The Leviathan of Competitiveness: How and why do liberal states (not) accept unwanted immigration?

Abstract

The article deals with issues of migration and migrant rights in Germany. Even if many scholars have elucidated with convincing clarity that Western nation-states can improve migrants' rights due to the autonomy of the legal system, this paper's focus is to point out the vulnerability of that legal process. The political and judicial regulation of migration in Germany over the last forty years shows that the discretionary power of the authorities regarding non-nationals is much stronger than for nationals. And because of the transformation of the former welfare states into 'competition states', migration policies are now likely to be subsumed under the principle of competitive advantage. In this study I reaffirm that the judicial improvement of migrant rights should be primarily understood in terms of the nation-state, and refer to general political and economic conditions that the courts can not (or will not) disregard in their decision-making process.