Immigration policies. Evidence-based policy-making in UK and Spain 1
(first draft)
Paper presented to the Workshop: The politics of Evidence-based Policy-making; Directors:
Fritz Sager and Ray Pawson; ECPR Joint Sessions, Rennes, 11-16 April 2008
Abstract
This paper aims to show how and why public policies on immigration
are a remarkable field for studying evidence-based policy-making. A
comparative assessment of immigration policy reforms in UK and
Spain since the mid 1990s shows that public policies in this area,
specially those measures and instruments devoted to the control of
flows throughout state borders, are led by the search for efficiency and
effectiveness. The comparison between a Conservative Party (Partido
Popular) policy in Spain and the immigration policy of the Labour
Party in UK and their reforms provides evidence in order to conclude
that ideology is not a key factor in the design of immigration reforms
in environments with a public opinion scored against new arrivals and
vindictive mass media. Once ideology is not relevant, the main
rationale for reforms seems to be effectiveness and efficiency in this
“continuous crisis” policy sector. The evidence for the approval and
implementation of new instruments comes from the failure of previous
mechanisms or from the previous use in other countries. A method of
trial and error is combined with expertise, especially in the UK case,
but in Spain most of the expertise, to incorporate and implement new
instruments, comes from membership to European groups and
Institutions.
1
Dr. Rut Bermejo, Lecturer in Politics, Rey Juan Carlos University (Spain); email: [email protected]
1
1. Scope for manoeuvre. Elections, crisis and public opinion as agenda setting “actors”
instead of ideology.
The neo-institutionalism rescued from the ostracism the importance of institutions. This
framework theoretical is the approach of many research pieces, for example studies in public
policies. Several streams have arisen and they try, more or less successfully, to give account of
the relationships between institutions and individuals (Kato 1996: 553) in order to surpass the
dominion of actors in the explanations of decision-making processes (actor-oriented
perspectives).
From the rational neo-institutionalism stream, actors are not isolated within decision-making
processes. They act and react within a framework in which institutions have also to be taken
into account in order to explain actors’ decisions (Christiansen, Falker and Jorgensen 2002: 12).
The study of this relationship is a new form to surpass the classical distinction between structure
and agency (Ross 2000). To this aim, rational neo-institutionalism presents/displays, on the one
hand, the relation between the stimuli for the change, in the form of government’s perceptions
and preferences for reform of immigration policies. On the other hand, the answers, the contents
of the reforms in public policies. If the way that goes from those preferences to the results of
reforms want to be explained, institutional frameworks and the decision-making processes in
which interests and ideas are mixed, have to be studied.
The political and institutional framework, in which the game of interests takes place and ideas
allow, facilitates or stimulates the rational behaviour of the actors, also decreases government’s
capacity for action (Scharpf 1997). The degree of influence of domestic institutional structure
has to be neither supra-estimated nor infra-estimated; it opens a set of opportunities and limits to
the effective conversion of the preferences into actions (or specific reforms). Several theoretical
approaches have been developed from the premises of the rational neo-institutionalism and,
“actor-centred institutionalism” is worthwhile to be underlined (Scharpf 1997). From this point
of view, particularly in the field of public policies, is essential to identify which are the actors
and the institutions that can restrict or help government’s behaviour and the rational election of
the policy path or design to follow.
In the field of migration policy, recent research carried out by Statham and Geddes (2006) on
the role of “organized public”, or interest groups, in public policies, incorporated the study of
political structures of opportunity and the institutional environment in order to explain the
developments of immigration policies. In their study on the role of the so-called “organized
2
public”, they tried to integrate framing, the way in which the questions are presented and
defined, and resource mobilisation within a political opportunity perspective, “...recognising the
institutional and discursive nature of opportunities...” (Statham and Geddes 2006: 251) in an
attempt to surpass the constructivist critics to the Freeman’s analyses (1998).
Thus, those authors assure that “the decisive factor shaping the level and form of collective
action is not directly derived from the objective interests, but from the political environment in
which such interests are publicly defined, constructed, mediated …” that environment gives
access to other collective actors, including an ample public (public opinion) to act according to
its perceived interests. Its point of departure is that the “...collective mobilization is not a direct
outcome of the distributed costs and benefits of immigration policies, but of the extent and way
immigration is politicised and publicly mediated, and how certain positions are made to appear
more feasible, reasonable, and legitimate, compared to alternative definitions of political reality.
