Public opinion,social cohesion,and the politics of immigration in South Korea

This article analyses public opinion in order to explore the politics of immigration in South Korea. It argues that there are divergent views about immigration and the obligations of the host society to accommodate migrants. Younger, better-educated citizens are representative of a majority that has a generally positive view of immigrants and immigration. A sizeable minority of older and less well-educated citizens, however, is warier of immigration and its effects on South Korean society. Men were more likely than women to have a positive view of immigration, but the differences along gender lines were small. The article also finds that attitudes towards immigration depend to a significant degree on how migrants are described. It thereby highlights the possibility that South Korea’s leaders could use immigration for political gain while also seeking to attract new migrants in order to resolve the country’s economic and demographic problems.     

America's immigration "problem."

Immigration has traditionally aroused strong passions in the US. Though Americans profess pride in their history as a nation of immigrants, each new wave of immigrants is met with strenuous opposition. Sassen points out that this opposition underestimates the US's capacity to absorb more people and fails to appreciate the political and economic forces that give rise to immigration. The outcry over rising illegal immigration culminated in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. So far, the law's effectiveness has been limited. 1.8 million immigrants applied to regularize their status. However, there is growing evidence that the employer sanctions program is resulting in discrimination against minority workers who are US citizens, and in various abuses against undocumented workers. Meanwhile, illegal immigration continues to rise. The 1986 law, like earlier laws, is based o a faulty understanding of immigration causes. The US played a crucial role in the 1960s and 1970s in developing today's global economic system. This system contributed to the creation of pools of potential immigrants and to the formation of links between the industrialized and developing countries. In sum, foreign investment and promotion of export-oriented growth i the US in developing countries has served to increase immigration to the US. A workable US immigration policy would be based o the recognition that the US bears a certain amount of responsibility for international labor migrations. The precise features of a fair immigration policy will have to be elaborated. However, it is clear that US immigration policy will continue to be counterproductive as long as it places the responsibility for the formation of international migrations exclusively upon the migrants themselves.     

Immigration to Ghana

Abstract

The globalization of international labor migration is manifest in all countries now engaging in migration systems that are growing in size and complexity and producing an increasing diversity of flows. Furthermore, many of the processes that create and drive these systems operate on a worldwide basis, the consequence of economic globalization, capital mobility and widespread realization by governments that human resources can be traded for profit like any other resource.

This paper looks at Ghana's immigration policy in the light of its economic situation. It characterizes Ghana's immigration policy as geared towards using immigration to attract critical foreign investment, transfer of technology and human resource capital/skills for socio-economic development. Running concurrently is the policy to prevent illegal immigration, transnational crime, economic exploitation, social corruption and human trafficking.

The paper concludes that when the economic situation of Ghana was buoyant in the 1960s it attracted many immigrants especially from neighboring West African countries, however when the country's economy saw a down turn, immigrants were used as a convenient scapegoat and many were expelled. The irony though is that while the current poor economic situation of Ghana has made Ghanaians to immigrate to other countries, the political stability of the country does attract other West Africans and non-Africans and it is affording the country the opportunity to streamline its immigration and citizenship laws.     

Russia as a New Immigration Country: Policy Response and Public Debate

Both the Russian public and its elites were taken by surprise by the fact that Russia has become an immigration country. It has resulted in widespread anti-immigrant sentiments and inconsistency in government actions. Russian immigration politics, as well as immigration politics in liberal democracies of the West, are characterised by a wavering between protectionist and liberal laissez faire approaches. This leads to a mismatch between public rhetoric and legal decisions. However, two features seem to make the Russian situation specific: open borders with most of the countries of the former Soviet Union and omnipresent corruption. Corruption results in a discrepancy between formal (legal) decisions and informal (illegal) practices.     

Attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy in Asia and the Pacific: a quantitative assessment of current theoretical models beyond western countries

This article empirically assesses the validity of current theoretical models of attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy in the Asia-Pacific region. This paper takes representative data from the World Values Survey and implements a multilevel model to test five of the main theories in the literature: the human capital theory, the social capital theory, the political orientation theory, the contact/group threat theory and the economic competition theory. The results from the analysis lend credence to the important effects of human capital, social capital and political-ideological variables on respondents’ attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy. However, the results provide mixed and weak evidence for the contact/group threat theory and the role of economic determinants. Importantly, economic determinants tend to be more powerful in shaping people's attitudes toward immigration policy than shaping attitudes toward immigrants as people. Altogether, this article sheds new light on the validity of current theoretical models based on western countries for other areas of the world. Finally, the results from the paper also support the usefulness of non-economic, as opposed to purely economic, models in the understanding of individuals’ attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy in the Asia-Pacific region.     

