I’m always happy to see research published that I hoped to get done ‘one of theses days’. A recent paper in West European Politics uses a sophisticated model to statistically explain immigration policies using patterns of democracy. Different aspects of democracy are associated in different ways, but I’m a bit puzzled by the decision of the authors to downplay the influence of GDP. Perhaps there’s still a difference between political science and sociology after all, and institutional differences count more, so to speak, than for example a modernization thesis.
Wasn’t it already published, I’d include this paper as an example in my recent paper on recombining MIPEX. It’s just one of these instances where aggregated MIPEX scores (and in the supplementary material MIPEX dimensions) are used. Well, if you’re not into recombining MIPEX, a look at a pure reliability assessment of MIPEX might have helped making a slightly stronger case. With just 30 countries, more sensitivity analysis would also help. For instance, is there something about “settler legacies” or is it just Anglosaxon countries with a longer tradition of regulating race and ethnicity — something that MIPEX honours?
Future efforts should make use of the fact that MIPEX data have been collected over time, which makes for stronger conclusions (institutions or otherwise). They may also use theory other than the empirically refuted assumption that proportional systems are good for all kinds of minorities under all circumstance. Irrespective of these quibbles, with the paper by Anita Manatschal and Julian Bernauer we have a good basis to build on.
Didier Ruedin 