Who needs Labour Migrants? Exploring the Politics of Immigration Policy-Making in Europe

This paper analyses the policy-making process and its outcome regarding the regulation of labour migration in Austria and Sweden with a more cursory overview of developments in the Czech Republic. The significance of specific domestic actors in shaping immigration policy remains underspecified and undertheorized in the existent literature. Past scholarly efforts also largely neglect the role of employer organizations and trade unions. This project examines the nature of immigration policy design between 2000-2013. Despite ostensible similarities regarding institutional features of the political economy, the policy outcomes in both countries vary dramatically. This is explored by tracing the role of employer associations and their lobbying strategies in shaping policymaking, especially regarding skilled migration. Employers will emphasize more liberal provisions for workers with skill sets that are complementary to the existing institutionally conditioned production structure. Ceteris paribus this implies a primary emphasis on highly skilled migrant workers. Trade unions are hypothesized to support such strategy and to impede attempts to undercut existing wages through the substandard employment of migrant labour.

Georg Menz is Professor in Political Economy at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Recent book publications include “The Political Economy of Managed Migration” (Oxford), “Varieties of Capitalism and Europeanization: national Response Strategies to the Single Market” (Oxford), “Labour Migration in Europe”(Palgrave) and “Internalizing Globalization: The Rise of Neoliberalism and the Decline of National Varieties of Capitalism” (Palgrave). He is currently writing a book on Comparative Political Economy and editing a second on the Future of Social Europe. He has also published numerous articles in scholarly journals on questions of migration, the effects of Europeanization and economic liberalization, and labour and social policy. He has served as Visiting Scholar at Pittsburgh, EUI Florence, ANU, Oxford, and MPI Cologne.