4 - Popular Attitudes towards Immigration Regulation

Summary

Chapter 4 investigates whether the public endorses the institutional and policy developments described in the previous chapter. It considers the ‘soft’ norms that legitimize the liberal state’s exclusionary immigration and human mobility policies. Utilizing public opinion data derived from the Gallup, Pew, European Social, Eurobarometer, European Value, and World Value Surveys, it finds that the expansive migration policy playing field and its restrictive immigration measures are endorsed by most Europeans and Americans, that is, the public prioritizes the strict regulation of immigration strictly even when, in the process, its civil liberties and those of migrants are contravened. It argues that the success of the liberal state’s immigration and human mobility policies not only depends upon the compliance and active cooperation of non-central state actors, but also derives from the public’s trust that the state and its surrogate immigration gatekeepers are acting on its behalf and in its interests.