stimulates demand for immigrant labor (Simon, 1989). Thus, policy would be expected to
become more liberal if GDP growth rises, or if unemployment goes down. In a liberal state,
this relationship might be based on client politics (Freeman, 2002), on straightforward, self-
interest, ‘pocketbook’ voting (Kinder, Adams and Gronke, 1989), or on public evaluation of
the economy at large (Sears and Citrin, 1982). We thus propose the following hypothesis:
As unemployment goes up, or as GDP growth goes down, the lower the number of
immigrants entering a country.
A Partisan Theory of Immigration Policy Outcomes
One of the puzzles arising from the literature on political parties is the degree to
which parties are office-seeking, vote-seeking and/or policy-seeking. Following the work of
Müller and Strøm (2004), one might argue that ideology itself exerts little causal impact on
governing party behavior, but instead that the preferences of parties are the main determining
factor in shaping policy outcomes. If this theory were true, then we would expect to see a
strong link between parties’ declared positions on immigration and their actual behavior
while in office, even when controlling for institutions, ideology, economics, and other
relevant variables. This theory about partisan preferences would hold that parties are
primarily policy-seeking actors (as opposed to vote or office seeking), and leads to the
following hypothesis:
The more anti-immigrant are the manifestoes of governing parties, the lower the number of
immigrants entering a country.
A Push-Factor Theory of Immigration Policy Outcomes
The previous four theories are all about conditions in immigrant-receiving countries,
or so-called “pull” factors. However, most observers would argue that pull factors cannot be
the full story, since developed countries have experienced large-scale shifts in numbers of
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Convention