The making of Amerexico: (mis)handling illegal immigration

The border and social policies that the United States shares with Mexico have had only a modest impact on the level of illegal immigration. Alternative methods could reduce the social backlash against Mexican immigrants in US states of destination. Federal Relief Aid to states affected by new arrivals would ameliorate hostility. Although economic stagnation may depress the flow of immigrants or job opportunities, legal or illegal, economic recovery is dependent on the hard work of immigrants. The political solution has been to tighten border controls. Other options are possible. There should be pressure placed on multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to incorporate immigration issues in economic policy decisions. Many market reforms have contributed to greater emigration. The US has the option to use both supply and demand side options. Enforcement of workplace rules on minimum wages and health and safety standards would make it more difficult to exploit immigrant workers and would decrease the incentive to hire illegal workers. In a deregulated market stricter work standards were considered difficult to attain. A 1993 opinion poll revealed that 65% thought immigration was not beneficial. Border apprehension rates have increased dramatically over the past 30 years. The most recent policies aim to encourage the mobility of capital and trade through the NAFTA free trade agreement while trying to discourage human resource mobility. The push factors in Mexico are identified as high levels of poverty and unemployment, overpopulation, and economic stagnation. NAFTA and prior economic development efforts have not addressed the push factors. Disruption of traditional ways and changes toward greater industrialization spur emigration. The US program to develop border export industry encouraged migration from the interior of Mexico to border areas. Recent Mexican policies have changed the incentives for small farmers to stay on their lands, and Mexican urban areas are overpopulated. Experience has taught that migration flows are easier to start than stop.     

Immigration to Portugal

Abstract

A peripheral West European country with a medium-sized population, Portugal experienced since the late 1990s a radical change in its migration trends, with growing and constant immigration flows. Not only the number of legal immigrants duplicated, but also the profile of immigrants changed and diversified. As a result, Portugal's public policies were challenged, and new social questions emerged. In particular, both public and private bodies have to deal with an increasing segmentation of the composition of immigration and of the labor market employing immigrants. Portugal still has not opted clearly for a model of immigration, and adaptation to these changes promises not to be easy, especially because the Portuguese society is simultaneously facing tensions deriving from its own     

On the Age Against the Poor

Abstract

This article focuses on Dominican migration to the United States (U.S.) after 1965. Dominicans left their homeland pressured by economic needs, the desire to improve their lives, and encouraged by a de facto immigration policy that facilitated their exodus. Once in the U.S., most Dominicans encounter an economy that increasingly demands skills and levels of schooling they do not possess. Rather than a prosperous life, in the new land, Dominicans face high unemployment levels and an alarming state of poverty. Paradoxically, while the needs of Dominicans continue to be unmet in the new society, the social policies and the conditions that push them out of their country remain in effect. On its part, the U.S. has responded by adopting a number of immigration laws to control the entrance of unwanted and unneeded job-seekers. As a result, the number of Dominicans coming to the U.S. has begun to decline as the number of Dominicans deported to the Dominican Republic has increased. In the end, poor Dominicans are pushed back and forth by both societies whose immigration policies mask their unwillingness to respond to the needs of the group. The article also discusses the impact on the Dominican community of 9/11 and the crashing of the AA flight 587, on November 12, 2001.     

The Russian Radical Right Movement and Immigration Policy: Do They Just Make Noise or Have an Impact as Well?

This article examines how, if at all, the mobilisation of the Russian Movement Against Illegal Immigration has had an impact on changes in Russian policies. Little is known about the outcomes of radical right movements in general or the Russian radical right in particular. The Movement Against Illegal Immigration has arguably played a role in shaping negative public attitudes towards immigration. On the other hand, the Russian government has not adopted any clear nationalistic anti-immigration policy frame. We show that disruptive events of Movement Against Illegal Immigration's mobilisation have caused reactions in terms of the elite discourse on immigration and restrictive immigration legislation.     

THE NEW U. S. IMMIGRANTS: HOW DO THEY AFFECT OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE?

