The Allure of Blue Ribbon Taskforces and The Hard Reality of Immigration Grand Bargains

High status “blue-ribbon” taskforces combine prestige organizations and notable participants to help solve complex problems like immigration reform. Drawing on diverse views one of the ways they can reach common ground is through “grand bargains,” in which each side gives up contested ground to reach a solution through which they gain a major goal. In immigration reform proposals, this takes the form of trading legalization for enforcement. Yet, a closer look at this grand bargain suggestions that the give and take is asymmetric, because the benefits of legalization are immediate and the capacity for effective enforcement many years away. The Brookings-Duke Immigration Report suggests a possible way around this imbalance.     

Women's employment and industrial organisation: commercial lace embroidery in early nineteenth-century Ireland and England

Abstract

The early nineteenth century saw expanding work opportunities for women in commercial lace embroidery in Britain. This article traces the connection between the development of commercial lace embroidery in several locations – Nottingham, Essex and Limerick. Despite the fame of the Irish industry, it has received almost no academic attention. The differing structures of the Irish and English industries are examined. Aspects of lace manufacture highlight the increasing emphasis on cleanliness and the respectability of women's work in the nineteenth century. The authors suggest that to appreciate fully the impact of the Industrial Revolution on women's employment opportunities, we must look to the periphery of the national economy, as well as the centre.