Particularly important is how powerful political elites, acting through institutions and
discourses, shape opportunities of other collective actors…” (Statham and Geddes 2006: 251).
Statham and Geddes are aware of the different dimensions of opportunities, some are general,
some issue-specific. When it comes to immigration policy, the most relevant general
opportunity seems to be elections. Among the specific opportunities for reform, crisis can be
pointed out. The political environment for those reforms can be summarised as public opinions
against new arrivals and in favour of enhancing controls. But, how do they play their role?
Elections means candidate opportunities to present their intended policies; so that ideology
could be expected to play an important role on their proposals. Nevertheless, the influence of
the public opinion and organised public was summarised by an ex-Minister of Immigration in
Britain as follows:
“we are under pressure from both sides, some on the right are very vindictive
against immigration control, for example that organization, Migration News, and
public opinion is against new arrivals... but at the same time newspapers from the
left and NGOs blame us of being tough” (Interview, July 7th, 2004)
This set of opposed forces lead to assure that immigration policy is commonly on crisis.
Controls are not tough or effective enough in the light of public opinion so that, elections and
“normal times” seem to be “crisis times”. Governments try to avoid to oppose to voters,
government tries to design their reforms similarly than in crisis times, in fact, Alink, Boin and
t’Hart (2001: 289) define crisis as “epochs of disruption and discontinuity”. Some of their ideas
are particularly relevant. First, they claim that a crisis “...become manifest when pivotal actors
within, and ‘opinion leaders’ and accountability from outside the sector have come to realize
3
that traditional structures and processes are no longer effective or appropriate...A policy sector
is in crisis when its institutional structure experiences a relatively strong decline and unusually
low levels of legitimacy” (Alink, Boin and t’Hart 2001: 289-290).
In sum, as crisis and public opinion pressures usually mean that something is not well
controlled or that government is not tougher enough. All the questions and unsolved problems
raised implement a pressure towards government action in one direction: enhancing controls.
Elections are not an opportunity to design government’s own agenda. Politicians are aware of
public opinion feelings and desires on immigration issues. That means a restriction on their
agendas in order to combine voter’s interests and their ideology (more liberal than their
publics). So that, ideology cannot play much in the orientation of the reform in the area of
immigration flows control. 2
2. Better instruments to control immigration and pragmatic reasons.
“An institutional crisis occurs when the institutional structure of a policy sector is widely
viewed as inappropriate”(Alink, Boin and t’Hart 2001: 292). Nevertheless, immigration control
seems to be in a “continuous state of crisis”. New problems or questions are always needed to
be solved. External actors urge to mend programmes or instruments but, also organisations and
civil servants involved in that policy sector, frequently realise of problems or mistakes. Mainly,
debates and questionings are not related to paradigms or ideas but to how things work, i.e.
measures and instruments devoted to control the flows of immigrants (table 1). Pragmatic
reasons are then the key reasons for reforms. The search for effectiveness is the main rationale
for reforming immigration policies nowadays.
2
Nevertheless, ideology can play a role on the weight of some issues in the whole policy. Parties from
the left can pay more attention to integration or give more funds to NGOs but cannot redirect the policy
as a whole.
4
Table 1. Summary of rationales for reforms (enhancing controls) in immigration laws in
Spain and UK (1996-2007)
RATIONALES FOR INCREASING THE CONTROL
OF FLOWS (LEGISLATION REFORMS)
Economy
Spain
2000
(1)
Spain
2000
(2)
Spain
2003
(1)
Spain
2003
(2)
UK
1999
UK
2002
UK
2004
UK
2006
Instability
SHORT
TERM
LONG-TERM
“REAL WORLD” RATIONALES
Labour market
competitiveness
Decline in salaries
Pressures on the
Welfare State
High rate of
unemployment
Cohesion
(social) Improving
race relations
(cultural)
Preserving cultural
traditions and
identity
Security
Internal
destabilisation
(racial conflicts)
Crime (terrorism or
delinquency rates)
Foreign
Problems due to
Policy
refusing or
removing
applicants
Problems due to
agreements (EU...)
