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Are "Nondiscriminatory" Immigration Policies Reversible?

Evidence From the United States and Australia

International University Bremen

In the English-speaking settler states, the notion of "nondiscriminatory" immigration policy has the precise meaning of eschewing ethnicity, race, and national origins as selection criteria in the context of past policies that had blatantly resorted to them. There has been an interesting recent debate over whether the commitment to nondiscrimination has consolidated into a "structural feature of liberal democracy" (G. Freeman), or whether it is a conjunctural "feature of public discussion at certain times and places" (R. Brubaker), and thus could be easily reversed. Evidence from the United States and Australia can adjudicate this debate in favor of the structural position. Three factors are identified that shore up nondiscriminatory immigration policies: the general acceptance of the nondiscrimination norm, even by those who are opposed to some of its effects; the shrinking demographic possibility of ethnic selectivity "by subterfuge"; and the instantly mobilizeable memory of settler states’ racist pasts.

Key Words: immigration policy • ethnic and race relations • human rights • United States • Australia

Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 38, No. 1, 3-25 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0010414004270887


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