Immigration and freedom

Publication Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

3-2020

Abstract

Immigration is the subject that dominates politics in our time, most particularly in the liberal democratic Western countries of Europe, North America, and Australasia. While immigration has become an issue in many other nations – from Singapore looking to manage local attitudes to its large expatriate population, to Colombia facing an influx of desperate Venezuelans – in the liberal democracies it has provoked a backlash against outsiders as politicians as well as analysts of various stripes identify it as an existential question. Immigration for many is not just a source of unwelcome competition in the labour market or a problem for citizens struggling to gain access to over-subscribed public services from transport to health care. The threat it poses is not a financial one, or a matter of inconvenience, but an existential one. Immigration poses a threat to fundamental liberal, democratic (American, Australian, Canadian, British, or European) values. It is for this reason above all that immigration must be controlled: to protect those values; and, by doing so, for these countries to take (back) control of their destinies. To some extent, it is the fear of losing control more broadly speaking that drives the imperative to control immigration.

Keywords

Politics, General Interest, Popular Science, Politics and International Relations, General Science

Discipline

Political Science

Research Areas

Political Science

Publication

Migration

Editor

Johannes Knolle & James Poskett

First Page

18

Last Page

49

ISBN

9781108778497

Identifier

10.1017/9781108778497.003

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

City or Country

Cambridge

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108778497.003

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