Desires of re-election and
fulfilment of manifestos promises
Political
and
ideological
rationales
Party recommendations
Ethical
rationales
Role of State in society: “Ought
to ideas”; “Justice”
Pragmatic
rationales
Effectiveness (present and future)
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Efficiency
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Source: Debates in Parliament (Queen’s speech and first and second readings) and public announcements
of reforms
Table 1 shows that Levin’s (1997) “real world” rationales have left their role to pragmatic
rationales. Manzetti (1999 quoted in Messeguer 2002) includes among the rationales for reforms
short-term or pragmatic objectives; a panoply of concerns related to effectiveness and
management 3 . In this sense, Jordan, Strath and Triandafyllidou claim that a new dimension of
comparison has to be used in the study of implementation of immigration policies. In addition to
values and ideologies they propose to analyse a new dimension of comparison that is “the
prevalence of a market-driven ideology that puts emphasis on values such as efficiency,
flexibility and user-friendly public service” (Jordan, Strath and Triandafyllidou (2003: 373); the
other hand, clientelists and inefficient administrative systems can be found.
3
Another discussion is the one if it is possible the effectiveness of a policy of flow control and the factors
on which it depends or if it is necessary to assume that in the present situation no policy of control of
immigration is effective.
5
Efficiency is one of the key concepts on public policies studies related to evaluation. Rational
neo-institutional authors have explained the development of certain institutions using the
concept of efficiency (Hall and Taylor 1996: 945 and 949). Its relevance in the field of public
policies’ studies has also been outstanding in the analysis of public policy success and failure.
But both concepts, effectiveness and efficiency appeared sometimes mixed. A way to
distinguish them is through evaluation methods. Effectiveness has to do with outcome
evaluation, that is the investigation of whether a program or instrument caused demonstrable
effects on specifically defined target outcomes. Efficiency has to do with resources and quality,
that is to say, cost-effectiveness of means and instruments compared to different ones.
Both, the effectiveness and the efficiency are key variables not only in UK but also in Spain.
Those kinds of evaluations are related to the conception of public policies’ as tools for fighting
against social problems (Bovens et al. 2001: 20 and Brändström and Kuipers 2003: 280). In this
sense, it is reasonable to expect that sometimes the reforms, and the actions anticipated in them,
can be designed to improve the effectiveness and effectiveness of the previous measures 4 .
Since the 1990s, management of immigration has become the general aim in relation to the
international movements of people. Management is contrary to irregular, “spontaneous” or not
managed migration of people and is presented as the only way to increase the share capital or
financial well-being; lack of control produces alarm inside the receiving countries (Borjas and
Crisp 2005: 1).
2.1. Effectiveness and efficiency in UK immigration policy reforms
When each reform in immigration policy is studied in depth, UK's general picture shows that
effectiveness and efficiency are crucial factors. The first reform in 1999 was mainly devoted to
those ends, despite the fact that effectiveness and efficiency were balanced with secondary
focuses: to decrease pull factors, to diminish abuse on the systems and to better community
relations. The secondary aims of avoiding pull factors included to come to an end with the easy
access to welfare benefits and to finish the lack of policies for removal. The idea of diminishing
the abuse in immigration and asylum systems was related to "bogus" asylum seekers, and this
second aim was particularly pointed out in the third reform. Efficiency meant to decrease the
4
The need to improve or to increase the effectiveness is related to a situation in which the immigrants
who wish to arrive try to do it against or despite of the existing controls. Then, they use the resources or
Mafias or of people who deal with human beings. This is their option to minimise the effectiveness of
controls.
6
burden on taxpayers caused by the immigrants and asylum seekers dependence on well-fare
state. Ethical ends, such as fairness, is to be obtained through effective systems.
In 1999 reform, among central motivations for the new asylum and immigration legislation
were the improvement of the effectiveness and the efficiency of the system:
“The Bill will provide the United Kingdom with a modern, flexible and
streamlined system capable of dealing with the ever-growing pressures and
demands placed upon it. That system will better serve the interests of all our
people--of those entitled to visit or settle here, and the interests of genuine
refugees. It will also give immigration staff the powers that they need to operate
a modern and efficient system of immigration control. I commend the Bill to the
House” (Mr. Straw; Second reading of the Bill, Hansard, 1999, vol. 326, col.
50) 5 .
In 1999 and 2004 reforms, the Labour Party Government also claimed that tough measures on
advising activities and appeals, as well as in removals, would lead to better community relations
and to avoid people’s fears; at the same time those tough measures would increase people
confidence in the systems.
