CAN LIBERAL STATES CONTROL UNWANTED MIGRATION

The commonly held view that liberal democracies cannot effectively con trol unwanted migration is unwarranted despite the intensification of migration pressures in recent years. To develop a more accurate positi on built on less sweeping generalizations, I disaggregate migration po licy into four parts: managing legal immigration, controlling illegal migration, administering temporary worker programs, and processing asy lum seekers and refugees. A review of the experiences of the liberal d emocracies with each of these migration challenges indicates that alth ough there are numerous instances of policy failure, there is also con siderable capacity to regulate migration. I argue that this capacity i s certainly growing, not declining, over time, that some states posses s more capacity than others, that the control capacities of particular states vary substantially across the four areas, and that these capac ities fluctuate periodically in conjunction with contingent cycles of salience and effort.