Migration Control and State Power

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My dissertation project aims at changing our understanding of migration politics in Western democracies and on the international level. Political scientists have so far largely ignored the lasting impact of the institutional and ideational developments of migration politics during the 1920s. While the late 19th century had been characterised by a "liberal moment" in migration politics, the European and American "open border" tradition came to an end after WWI. In the face of migration from Eastern Europe, most Western European states and the US enacted restrictive and isolationist migration policies. From this point onwards, migration policies were separated from economic and trade considerations and immigration was framed as a potential source of threat rather than opportunity. By drawing from critical juncture and path-dependency arguments and by comparing political developments in Germany, the UK and the US with developments in the Netherlands, I set out to show that this institutional and ideational shift was not pre-determined as liberal and multilateral alternatives would have been viable. The 1920s should thus be seen as a critical juncture in the development of modern migration governance. I propose to analyse the development of norms, rules, and organisations governing trans-boundary movements as well as the establishment of people, and especially the development of ideational perceptions of migration through archival research to show that the decisions made during that time affect migration politics to this day. The payoffs of my study are threefold: First, it will introduce the 1920s as a key period to the political study of international migration governance and national migration rulemaking. I will link the past to the present by using critical juncture analysis and extending a theoretical model of ideational and institutional path-dependency developed by Desmond King, Rogers Smith, and Lucy Mayblin. Secondly, by expanding on my previous research and publications, my study will add to the growing literature on internationalism between the wars and especially its continuing political legacy by highlighting the attempts to construct a liberal global migration regime during the 1920s. Thirdly, my study has considerable policy implications by extending recent suggestions on how to effectively regulate the "orderly movement of people" on the international and how to respond to large-scale migration movements on the national level.