That second reform of the Labour Party, in 2004, had a much broader aim and includes a
handful of dimensions and issues. That reform brought in ideas on community participation and
civil society such as to improve the knowledge of the English language and to introduce a test
prior to citizenship's ceremonies along with measures aimed at increase the arrival of foreign
workers. But, the effectiveness discourse was also in there. Blunkett, Home Office Secretary,
claimed during the second reading of his 2004 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill that:
“We also said that although we were creating a more efficient and robust system
of reporting and tracking where people were, we recognised in the report that I
published alongside the White Paper that the dispersal system had received, to
say the least, considerable questioning. In fact, last August and early September,
not a single day went by when national newspapers or BBC and ITV television
news broadcasts did not cover the dispersal problem in one form or another,
tragically, because of a murder and some attacks that took place on asylum
seekers in communities” (Hansard 2002, vol. 384 col. 347).
It did not stress the issue of controls despite the fact that it included some goals of tackling
illegal activities and on controlling and patrolling borders more efficiently. The third reform in
UK, still in place, return to legitimacy of the system through practical improvement of
5
After Nick Pearce, Special Adviser on Immigration to Home Office Secretary during the 2002 reform,
that modernization does not reach in this stage to the frontier checkpoints since some instruments based
on technological advances like cameras are only introduced, detectors of new beats or scanner of security
in the airports but not a complete modernization of the system.
7
processes. As it is said, the immigration system needs to work better and easily. A modern
administration, with a Border Immigration Agency (BIA) is the key new institution.
Spanish discourse to justify the reforms in immigration policies is mainly focused on changes in
the phenomenon as well as its new character and the need to tackle it. The first reform point out
the requirement of effectiveness and the search for new instruments and reforms to cope with
immigration flows. Spanish Minister of the Interior said that:
“… the reality has gone beyond the forecasts of immigration access to the
country… has been surpassed with respect to the legal instruments that we
design… [that is the reason why] we cannot be satisfied with the instruments that
today we have in hand ” (DS Congress, 1996, núm. 24, p. 1017).
Conservative Party’s second reform in 2000, also assumed and assured a practical reasoning,
related to the effectiveness in the management of the phenomenon. A probable “called effect”
bound to prior decisions (extension of rights and automatic regularisation) was said to lead the
country towards automatic decision, equal to a lost of control of the migratory policy.
The absence of governmental control would prevent government from changing or using
measures accordingly to his interests.
Conservative Party’s third and fourth reforms emphasised the improvement of management and
effectiveness in immigration policy to get the same objectives. Both emphasised the need of
policy adaptation to new factors and recent changes in the immigration flows. In fact the fourth
reform on immigration law claimed it as the firs purpose for the reform, that is the improvement
in the administrative management. The second one, was the advance in instruments and
sanctions (Explanandum for Law 14/2003).
In conclusion, the relevance of pragmatic reasons shows on the one hand, that ideology has left
its place to a short term view of immigration policies. General aims do not change but the way
to reach them. Reforms imply slight changes. Ideology seems to influence first reforms when a
political party come to power but at the times goes the reforms tend to focus on means and
instruments, increasing the importance of the different methods of gaining knowledge, and the
feedback processes.
3. Where does the evidence come from? Methods of gaining knowledge and policy
making
8
Davies, later on member of the Government Chief Social Researcher’s Office, defined a
evidence-based education as “the integration of experience, judgement and expertise with the
best available external evidence for systematic research.”... “an approach that helps people make
well informed decisions about policies, programmes and projects by putting the best available
evidence from research at the heart of policy development and implementation” (Davies 1999).
Parsons (2002) assures that “EBPM [Evidence-Based Policy Making] must be understood as a
project focused on enhancing techniques of managing and controlling the policy making
process...”.
Accordingly, two aspects of policy making in immigration policies need to be explored. Firstly,
what is the role of experience, judgement, expertise and external evidence that impinge
immigration policy reforms. Secondly, how those features influence each reform, i.e. what kind
of techniques of managing and controlling policy making processes are adopted.
3.1. Experience, judgement, expertise and external evidence in immigration policy making.
One kind of feedback in the policy cycle is experience. Experience is claimed as the
fundamental reason that hamper a common European immigration policy. Each state has a
different past, and a particular relationship with immigration so that different needs and
priorities. Those differences are shown as the main obstacle to overcome in order to sign new
agreements and to design the new common path. The main policy relevant information in each
country seems to be its own experience and the most relevant information in policy making.
