Circumventing deadlock through venue-shopping: why there is more than just talk in US immigration politics in times of economic crisis

This article addresses the question of how the financial and economic crisis that hit the USA in the late 2000s impacted immigration policies. We find that the crisis has not significantly changed dynamics. Instead, it has highlighted and aggravated persisting trends. Drawing on Kingdon's multi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of ethnic and migration studies 2016-08, Vol.42 (10), p.1590-1609
Main Authors: Zaun, Natascha, Roos, Christof, Gülzau, Fabian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Changes
Deadlock
Economic crisis
Economic problems
Executive orders
Games
Immigration
immigration policies
Immigration policy
Legislatures
multiple streams
Policy making
Political change
Politics
Presidents
Reforms
Shopping
USA
venue-shopping
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This article addresses the question of how the financial and economic crisis that hit the USA in the late 2000s impacted immigration policies. We find that the crisis has not significantly changed dynamics. Instead, it has highlighted and aggravated persisting trends. Drawing on Kingdon's multiple streams model and combining it with the notion of two-level games, we find that while the policy stream and the problem stream would call for both restrictive and liberalising changes, the political stream impedes change: the fact that Congress has been divided for a long time over comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) impedes any restrictive or liberalising changes. With problems resulting from current policies being intensified through the global economic crisis, however, actors favouring either restrictive or liberal policy change look for alternative venues to pursue their policy aims. Through legislative changes on the state level or via executive orders by the president, policies can be changed on a lower level without CIR.
ISSN:1369-183X
1469-9451
DOI:10.1080/1369183X.2016.1162356