Erica Consterdine

Managed Migration under Labour: Organised Public, Party Ideology and Policy Change

Under the Labour governments of 1997–2010, Britain’s economic immigration policy was transformed from a system underpinned by restriction to a comparatively expansive regime. Based on over 50 elite interviews, the article sets out to explain why economic immigration policy shifted so radically, by examining how the organised public and political elites influenced policy and policy change. The article tests Gary Freeman’s client politics model and challenges the claim that sections of the organised public drove the expansionary reforms. In contrast, it is argued that the logic and idea behind the policy reforms were fundamentally underpinned by the Labour Party’s Third Way framework, in particular the Party’s business-friendly approach and its fixation with globalisation. The article demonstrates that immigration policy-making in Britain is an elite-driven pursuit, and that parties, and the ideas which configure them, shape immigration policy.

Opening or closing borders to international students? Convergent and divergent dynamics in France, Spain and the UK

ABSTRACT While attracting international students is the declared objective of many countries of the global North, the regulation of movements of this migrant group does not escape the tensions that characterise policymaking on migration. This paper compares the evolution of student migration policies in three major European destinations – France, Spain and the UK – since the late 1990s. The aim is to evaluate whether policies in this area have converged or not, and the factors behind their evolution. Our findings suggest that despite common forces encouraging convergence, country-specific factors, such as countries’ migration history and the political force in power, seem crucial in explaining important differences in actual policies across the three countries.

Community Versus Commonwealth: Reappraising the 1971 Immigration Act

Abstract The 1971 Immigration Act constitutes the most important piece of legislation for the regulation of immigration to Britain. Many assume that the Act was simply a further extension of the restrictive measures established over the post-war period to end non-white immigration. Based on original archival material, I argue that the Act was established in reaction to the dilemma the government faced as a result of joining the European Economic Community and the free movement of workers against Commonwealth migrants. The Act represents the final dismantling of universal Commonwealth citizenship and, in this sense, a definitive acceptance of the end of the Empire.

An Unintended Consequence

This concluding chapter summarises the key findings, presents an overarching explanation for policy change and offers explanatory insights for scholars of policy change generally. This case in many ways resembles a critical juncture, as this set of favourable conditions provided a window of opportunity in which structural influences on political action were relaxed. These conditions—strong economy, strong majority government and a weak opposition—coincided at the same time and consequently prompted a moment for political actors to overcome the usual bias towards inertia (in this case a restrictive policy frame). The concluding chapter argues that while the expansionary developments were not caused by one single factor, a set of favourable conditions allowed for a shift in immigration policy and thus calls for complex causality.

In Whose Interest? Organised Interests, Policy Networks and Collective Action

This chapter turns to the role of non-state actors in Labour’s immigration policy. Gary Freeman argues that a shift to liberalisation occurs because well-organised pro-immigration clients exercise a disproportionate influence over the policymaking process compared with the unorganised, anti-immigration public. Accordingly, political elites respond to such demands to gain electoral support from interest groups. Testing Freeman’s proposition, this chapter examines whether expansive economic immigration policies in Britain occurred because of organised interests’ lobbying government. The chapter presents a narrative of the activities of non-state actors in economic immigration policymaking under Labour, where the findings reveal that the role of non-state actors in prompting policy change was limited

A Framework for Understanding Immigration Policy

This chapter provides the theoretical and conceptual grounding that the book uses to explain policy transformation. Three approaches that explain government action and political elite preferences to immigration have come to dominate the field in political science: interest group, partisan politics and institutionalist approaches. The chapter details how different sets of actors, including non-governmental actors, political parties and civil servants, are said to influence policy and establish the conceptual and analytical tools to examine how interests, ideas and institutions can prompt policy change.

Making the Migration State: The History of Britain’s Immigration Policy

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of Britain’s immigration policy from 1948 until 2010. Britain was once known as a country of ‘zero immigration’ (Freeman, Commentary. In W. Cornelius, T. Tsuda, P. Martin, & J. Hollifield (Eds.), Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective (pp. 297–303). Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994) and given that the majority of Britain’s post-war restrictive measures were targeted at non-white immigrants, many scholars contend that Britain’s immigration regime was underpinned by a racialised discourse (Paul, Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the POSTWAR Era. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997; Saggar, Race and Politics in Britain. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992; Spencer, The Migration Debate. Bristol: Policy Press, 2011; Hampshire, Citizenship and Belonging. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). In stark contrast to Britain’s past record, the Labour governments of 1997 to 2010 pursued an expansionary economic immigration policy. The chapter builds a narrative of British immigration policy from 1948 until 2010 and serves to demonstrate the unprecedented shift under the Labour governments in comparison to Britain’s post-war restrictive framing.

Bringing the State Back In: Institutional Change and the Administrative Context

The purpose of this final empirical chapter is to examine the administrative context and the policymaking process itself as an explanation for policy change. The new institutionalist approach claims it is apolitical institutions that form immigration policy according to the interests of the state. Through processes of normalisation and socialisation, certain ideas, objectives and policy framings become embedded in these institutions. The chapter adopts an instituionalist lens by examining departmental cultures, policy framings and institutional changes to policymaking practices and assesses whether such institutional changes can explain the policy shift. The chapter takes a disaggregated view of the state and particularly focuses on how the ideas of the modernised Labour Party were filtered through departmental agendas and changes to policymaking practices.

Introduction: The Puzzle of Managed Migration

The introduction establishes the book’s central puzzle: why do governments pursue expansive immigration policies. The chapter briefly outlines the case study and posits that the Labour government’s policy change was puzzling for at least two reasons. First, the existing political science literature has often emphasised the ‘path dependent’ character of immigration policy in Britain and indeed elsewhere (Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration in Post-war Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000; Tichenor, Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002). Second, as the Labour government’s liberalisation of immigration policy went against public opinion, there was no electoral dividend in expanding. The chapter goes on to argue for the relevance of the nation state in immigration policymaking before briefly reviewing the three main explanations for policy liberalisation. It ends with a chapter-by-chapter overview of the contents of the book.

Do Parties Matter? Party Ideology and Party Competition

The focus of this chapter is on the governing party and the elites that comprised it. Whilst those who have studied the relationship between parties and immigration policy have focused on party strategy, given that ‘in no Western European country can politicians or political parties gain votes by favouring new immigration’ (Lahav, JCMS, 35: 377–406, 1997, 382), expansive policies cannot be regarded as a pragmatic electoral strategy. Following 18 years in opposition, the Party that entered government in 1997 was a very different beast from previous Labour governments. The purpose of this chapter is to examine whether such changes in the party ideology shaped the immigration policy preferences of leading elites and the degree of autonomy the government had in implementing such policies.