3.1.1.
UK’s experience in immigration policies
This is particularly clear in the UK case. In the twentieth century, UK experience in
immigration control is related, mainly, to its colonial past. The first measures taken by Great
Britain to restrict the foreign (colour) immigration (of colour) date from the begging of the
century while, in most of continental countries, immigration controls did not arise until the 1970
economic crisis. The law of Foreigners of 1905 introduced “the first set of British controls to
immigration in peace time” (Spencer 1997: 53) 6 . Those measures are the precedent for
Conservative and Labour Governments answers to immigration coming from the new
Commonwealth in the post-war period (Layton-Henry 1992: 7), being the first law on
6
Other authors locate the beginning of the restrictive legislation in the measures of the Commonwealth
Immigrants Act of 1962 (Rudolph 2006: 176 and 181).
9
Immigration of the Commonwealth from 1962. The 1905 law was aimed at, among its
objectives, protecting British State of the “undesirable foreigners” whereas the 1962 law tried to
control immigration coming from countries of the Commonwealth in answer to the campaign
“keep Britain white”. (Couper and Santamaria 1984: 437).
The 1971 Immigration Act merged previous immigration laws and equalled Commonwealth
immigrants and the rest of foreigners. This law is regarded as the “first permanent legislation”,
previous one had a yearly basis (Couper and Santamaria 1984: 440). Despite all the following
reforms, that law still continues to be the foundation for UK migratory controls (Juss 2005:190).
Conservative governments in the 1980s paid special attention to decrease immigration in order
to preserve communities’ good relations and avoid a worsening due to the “fear of the people
towards the numbers” (Spencer 1997: 147; Solomos 2003: 68).
3.1.2.
Spanish experience in immigration policies
Spain has traditionally been characterised as a country of voluntary emigrants. The first law on
the immigration matter was passed in 1985 (Law 7/85, of 1st July, on the rights and liberties of
foreigners in Spain) that received little attention. 7 The scare debate has been related to the small
number of foreigners who lived in Spain at that time, and the small number of annual arrivals. 8
Spanish Government justified the need for this law at the Congress, first to adapt national laws
to the agreements signed with the European Union, particularly the Schengen Agreement.
Second, to compile different legislation on asylum and immigration issues. Third, the
experience and learning link to changes in the migratory phenomenon. Fourth, the fulfilment of
electoral promises.
3.1.3.
Expertise and external evidence in UK and Spain
As stated, Government scope to devise a new policy regards its position among other
institutions and the network of actors involved in a specific policy sector. Immigration policy
seems to be prone to feedback, self-evaluation and learning due to its institutional design in both
countries. Contrary to hypothesised divergences, based on their different past and experiences as
well as diverse features of the phenomenon in each country, both countries policy making
7
It can be observed, through sessions at the Legislative Chambers and the press. The only thing that arose
interest was regularisation processes, specially about immigrants inside the Peninsula, and in Melilla.
This issue was emphasized by the “People Commissioner”, Ruiz Giménez.
8
Contrary, Cornelius (2004: 388) assures that in 1985-1986 “… Spain it was experiencing a substantial
immigration, derived of boom economic”.
10
processes include a rather small network of actors. So, their policy making processes are
moderately closed to external influences.
Interest groups in Spain and UK have different features and diverse patterns of relating with
each country government. In the Spanish case, its role is strongly institutionalized with formal
membership in some institutions. NGOs devoted to promote the welfare of immigrants and their
integration have gained institutional access but, as the government assures, their role is more
formal than real:
“...la Delegación del Gobierno (a kind of Immigration Directorate) for
immigration matters proceeds as a immigration policies coordinating actor. In
this sense, they are in charge of the work done in the different institutions
integrated in it, the Consejo Superior de Política de Inmigración (High Comittee
for Immigration Policy) and the Foro para la Integración Social (Social
Integration Forum). It can be said that we [the Delegación del Gobierno] had a
power of supervision over those joint institutions and one of us was the president
of the Consejo Superior de Política de Inmigración and I was the vice-president
of the Foro...” (interview with the deputy Minister of Immigration, 18th June,
2004).
Whereas in the case of United Kingdom, interest groups, or the organised public, enjoy a stable
contact with the State, not participation, based on the externalisation of some services. In UK,
their influence is rather similar to external expert:
“...So, we get credited for our authenticity, we get credit because we are
authoritative, hopefully, so when we say something, there is more than a
reasonable chance that it is accurate and true and we know what is going on.