The implications of recent immigration for race relations in the United States depend importantly on family cultural orientations among Mexican Americans and how this group is culturally perceived by Anglos. Because Moynihan's 1965 work (in)famously emphasized the need to change black family culture in order to ameliorate black poverty, his work still holds implications for understanding how cultural orientations affect changing color lines. Unfortunately, his partially insightful analyses inadequately foresaw that policies designed to alleviate poverty through the modification of family cultural patterns are likely to fail without parallel changes in structural opportunities. Similar limitations also often emerge from mis-characterizations of Mexican origin family cultural situations, which all too often are incongruously reified as either being unduly familistic (thus falsely implying Mexican origin families foster self-sufficiency) or largely governed by culture of poverty tendencies (thus inaccurately suggesting Mexican origin families depend on welfare). Here we review research suggesting that Mexican origin families are neither substantially familistic nor disproportionately susceptible to moral hazard, thus indicating that future Mexican origin economic advancement is likely to turn on the availability of structural opportunities. In-depth interviews with Anglos further suggest that Mexicans are not culturally viewed with the same degree of prejudice and discrimination as blacks, implying that the integration of Mexicans into American society, contingent on adequate economic opportunity, will probably progress more steadily than often feared, while that of blacks may proceed more slowly than often expected.     

INTRODUCTION: EXPLOITING IT IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION - TOWARDS THE INFORMATION POLITY?

This introduction to the theme issue on Towards the Information Polity? Public Administration in the information age presents the case for the systematic academic investigation of the changing relationships which characterize the ‘information polity’. This perspective on the information polity focuses on the significance of new kinds of informational resources and flows in government, and their interaction with broad directions of reform in contemporary public administration, including the new public management. It is argued that, whereas the literature of business strategy has emphasized the economic logic by which ‘informatization’ encourages organizational transformation, the articles in this issue demonstrate the importance of wider cultural, organizational and political factors to understanding processes of informatization and the changing nature of the emergent ‘information polity’.     

Delivering Political Power to Language Minorities: Voting,Elections, and the Rights of Language Minorities

This article examines the significance of emerging international interdependency and how it may influence the teaching of Public Affairs/Administration (PA) in the next decade. Postwar demand for international courses is described along with a different set of contemporary factors that is internationalizing traditionally domestic sectors of society. The growing importance of policy issues such as international trade and economic competition, immigration, and terrorism is examined along with the possible effect on education. The potential roles of public administrators are also outlined and recommendations are made for ways in which the PA community can assess its response to an internationalized policy environment.     

Immigration and the Remaking of New York

Abstract

The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolished quotas that favored European immigrants, and for the first time placed all countries on an equal footing. The law resulted in increased overall immigration, and altered the sources of immigrants to the U.S. Since 1970, New York City has absorbed 2.6 million immigrants, primarily from non-European sources, who have dramatically altered the City's racial/Hispanic mix. Using immigration and birth records, as well as data from decennial censuses, this paper examines immigration to New York and assesses the demographic impact of these flows on the City's population.

Current immigrant flows have noticeably increased the ethnic diversity within the major race/Hispanic groups. This is largely due to increases in refugee flows, and to recent changes in immigration law that allow for “diversity” visas, which are aimed at countries that are under-represented in immigration flows to the U.S. Diversity immigration has provided New York with a continuing flow of new groups, most recently from Bangladesh, Mexico, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal, who have established enclaves in many of the City's neighborhoods. The increasing diversity poses serious challenges for social service and health care professionals, who need to devise new strategies to deal with the disparate socioeconomic backgrounds, cultures, and belief systems of new ethnic groups. This is especially important given that New York's ethnic mix will continue to be churned, especially by way of diversity immigration and refugee flows from all parts of the globe.     

Debt Politics and the Free Trade ‘Package’: the case of the Caribbean

While much has been written on how powerful institutions have used debt crises to foist free trade agreements on poorer states, this paper explores how the foisting of free trade agreements on poorer states has resulted in debt crises. Part one critiques the common-sense understanding of ‘free trade’ as a mere technical or policy issue, arguing that it is an intricate political, economic and ideological ‘package’ rooted in complex social, historical and cultural forces. Part two explores the role of debt in the free trade package by examining the impact of free trade agreements on the Caribbean over the past decade, during which time the region has experienced growing public and personal debt crises, further fuelled by an aid packages that included millions of dollars of concessional loans. It is argued that the contradictions of ‘free trade’ are mitigated through a ‘debt for trade’ paradigm, which Caribbean states are beginning to subvert through new preferential South–South partnerships.     

