Migration and Democracy: How Remittances Undermine Dictatorships By Abel Escribà-Folch, Covadonga Meseguer and Joseph Wright. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022. 299 pp., $29.95 cloth

Abstract

institutional structures as well as the strategic choices of policy-makers. The presentation of the comparative case studies is masterful. However, there is one central lacuna. Professor Ellermann acknowledges the absence of a theory of policy-maker preferences; rather she generates the preferences of this central actor inductively. In many ways, this is an understandable choice as she already has a complex matrix of variables that she weaves together. But it does raise the question of where the preferences of the central actor of the model are generated and also points to potential endogeneity issues. Even if we grant that policy-maker preferences can be distinctive from other political actors, there is the possibility that the initial array of political institutions and actors shapes the key decision-maker’s policy proposal. The case studies weave powerful stories of immigration policy-making but also introduce elements that appear central to the argument but are not addressed in the theoretical frame. In particular, the insulation of policy-makers from the public’s restrictive policy preferences is an important element in the theory. Yet even when institutional structures remain constant, role of the public varies in part based on whether public opinion remains latent and unorganized versus when it is activated. Yet nothing in the theory accounts for the conditions under which we should expect public opinion to be activated. The role of the economy also appears important in many instances yet that element is not theorized either. The book is lengthy and dense, so it is difficult to demand more. Yet an important omission is attention to alternate theories. The first chapter introduces and critiques most of the extant theoretical literature, but the case study chapters do not provide the promised attention to alternate theories. Ellermann’s theoretical elements are woven into the case narratives with care, but research design in qualitative methods requires attention to alternative explanations as well. Nonetheless, this book will leave an important mark on immigration policy scholarship both by its ambitious effort to find an encompassing theory of immigration policy and the careful attention to the complexity of immigration policy-making. Perhaps we should disavow Gary Freeman’s call for multiple theories of migration policy-making and build on Professor Ellermann’s elegant work.