There are other organisations, the most obvious being Migration Watch, who are
a right wing, not pressure group, but who cast themselves as an independent
think tank. They are actually an immigration-lobbying group, and if you look at
some of their statistics, mainly extrapolations which are unreasonable or every
single step they put the worst case scenario.
So, we don’t do that, we don’t play fast and loose with statistics because we think
long term it undermines us as an organisation, so we get credibility hopefully
through that. We also get credibility because we are pragmatic. We disagree
with government on lots of things, but as far as possible we try and work with
government, because what we’re about isn’t glorious defeat or grand standing, it
is genuinely about trying to improve the rights and conditions of asylum seekers
and refugees...” (Interview with Refugee Council parliamentary officer, 8th July,
2004).
In UK, interest groups are key actors within policy implementation too but, not in decision
making processes. In Spain, interest group’s role is confined to this second task. In both cases,
their role is usually constrained to immigrants integration matters.
11
Several features of this policy sector pressure against long-time learning, and expertise in both
countries. On the one hand, the continuous crisis and pressure from mass media ask for quick
answers to certain problems, despite that fact experience with immigration phenomenon is
portrayed as a key factor for change. And, on the other hand, low technical requirements prevent
this policy sector from hiring experts and specialized knowledge. Actually, causal nexuses
between policies and outcomes are not difficult to understand, in general. There are some more
complex or uncertain theoretical issues, such as the models of “factors of attraction”, but
commonly, expertise is not needed.
Expertise play a role in concrete moments of the policy making process. Expertise is not
required in order to formulate the agenda or to design the broad aims of immigration policy, but
a degree of expertise is at least required at stages in which identification and development of
specific political alternatives or instruments is done. That is to say, that learning from
experience and external expertise has a greater explanatory power in small reforms related to
instruments; when previous instruments are left away due to their uselessness, ineffectiveness or
inefficiency to get the aims of the immigration policy. Effectiveness in the resolution of
problems is related to immigration policy legitimacy and consequently, government legitimacy.
Theoretically, civil servants may become a constraint to change; as long as they are used to
implement a particular kind of policy, a shift might have a direct impact on them and on their
tasks. They may also reject to cooperate in order to maintain the status quo. However, the
research in both countries show that they have a relevant role in policy formulation due to their
expertise. That role is larger in some of the reforms; those reforms devoted specially to technical
improvements and to increase the effectiveness in measures and instruments. Civil servants do
not decide the objectives of the policy but they are a key actor in implementation stages so they
are usually asked to find the way to develop policy goals so they warn about “impossible” ideas.
In Spain expertise comes largely from civil servants. Spanish administration is not only closed
to other actor, particularly in the field of controlling immigration flows, but to other kind of
influences. No training or research centres have a direct or stable contact with civil servants.
And advisers to Ministers have usually more a political profile than a expert knowledge in the
matter at stake. External influences and expertise in immigration policies has come, during the
last decades, mainly from Europe 9 . Spanish civil servants in this policy sector have enjoyed a
9
PP (Conservative Party) in Spain, has always been in favour of a common immigration policy. That
could be read in his manifesto for the 1996 General Election: “...support to greater degrees of integration
in the pillar of justice and interior and in regard to judicial and police cooperation and asylum and
immigration among others; including the proposal for a greater comunitarisation in the matter of
immigration” (PP 1996 General Election Manifesto, p. 222 and 229). In relation to the Mediterranean
12
permanent position in Spain and Europe and excellent relationships with other European
members and civil servants. Spanish civil servants in the EU, particularly at the Permanent
Representatives Committee (COREPER) are working there for decades. And, external expertise,
as well as legitimacy for some instruments, have come from countries with similar problems but
longer experience. Once a problem is in the agenda, other European solutions are searched for
and Spanish governments try to find formulas to cooperate with that aim.
In Spain, European Union policy is credited and used to justify nearly all the reforms. This can
be related to other factors, as said above, its experience in immigration is not so long and this
phenomenon pose huge problems, difficult to solve without cooperation. In this sense, policy
making seems to be more influence by transfer of knowledge among institutions than by trial
and error processes. External evidence is also easier introduced in Spanish policy making that in
the British one. As long as, Spaniards have a positive opinion about other EU countries and the
EU, as organisation, their policies receive a positive support.
