TY - JOUR

T1 - Circumventing deadlock through venue-shopping

T2 - why there is more than just talk in US immigration politics in times of economic crisis

AU - Zaun, Natascha

AU - Roos, Christof

AU - Gülzau, Fabian

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

PY - 2016/8/8

Y1 - 2016/8/8

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Deadlock

KW - economic crisis

KW - immigration policies

KW - multiple streams

KW - USA

KW - venue-shopping

KW - Politics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84961392398&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/1369183X.2016.1162356

DO - 10.1080/1369183X.2016.1162356

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:84961392398

VL - 42

SP - 1590

EP - 1609

JO - Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

JF - Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

SN - 1369-183X

IS - 10

ER -