Bringing the outside in: the comparative politics of immigration in Spain and Portugal after democratic and migration transition
Date
2014
Authors
Larson, Jared D.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
This project seeks to determine why, according to various indicators, there is relatively less anti-immigrant sentiment among policy-makers and the public in Iberia than in most other European countries. The methodology employs a structured, focused comparative case study of Spain and Portugal. After situating the project within the fields of migration studies, comparative politics, and Iberian studies, the dissertation takes a markedly historical approach. Special attention is paid to the Moorish Conquest of Iberia, the Iberian Reconquest, a long history of authoritarian leadership, Franco's Hispanidad and Salazar's Portugalidade , rapid economic modernization and reintegration with Europe in the latter half of the twentieth century, the politics of democratic transition, return migration, EU membership, and the 11 March 2004 attacks in Madrid, all which are influential events to today's discussion of immigration. In addition to the presentation of numerous quantitative data, the dissertation draws heavily upon qualitative data from nearly 40 interviews with politicians, bureaucrats, religious leaders, and representatives of NGOs in Madrid, Barcelona, and Lisbon. In addition to considering the standard independent variables that tend to provoke negative backlashes in other immigrant-receiving polities, including rapid inflows of migrants, the perception of threats (economic, security, and cultural), and elite leadership, we examine the particular roles of democratic and migration transitions in both countries. Consideration of these transitions is important to how contemporary immigration is received in the Iberian Peninsula as they are unique within the European experience and, as such, are treated as contextual variables herein. In the case of democratic transition, the influence of an anti-immigrant rightist movement is limited in the socio-political climate of these post-authoritarian regimes; in the case of migration transition, a sense of empathy toward immigrants today is fostered given that both countries exported labor until the early-1980s. The paper concludes that relatively low levels of anti-immigrantism in the Iberian countries are due to three factors 1) late economic modernization which has stratified the labor market and thus limited competition for jobs, 2) the importance of the recent processes of democratization as an elite-driven, ideational explanation; and 3) the more recent, structural phenomenon of migration transition.