Public attitudes toward immigration policies in South Korea

ABSTRACT

This paper examines whether economic or socio-psychological concerns determine anti-immigration attitudes in South Korea, in an effort to address regional asymmetries in existing immigration studies. An analysis reveals that labour market competition and fiscal burden concerns do not affect anti-immigration attitudes, but xenophobia, the conceptual views of citizenship, and the expectation of the impact of immigration on the national economy determine anti-immigration attitudes, a result in keeping with existing studies of anti-immigration attitudes in European or North American countries. However, when policies have humanitarian dimensions, the ethno-cultural views of Korean identity tend to reduce anti-immigration attitudes, a finding that runs counter to the empirical results from studies in the Western context. In addition, multiculturalism appears to affect anti-immigration attitudes when measured in terms of general immigration policies, but not when specific immigration groups are referenced. I conclude by discussing the implications of these new findings.     

A Desire for Isolation? Mass Public Attitudes in South Africa Toward Immigration Levels

In the last decade incidents of xenophobia in South Africa have been prevalent. Are such anti-immigration attitudes related to a desire for isolationism in the country and support for a withdrawal from world affairs? Using data from the 2013 round of the nationally representative South African Social Attitudes Survey (N = 2,739), this article was able to shed light on determinants of anti-immigration attitudes using multivariate techniques. Foreign policy attitudes and cultural patriotism were found to be salient determinants of attitudes toward preferred immigration level. Support for isolationism was a better predictor than economic position. The findings suggest that discouraging isolationism would reduce xenophobia in the country.     

The Changing U.S. Immigration Policy on the Nexus of Security and Economy: Extending Visa-Waiver Program and Advocacy-Coalition Framework

By examining the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) in the case of the U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP), this article suggests that a dynamic foreign policy change on immigration issues is a function of trade-off between economy and security. In other words, when policy makers ensure that economic gains can offset security loss and vice versa, policy change in immigration issues is rapidly made. Two polarizing advocacy coalitions, security-concerned and economy-concerned, exist within the policy subsystem on the VWP and each coalition has different belief systems, policy actors and stakeholders.     

Newly Arrived West Indian Adolescents

Abstract

This study explores patterns of adjustment among newly arrived West Indian adolescents. In particular, it focuses on the concurrent developmental and cultural transitions of immigration and adolescence. Barriers to adjustment and patterns of identity formation are explored and discussed within the context of a typological developmental model. Findings of this study are based on the responses of 25 newly arrived adolescents from six Caribbean countries regarding their adjustment to New York City schools. The data analysis identifies various structural and immigration-based factors, which challenge the social and psychological adjustment of new immigrant adolescents. It highlights the effect of culture and immigration on attachment to school and society and supports the need for increased social work intervention in mediating between homes and schools of new immigrants.     

‘LEADERISM’: AN EVOLUTION OF MANAGERIALISM IN UK PUBLIC SERVICE REFORM

This paper argues that ‘leaderism’– as an emerging set of beliefs that frames and justifies certain innovatory changes in contemporary organizational and managerial practice – is a development of managerialism that has been utilized and applied within the policy discourse of public service reform in the UK. The paper suggests that ‘leaderism’ is an evolution of entrepreneurial and cultural management ideologies and practices. An analysis of the articulation of leaderism with public service reform in the UK is presented. The paper problematizes the construals of leadership contained within these texts and reflects on their promotion of leadership as a social and organizational technology. ‘Leaderism’ is argued to be a complementary set of discourses, metaphors and practices to those of managerialism, which is being utilized in support of the evolution of NPM and new public governance approaches in the re‐orientation of the public services towards the consumer‐citizen.     

Quiet Casualties: An Analysis of U Non-Immigrant Status of Undocumented Immigrant Victims of Intimate Partner Violence

Although immigration policy is a key component of public administration scholarship in the United States, research into Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) for both documented and particularly undocumented immigrants has been tangential in focus. This exploratory study questions 1. the effect of immigration reform on U.S. undocumented immigrant women of IPV and

2. how changes in the number of undocumented immigrants affect IPV victimization rates and the regulations concerning U non-immigrant status.

A least-square trend line suggests that the 10,000 U visa applications permitted annually will not cover the undocumented female population of IPV let alone the victims qualified under the U non-immigrant status. Based on a review of the laws and policies regarding the U-Visa we provide several recommendations to reform immigration laws directed toward immigrant victims of IPV. This study adds to the growing, but still weak body of knowledge on abused immigrant female populations in the United States and how federal legislation toward immigration reform and policy will help these women become valuable contributors to our society.