The Comparative Politics of Immigration: Policy Choices in Germany, Canada, Switzerland, and the United States. By Ellermann, Antje . Cambridge, UK, 2021. 435 p. $130.00 cloth, $39.99 paper.

The Comparative Politics of Immigration: Policy Choices in Germany, Canada, Switzerland, and the United States. By Ellermann Antje. Cambridge, UK, 2021. 435 p. $130.00 cloth, $39.99 paper.

Antje Ellermann’s The Comparative Politics of Immigration: Policy Choices in Germany, Canada, Switzerland, and the United States is a consolidative, cross-national study with two main objectives: to develop a theoretical framework to investigate comparatively the politics of immigration policy making; and to offer a nuanced understanding of the political dynamics that influence the direction of immigration policy over time. In pursuit of these goals, it raises two questions that have engaged scholars of immigration policy making since Tomas Hammar’s edited volume, European Immigration Policy: A Comparative Study, appeared in 1985. First, why do liberal states confronting similar political and practical immigration-related challenges adopt dissimilar policy solutions? Second, why does state immigration policy suddenly change course at some junctures while remaining relatively constant during others?

The Comparative Politics of Immigration pursues answers to these questions by scrutinizing the post-1950s immigrant admission policies of four major receiving countries. Its selection of cases is driven by two criteria: reputed migration regime type and institutional variation. Testing the conventional scholarly wisdom that the ideational and political contours of contemporary immigration policy are significantly influenced, if not determined, by a country’s early experience with immigration, Germany and Switzerland represent the category of states that adopted guestworker immigration regimes, while Canada and United States are often identified by immigration scholars as classic settler colonial states. A second criterion selects upon the observed variation of governmental systems among liberal states, with Canada an example of a Westminster parliamentary, Germany a coalition parliamentary, the United States a presidential, and Switzerland a semi-presidential system. Ellermann argues that both types of comparison are necessary to understand the dynamics driving policy choice across...