Turning the Immigration Policy Paradox Upside Down? Populist Liberalism and Discursive Gaps in South America

Diego Acosta Arcarazo and Luisa Feline Freier

International Migration Review, 2015, vol. 49, issue 3, 659-696

Abstract: type="main" xml:id="imre12146-abs-0001">

A paradox of officially rejecting but covertly accepting irregular migrants has long been identified in the immigration policies of Western immigrant receiving states. In South America, on the other hand, a liberal discourse of universally welcoming all immigrants, irrespective of their origin and migratory status, has replaced the formally restrictive, securitized and not seldomly ethnically selective immigration rhetoric. This discursive liberalization has found partial translation into immigration laws and policies, but contrary to the universality of rights claimed in their discourses, governments reject recently increasing irregular south–south migration from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean to varying degrees. This paper applies a mixed methodological approach of discourse and legal analysis and process tracing to explore in how far recent immigration policies in South America constitute a liberal turn, or rather a reverse immigration policy paradox of officially welcoming but covertly rejecting irregular migrants. Based on the comparative analysis of Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador, the study identifies and explains South American “populist liberalism” in the sphere of migration. We highlight important implications for migration theory, thereby opening up new avenues of research on immigration policy making outside Western liberal democracies, and particularly in predominantly migrant sending countries.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/imre.2015.49.issue-3 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:intmig:v:49:y:2015:i:3:p:659-696

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0197-9183

Access Statistics for this article

International Migration Review is currently edited by Ellen Percy Kraly

More articles in International Migration Review from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().