Understanding Migration: The Case for Public Administration

ABSTRACT

Migration has emerged as a key issue for governments in the 21^st century. While multiple disciplines address migration, the study of public administration has been slow to do so. Given the complexities of migration policy implementation, and the multiple levels of government involved, public administration can add significantly to the current understandings of the phenomenon. This article examines what is known on migration, what still needs to be understood, and how public administration can assist in understanding migration.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• immigration
• developing countries
• governance
• implementation
• public policy

Notes

1. MERCOSUR has an additional five associate members who do not have full voting rights or complete access to markets associated with full membership.

2. The North America Free Trade Agreement could also be included here as an economic integration framework; however, its intentions at the time of passing were to limit mobility rather than liberalize it, and nothing since its passage has altered this intention (no matter its ultimate achievements on this front; see Martin, 2011).

3. By way of comparison, the US Immigration Act of 1965 capped migrants from the Western Hemisphere at 120,000 and from the Eastern Hemisphere at 170,000. Six percent of all visas were designated for refugees. See (Gillon, 2000, pp. 174–175).

4. For a thorough review of the migration policymaking process in the United Kingdom see Boswell (2012); Spencer (2011).

5. Scholars have extensively examined the capacity of the state to affect everything from economic development (Evans & Rauch, 1999; Hanson, 2008; Herbst, 2011; Migdal, 1988; North, 1990) to stability and conflict (Acemoglu & Johnson, 2005; Skocpol, 1979; Tilly, 2007).