EU is not a model for British immigration policy. In this country. In general, United Kingdom,
and its public opinion, maintain a discourse that underlines national differences with the
continent. This is specially the case of immigration policy in which “being an island” prevent
the governments from Schengen Agreement membership.
As it was stated, policy style in this sector of immigration was expected to be more open to
participation in the UK, just because of its larger experience with commonwealth and
immigration policies as well as due to the amount of institutions devoted to promote race
relations and to care for the welfare of immigrants and refugees. But that is not the case. Despite
the fact that interest groups, in favour of liberal policies, meet at some points of the processes
with senior civil servants and ministers, particularly when a reform is being planned, evidence
shows that those interest groups stay out of the decision-making processes. As it has been said,
their capacity for lobbying is self-restricted in so far as they prefer to be considered as experts.
They issue press releases and statements to newspapers in order to make their opinions known,
however they do not try to face or confront openly with the government. Only labour unions and
countries, the Manifesto assures that “the efforts of cooperation with the Magreb will have to be
accompanied with a policy of immigration in the context of our obligations derived from international
agreements, such as the Schengen Agreement and European Union membership” (PP 1996 General
Election Manifesto, p. 235).
However, if the EU role is deeply analyzed further on, it can be concluded that most of the reforms did
not contained binding obligations. For example, during the second reform in 2000, PP party use the
agreements signed in the European Union to increase their margin of manoeuvre and to justify the need
for reforming the previous law.
13
pro-free market groups have achieved an institutional role in the area of quotas and work
permits schemes in both countries.
In UK civil servants have a very different profile than Spanish ones. IND’s (Immigration and
Nationality Directorate) “bad” reputation among Home Office civil servants lead them to stay as
few time as possible. Changes in positions and in staff were everyday news. Some young civil
servants described the Directorate as a first step, as shorter as possible, in their career due to the
opportunities to promote. Some UK problems with expertise are due to that changing nature of
most of the all IND posts. At first sight, time spent in a position seems to correlates with actors
relevance in policy making.
In UK , Labour Government in the mid 90s brought in new ideas on management, effectiveness
and efficiency. Expertise and external evidence in the case of UK comes mainly from the same
source: academics and experts. During these decades, experts had been a way to gain credit for
their policies as well as for small reforms with technical contents or greater reforms. For
example, the White Paper of 2002, Secure Borders, Safe Haven: Integration with Diversity in
Modern Britain, advanced that in order to maintain “the prosperity of this country in the worldwide economy, it is essential to manage the capacities of all those who want to come and to
work legally. There is an amount of legal routes, for qualified immigration and for nonqualified,
but we have to continue working in its expansion and in the design of particular routes for
specific capacities”. (Home Office White Paper, February 2003). This ideas have been the root
for the whole change of the Work Permits systems, still in process, with a new points-based
system and a 6 Tier program to highly qualified workers and other type of workers and students.
All the following proposals, have been accompanied by new information of experts published
by Home Office and dedicated to the study of the effects of immigration in the labour market.
(Dusstman ET to. 2003) 10 . Cooperation with academics and research centers has been crucial in
the reform of the whole permits systems. A special directorate was set up in the mid 90s to
provide internal expertise. The Home Office' s Research Development and Statistics Directorate
(RDS) has developed its own research and specially its own statistics. A huge number of
reports were published after the 2000.
10
Words are also important. This reports use terms like: “the main result of the empirical analysis is that
there is no strong evidence of large adverse effects of immigration on employment or wages of existing
workers...; There is some weak evidence of negative effects on employment but these are small and for
most groups of population it is impossible to reject the absence of any effect with the data used here.
Insofar as there is evidence of any effect on wages, it suggests that immigration enhances wage growth...”
(Dustmann et al. 2003: 48).
14
This broad panorama of political systems and policy styles' features leave much more scope of
action to governments in Spain; at least the institutional political setting let governments to
enjoy broader freedoms and isolate them from citizens and mass media pressures. However, in
both countries, Governments have learned how to cope with public opinion, crisis or external
events and institutional settings.
3.2. Enhancing techniques of managing. Do they still want to control policy-making?
Governments rational thinking leads them to try to gain credit from their actions, with EU
institutions, academic experts and reports, and in spite of the difficult environment with poor
policy effectiveness and mass media pressure. Governments, in both countries, try to take
advantage of favourable institutional opportunities and develop a whole range of blame
avoidance strategies in order to promote their ideas.
