Immigration

In immigration states, politics around migration and inequalities runs along two major lines: economic and cultural divisions. Economic divisions refer to market liberalization and the de-commodification of labour as part of the welfare paradox: economic openness towards capital transfer is in tension with political closure towards migrants. It is the competition state vs. the welfare state. In the cultural realm, the contention relates to a clash between cultural rights based on the rights revolution and the myth of national-cultural homogeneity. It finds expression in the liberal paradox: the extension of human rights to migrants who reside in welfare states vs. the efforts to control borders and cultural boundaries. Threat perceptions often lead to a securitization of migration, a juxtaposition of the multicultural state and the democratic-national state. Economic divisions along class lines structure the politicization of cultural heterogeneities.

Exploring the “Liberal Paradox” from the Inside: Evidence from the Swedish Migration Courts

Courts are influential actors during the implementation of immigration policies in liberal democracies. The “liberal paradox” thesis stipulates that courts are driven by logics that hamper restrictionist immigration policies. This study contributes to this theory by exploring the norm construction of impartiality among judicial workers in Swedish migration courts when deciding asylum appeals. Its findings contradict the liberal paradox assumption that courts act according to inner logics that benefit immigrants’ rights. At Sweden’s migration courts, judicial workers show impartiality by using a skeptical approach to asylum applicants and do so to distance themselves from the political discourse of generosity that has dominated Swedish political debate for decades. The broader implications of these findings are that immigration policy theories can benefit from qualitative research exploring informal norm constructions in courts, as such work can offer new insights about the role of courts in the implementation of immigration policies.