‘north-south’ tensions over the issue of migration, leading to demands for inclusion of more equitable arrangements within the ‘new international order’” (p. 423)

                                                ii.      Therefore, Westerners should be concerned with aiding the mass of refugees confined in the developing world and with altering the admissions policies of capitalist democracies

                                              iii.      Economics suggest that immigration may or may not benefit both sending and/or receiving countries; liberal states may attempt to “protect” their citizens by focusing their admissions policies on family reunification and asylum for refugees, as in the U.S. immigration laws of the 1980s

1.      This policy is a more “national” approach as favor is shown to migrants from already-established groups, such as Irish, Italian and Polish migrants in the U.S.

                                              iv.      Alternatively, a “cosmopolitan” approach would admit only migrants shown to be essential to the system of equal basic liberties

                                                v.      Gibney (1986) suggests reordering admissions criteria based on the “Harm Principle” whereby those harmed abroad deserve restitution, and the “Basic Rights Principle” whereby nations are obliged to meet the basic needs of individuals from all societies, regardless of whether or not they caused the harm

1.      This would reorder U.S. immigration policy, which currently favors family reunification, Communist defectors, and labor migrants

2.      The new admission preference would be given to those harmed abroad by U.S. foreign policy (eg, Chileans under Pinochet) and those whose admission would meet a fair share of the “basic needs” of refugees worldwide

Douglas S. Massey. “Why Does Immigration Occur? A Theoretical Synthesis.”

a.       Divides immigration into four periods: mercantile period (1500-1800) dominated by European colonizers; industrial period (1800-1920) dominated by Europeans seeking new lives in the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand; period of limited migration (1920-1960) when restrictive laws, world wars, and economic depressions halted population movements; and the postindustrial period (1960s onward), when migration became globalized and migrants shifted from Europeans to people from the developing world

b.      THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION

                                                  i.      Neoclassical economics uses both macroeconomic and microeconomic models to explain the reasons for immigration

1.      Macroeconomic model says international migration is caused by geographic differences in the supply of and demand for labor; workers from countries with large populations but low wages will move to countries with small populations and high wages

2.      Microeconomic model says individual rational actors decide to migrate because a cost-benefit calculation leads them to expect a positive net return from migrating

                                                ii.      The “new economics of migration” says that migration decisions are made by actors within larger units of interrelated people (families, households, or entire communities) in which people act collectively to maximize income, minimize risks to income, maximize status, and overcome local market failures

                                              iii.      Segmented labor market theory says that international migration is caused by a permanent labor demand that is inherent in the economic structure of developed nations, and thus is caused by “pull” factors in the receiving countries rather than “push” factors from home countries

1.      Demand for inexpensive labor is due to receiving countries’ structural inflation (the need to keep wages low at the bottom levels of society), social constraints within occupational hierarchies (which benefit from workers at the lowest levels who view employment only as a means to an end), the duality of labor and capital (capital-intensive production is stable while labor-intensive production is fluctuating), and changing sociodemographic trends resulting in a limited supply of entry-level native workers (rise in divorce rates, decline in birth rate, female workforce engagement, and extension of formal education)

                                              iv.      World systems theory seeks to explain international migration as a structural consequence of the expansion of markets within a global political hierarchy composed of a “core,” “periphery,” and “semiperiphery”

1.      The penetration of capitalist economic relations into noncapitalist or precapitalist societies creates a mobile population prone to migrate, as capitalists consolidate landholding and mechanize production, reducing the jobs available

2.      Globalization, as firms from the core enter the periphery and semiperiphery for exploitation, creates material, military, and ideological links to the places where the capital originates

                                                v.      Social capital theory explains that having a migrant in one’s social network transforms that tie into a resource that can be used to gain access to foreign employment, so that each instance of migration creates social capital among the people to whom that migrant is connected, increasing their odds of migrating

1.      The first people to migrate have the highest costs to resettlement, as they have no social ties abroad they can draw on; after they have left, however, the costs are substantially lower for the friends and family left behind

                                              vi.      Cumulative causation argues that each act of migration makes additional movement progressively more likely

1.      This occurs through the expansion of networks, the distribution of income, the distribution of land, the organization of agriculture, culture, the regional distribution of human capital, the social meaning of work, and the structure of production

c.       A SYNTHETIC THEORETICAL ACCOUNT

                                                  i.      Because each of these theories explains a different aspect of migration flows, they can be synthesized into one grand theory of migration

1.      Neoclassical model says that migration from developing countries occurs as traditional livelihoods vanish, so people look for new ways to earn money on the national and international labor market

2.      However, international wage differentials are not the only factor motivating people to migrate; the new economic theory says that households struggling to cope with these changes use international migration as a means of overcoming local market failures

3.      In the wealthy countries, jobs in the secondary sector are shunned by native workers because of their low pay, poor stability, and few opportunities for advancement; segmented labor market theory says that this creates a structural demand for immigrant labor