Within those strategies and techniques of managing both countries have paid special attentions
to the establishment of agencies. Agency strategies specially are used in the United Kingdom in
different policy sectors. In immigration policy, this option demonstrates a delegation desire. In
the series of Governments (Blair Governments) characterised by an important degree of
centralization of policy making in the core executive hands, this resource could not be
anticipated. However, agencies show an important degree of system and policy making strength
and organizational efficiency. Time and experience in the scope of the migratory and asylum
policy help to explain this development.
In addition, agency strategies seem to be progressively used in conflicting institutional settings.
Agencies make more difficult to “pass the back” or delegate than mechanisation policy making.
It seemed a less probable option in Spain. Spanish government was extremely clear about this
issue and avoided taking in measures that would restrict their capacity to act and their capacity
to shift the policy path whenever they wanted. Nevertheless, the new re-elected government has
announced this compromise.
Despite the lost in manoeuvring, mechanisation is another technique applied to policy making
nowadays. Their role in policy making processes seem to be understood as a consequence of the
search for effectiveness. Reducing the number of human decisions let governments to speed up
decision-making processes and systems to run easily and streamlined. Evidence of
mechanisations in decision-making processes is found in both countries, where the use of
“white lists” of countries for refugees or fixed reasons to avoid benefits do not only increase
15
legal security but speed up decisions. United Kingdom is specially keen on reducing the number
of appeals and find a streamlined way to get decisions.
4. Why pragmatism instead of ideology?
From rational neo-institutionalism approaches, governments are portrayed as actors who try to
solve problems but they are not unconscious problem-solving machines 11 . They perceive a
situation and try to find what they regard as the best way to improve it. Governments are not the
only actors in policy-making, each actor, from outside or inside the policy processes, tries to
push and lobby for their interests. If they gain access to the policy process their influence will
increase. In this sense, public policies on immigration are also the result of power structures and
actors’ capacity to make other compliment with their ideas and interests.
Pragmatism seems to be the best way to close access to public opinion or mass media pressures.
Is pragmatism the only way to avoid be blamed? or Is pragmatism a tool intended better
immigration policies?. Both things seems to be true within the immigration policy field. In this
sense, politicians, given a concrete frame of opportunities and constraints try to find the best
way to act or to avoid action. One piece of research that tries to explain those choices is blame
avoidance strategies. Most of the blame-avoidance strategies are related to voters’ negativity
bias and assume that politicians want to be re-elected not defeated (Weaver 1986; Lau 1982).
That is why blame avoidance is a common strategy in order to choice among difficult policy
options (Weaver 1986; Twight 1991; Hood 2002).
Twight (1991) pointed out that politicians have incentives to use blame avoidance strategies
when voters’ opinions are too concentrate and there is no possible credit to be gained with a
policy, so as the only thing to do is to follow the majority or finding a blame avoidance strategy
in order to justify the action. She also considers the influence of mass media; in Twight’s words
claiming credit is a ‘negative function’ of media attention (1991: 158) what is related to the
availability of information about a public policy’s adverse consequences. In this sense, the
hypothesis about strategies in this research is that as immigration policy is highly politicised in
which public opinion is scored toward restrictive immigration measures and mass media
pressure sometimes is high. As a consequence blame avoidance strategies are common ground.
Only when those levels decrease some credit claiming opportunities appear.
11
One of the important discussions of this research is whether governments are the main actors in the
policy-making processes on immigration. The conclusion on this point denies some of the theories and
postulates that assure that European nation-states have lost most of their power in the context of the EU.
16
The more "secretive" and less responsive political systems are, the more scope governments will
have to act and to design a policy based on the ideas and ideological principles. Contrary, the
more responsive they are, the more influence other actors and events will have on them.
This pragmatic view lead to who decide. The trend in immigration policy is to take decisions
out of public debate and the way was pointed out long time ago.... it much more difficult to
manage a salience issue so, the best thing to do is to take it out from the open agenda and
experts and technology enhance that process.
5. Concluding remarks (to be finished)
Evidence-based immigration policies are the best way to avoid blame and increase legitimacy.
That is one of the main reasons for their role in immigration policies. So it seems not to be the
outcome of a systematic evaluative program but the consequence or the best way to isolate from
pressures.
Both country follow that path but with different means, actors and experts.
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