Open Borders versus Inclusive Citizenship? The Relationship between Entry and Membership in Governing Immigration

In political theory, it is widely assumed that for liberal democracies immigration control is a necessary condition for inclusive citizenship. Some empirical analyses corroborate this trade-off assumption. This paper further investigates the underlying empirical puzzle by asking the following question: How are the openness of entry regimes (ERO) and the inclusiveness of membership regimes (MRI) related? Adopting a dynamic perspective, this paper considers various arguments about why we may expect a negative or a positive effect of MRI at one point in time on ERO at a later point in time, and vice-versa. I propose a theory predicting that in liberal democracies the effect of MRI on ERO should be general, while the effect of ERO on MRI may be conditional. Concerning the latter, I argue that the effect of ERO on MRI depends on the political context. When far-right parties are weak, the politics of immigration and citizenship stay “quiet”, and MRI is more likely to be liberalized against the background of increased ERO in order to safeguard the democratic legitimacy of the political system. When far-right parties are strong, by contrast, mainstream parties will seek to limit MRI in reaction to higher ERO in order to retain votes. The empirical analysis combines existing data measuring ERO with a new dataset for measuring MRI across 20 OECD countries from 1980 to 2014. Various kinds and specifications of panel regression models show that ERO and MRI are not correlated on a general level. Only the hypothesis positing an effect of ERO on MRI conditioned by right-wing party strength receives ample empirical support. In contrast to the predominant assumptions and results, this finding shows that ERO and MRI can be positively related in certain contexts. I conclude by discussing potential implications that political theorists and policy makers might want to consider.