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

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper compares immigration reforms across democratic and autocratic states. Mobilising two large-scale datasets, it first challenges the prevailing notion that political regime types inherently dictate immigration policy outputs. The analysis shows that although immigration is central to political debates worldwide, reforms are not that frequent and, when enacted, their restrictiveness does not consistently differ by regime type. Instead, restrictions focus on border controls and openings on entry and integration policies regardless of the political regime in place. The paper then mobilises case studies from around the globe to delve into the policy dynamics underpinning immigration reforms across regimes. It shows that while all migration states grapple with the multifaceted challenges that immigration raises, autocratic politics offers a broader toolkit to resolve the trade-offs between cultural, rights-based, economic and security issues. This creates unexpected opportunities for open immigration reforms under autocratic politics, a dynamic I call the ‘illiberal paradox’ as a counterpart to the ‘liberal paradox’ observed under democratic politics. To advance theory-building across the democracy/autocracy divide, the paper concludes by arguing that the liberal and illiberal paradox concepts are not exclusive to democratic or autocratic regimes, respectively, but are valuable analytical tools to understand immigration politics across the political regime spectrum.