No vacancy: the political geography of immigration control in advanced industrial countries.

This article presents a unique framework for analyzing the politics of immigration control in developed countries and reviews related political theories. The author describes distinctive patterns of immigration in selected OECD countries and standard explanations. The author argues that the costs and benefits of immigration are spatially unevenly distributed and explains how spatial concentrations affect costs and benefits, as well as how local conditions, population, and the business community create support for and opposition to immigration. Evidence from Great Britain is used to support the framework. Control of immigration is due to the power of local constituencies in creating and maintaining a national political coalition. Local constituency preferences are a systematic, but not exclusive, feature that underpin the politics of immigration control. Other factors may have periodic impacts. The case of Great Britain, during 1955-81, illustrates the importance of disaggregated analysis. Cross national analyses will reveal the variation in level of impact. Japan and Germany, with similar economic and political histories, indicate substantial differences in net demand for immigration. Conditions, such as high, rapidly increasing immigration proportions, access to social services, and higher unemployment, may lead to hostility and less community support for immigration. The theory is based on native-immigrant competition over scarce resources, variable business support depending upon the flexibility of local markets and potential for capital mobility, and the dynamics of party competition as influenced by underlying structural conditions.