4.      Links of transportation and communication, as well as politics and culture, make the international movement of people possible as core capitalist nations look for opportunities in the developing periphery and semi-periphery; these foreign entanglements create links and obligations that pave the way for migrants and refugees in the world systems theory

5.      Labor recruitment eventually becomes superfluous as immigration tends to continue through the growth of migrant networks according to social capital theory; the concentration of immigrants in certain destinations channels further immigrants into the same ethnic enclaves, facilitating their arrival and incorporation

6.      The spread of migratory behavior within sending communities sets off structural changes, shifting distributions of income and status and modifying local cultures in ways that promote additional international movement in a self-perpetuating cycle, according to the theory of cumulative causation

d.      MIGRATION THEORY RECONSIDERED

                                                  i.      World systems theory, segmented labor market theory, and neoclassical macroeconomic theory offer explanations for why developed countries attract immigrants

                                                ii.      Social capital theory and world systems theory explain how structural links emerge to connect areas of origin and destination

                                              iii.      Neoclassical economics and the new economics of labor migration deal with the motivations of the people who become international migrants

                                              iv.      The theory of cumulative causation describes how international migration promotes changes in personal motivations and origin, destination, and intervening structures to give immigration a self-perpetuating, dynamic character

                                                v.      This seemingly complete theoretical account neglects to consider the impact of the state and state policies in both sending and receiving countries, and their impact on both push and pull factors to migration

A. Portes. “Immigration Theory for a New Century: Some Problems and Opportunities.”

a.       FOUR COMMON PITFALLS

                                                  i.      The accumulation of data does not always lead to theoretical innovation (“theories do not grow additively”); instead, theoretical breakthroughs arise from the ability to make new connections not previously seen

1.      Observations that some migrant groups are entrepreneurs who choose to live and work in low-income areas led to the theory of middleman minorities and ethnic enclaves

                                                ii.      Migration studies are largely data-driven and rely on self-reporting, yet “theories do not necessarily correspond to people’s perceptions”; immigrants may not be aware of the broader issues shaping their experiences, or may have a different opinion of them than researchers, which are only useful if the subjective experience is what the theory is attempting to explain

1.      Korean immigrants in Baltimore have developed a middleman economy in the African American inner city, yet they would deny that they are doing this when asked

                                              iii.      Typologies, including administrative categories (undocumented aliens, quota and nonquota migrants, skilled labor, refugees, etc.) are not theories; they may become building blocks for theories but they only assert differences without specifying their origins or anticipating consequences

1.      Typologies enter the construction of theory as interaction effects (the assimilation of children of professional immigrants is easier than those of labor immigrants) or categorical endogenous values (the range of a variable to be explained through characteristics of immigrant families and the receiving society)

2.      A fully-fledged theory should have a description of specific instances, an identification and definition of a process or characteristic to be explained (the dependent variable), one or more explanatory factors and their types of effects, and a logical link with other similar propositions

                                              iv.      Just as typologies are too specific to time and place to become theories, so too there is no overall encompassing theory of immigration; macro and micro-level forces leading to migration are nearly impossible to unite in one grand theory

1.      Migration theories can be organized instead in sub-fields such as the origins of immigration, the directionality and continuity of migrant flows, the utilization of immigrant labor, and the sociocultural adaptation of immigrants

b.      SAMPLER OF THEMES FOR IMMIGRATION RESEARCH AND THEORY

                                                  i.      Transnational communities, or dense networks of immigrants seeking economic and/or social advancement which span political borders, and whose members lead dual lives

1.      Transnational migrants occupy social fields spanning geographic, cultural, and political borders; technologies facilitating the rapid spread of people and information around the world have made it easier for these transnational migrants to exist today

                                                ii.      The new second generation are the ones most affected by adaptation processes, which are much different today than for earlier waves of European immigrants in America

1.      The proliferation of transnational activities, discrimination against nonwhites, and structural opposition to mainstream society are all new phenomena that may limit the assimilation of the new second generation

                                              iii.      Households and gender have frequently been ignored in migration literature, but the relationships between the sexes and the influence this has on the immigration process must be considered

                                              iv.      The role of states and state building in the onset of refugee flows is another line of investigation, as is the analysis of the external and internal pressures on legislators who deal with immigration

1.      “Path dependence” and “cumulative causation” can explain the persistence of immigration flows despite public opposition, while Merton’s concept of “unintended consequences” can explain how legislation intended to curb immigration actually ends up promoting it

                                                v.      Comparative projects focusing on abstract research topics and using a cross-national methodology are needed; this approach can encompass all the other suggested fields of research as well

1.      Cross-national research is useful to determine the applicability of theories to different national contexts, to generate typologies of interaction effects across different national contexts, and to produce concepts and propositions of broader scope