Western democracies have economic interests to admit immigrants but at the same time fear the political costs of doing so.
A recurring idea to reconcile this tension is temporary migration to fulfill domestic labour needs while restricting the permanent settlement of immigrants. So far, we have, however, a limited understanding of how immigration policies regulate the temporality of migration. This article seeks to address this gap by studying whether and when liberal democracies design policies that prioritize (temporary) mobility over (permanent) migration. First, I systematize the underlying rationale of states for such a mobility-preference. Second, I identify rights-based policy-making, path-dependence and partisan politics as explanatory factors for how immigration policies regulate the temporality of migration. Third, I test the arguments by analysing the combination of entry and stay regulations in the immigration policies of 33 OECD countries between 1980 and 2010. The results confirm that liberal democracies tend to favour mobility over migration, but that such policy designs are limited due to legal constraints and tend to decline the more countries become familiar with large-scale immigration. These findings suggest that the temporal perspective is an important factor in how states seek to regulate international migration and how they manoeuvre the trade-off between conflicting demands.
Philipp Lutz is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the University of Geneva (Switzerland), Fellow of the Swiss national science program NCCR on the move, and currently a Visiting Fellow at the European Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science. He obtained his PhD in Political Science from the University of Bern in 2019. Philipp's main research interest is in understanding the political consequences of international migration and European integration, covering comparative politics as well as international governance. His work has been published in journals such as West European Politics, Journal of European Public Policy, European Journal of Political Research, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Common Market Studies, and Party Politics.
Angelo Martelli is Assistant Professor in European and International Political Economy at the LSE European Institute.