Immigration Policymaking in the Global Era

Through a comparative case study analysis of the United Kingdom and Germany, with references to the United States, this study examines the impetuses for and processes by which governments came to choose the points system for immigration control.

"This book gives a very precise comparative account of the legal and political efforts and difficulties in managing the recruitment of high-skilled migrants. The book provides interesting proposals and insights into the problem and analyzes the issues convincingly. I fully recommend it to lawyers, politicians, and students interested in current issues of migration." - Kay Hailbronner, chair of Public Law, Public International Law, and European Law, University of Konstanz and director of the Centre for International and European Law on Immigration and Asylum

"The global competition for high-skilled immigrants, widely seen as key to economic growth, has never been more fierce than it is today. Deeply engaged with a variety of established and new theoretical approaches, Natasha Duncan's timely book sheds much-needed light on the processes through which states around the world translate their interest in using this talent into public policy." - John D. Skrentny, director, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California, San Diego

"This book is an excellent contribution to the immigration policy debates around the world. Natasha Duncan provides an insightful examination of point system policies geared toward selecting the crème de la crème the highly-skilled global talent and the political processes and discourse that ultimately bring about the adoption of such policies. A fascinating read with so many interesting and seminal materials that it makes one yearn to see what comes next." - Brigitte S. Waldorf, professor of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University

"Immigration Policymaking in the Global Era provides exciting new insights into how a transparent and quantitative system of setting criteria for migrant admission, the so-called points system, is evolving as the increasingly preferred means of competing for global talent in the twenty-first century. The book provides recommended reading from political science and related perspectives on why some countries, such as the United Kingdom, adopted the system while others, such as Germany and the United States, did not." - Jacques Poot, professor of Population Economics, University of Waikato, New Zealand

"Duncan offers a fresh perspective on the politics of immigration policymaking in the UK, Germany, and elsewhere, focusing on strategies to manage migration and attract global talent. Recommended for students and scholars of international migration, comparative politics, and public policy." - Willem Maas, Jean Monet Chair, York University

Natasha T. Duncan is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Mercyhurst College.