The inconsistency of immigration policy: the limits of “Top-down” approaches

Abstract

To what extent can we infer government objectives from policies on paper? We show that this assumption in migration scholarship is problematic because most states adopt immigration policies that are inconsistent, combining or alternating between contradictory objectives. Further, we develop a measure to track how immigration policy inconsistency varies over time. We use these methods to demonstrate that some of the main theories of policy inconsistency, which focus on variables located at the national scale, find limited empirical support. Based on these findings, we make the case for further research into the local scale of politics, focusing on the agency of street-level bureaucrats and migrants. We then discuss the potential for crossing quantitative and qualitative divides in order to further explore the impact of local factors on national immigration policies.