According to the UN’s estimates, more than 258 million individuals are currently living as international migrants. These migrants will invariably experience different pathways to and experiences within their new countries of residence. Consequently, states respond to these immigrant flows with considerable variation. Crossroads begins at this intersection of demography and policy, undertaking the ambitious and timely task of categorizing and comparing immigration policy regimes—as well as their respective immigration populations—globally. In doing so, Anna Boucher and Justin Gest enter into conversation with scholars of comparative immigration, integration, and citizenship to answer both how and why states vary in immigration outcomes, both in policy and practice.
The first section of the book carefully builds on existing answers to these questions, and the second argues for a characterization of immigration regimes “based on behavioral outcomes rather than legal outputs” (p. 102). In the second part, Boucher and Gest rely on three demographic indicators: the relative distribution of visas, the proportion of migrants with temporary labor status, and the overall naturalization rate of a state’s immigrant population. Each of these categories is defined with conceptual and methodological clarity, culminating in a global dataset covering immigration and naturalization outcomes for 50 countries across the globe. The final section of the book brings this demographic dataset to bear on the immigration policies of 30 countries in 2011. This analysis reveals an overall “market model” across seven distinct regime-types in which regimes are concurrently open to immigration for its market value and closed to transforming these immigrants into permanent, national members. Subsequently, Crossroads provides two substantial contributions to global scholars of migration and citizenship: an empirical innovation of a new policy index, unique in comparative measures of demographic outcomes in a global perspective, and the theoretical advancement of a new lens for viewing immigration regimes globally.
These efforts occur on well-trodden territory. Dozens of categorizations of citizenship, immigration, and integration policy regimes continue to evolve and shape our understanding of the relationship between a state and its immigrant population. The first part of the book therefore presents a rather bold claim: immigration regimes require yet another new categorization. Boucher and Gest lay out a strong case for this claim, arguing that earlier typologies have a narrow focus on “Western” democracies or offer imprecise indicators of de jure policy outcomes. The authors claim that earlier measures consider citizenship policy versus practice (or outcome) in isolation, thereby failing to “combine the two dimensions of the migratory process” (p. 28). Hence in combining studies of policy design and demographic outcomes, Crossroads moves beyond measures that previously captured policy as degrees of self-defined or perceived difficulty to provide a novel measure of policy in practice globally.
The core of Crossroads’ demographic focus similarly provides an innovative departure from traditional expectations that such categorization occurs by ethnicity. Although the term “demographic outcomes” may be better labeled at times in policy outcome language, this second task of the book offers a potentially monumental contribution to current and future scholarship on citizenship and migration. Time is dedicated to explaining the complexities of data validity, inclusion, and conceptual development specific to citizenship and immigration. Crossroads further acknowledges where concepts critical to identifying or categorizing immigration regimes (e.g., undocumented immigration flow) are necessarily excluded to avoid inaccurate or inappropriate inferences caused by questions of cross-national data validity. This attention to detail additionally reveals instances of policy-outcome incongruence, often requiring Boucher and Gest to move beyond publicly available data. As a result, the book is at its strongest when providing this descriptive service to the discipline: modeling best practices in policy measurement, collection, and aggregation.
The resulting typology derived from Boucher and Gest’s analysis of this dataset (i.e., the market model) complicates earlier “settler-state” and “liberal” citizenship models. Where others view a marked liberalization in citizenship and immigration in Europe (e.g., see Christian Joppke, Citizenship and Immigration, 2010), Boucher and Gest present a market convergence globally, whereby states put “new premiums on short-term, flexible hiring in an economy of greater expedience and less concern with the rights and stability of people’s lives” (p. 156). This market model is, however, in agreement with recent global research wherein admission and migrant rights appear at odds with one another (e.g., see Martin Ruhs, The Price of Rights, 2013). These current findings, therefore, serve as an impetus to continue expanding our focus at the intersection of immigration and membership beyond the Global North.
Yet the key contribution of this book—compelling scholars to engage with immigration regimes as a factor of who they admit and retain—also presents the greatest challenge: teasing apart whether the demographic makeup of the immigrant population is in fact due to the destination policies or to some combination of the factors of their origin. Although the authors address these concerns in the methodological appendix using economic and democratic origin indicators (see, for example, p. 198), the policy and population characteristics known to affect not only immigration but also residency and citizenship remain relatively absent.
Similarly, although Crossroads addresses many limitations of prior immigration regime typologies, it cannot speak to the dual intentionality of both individuals and states required of naturalization and immigration. Given the direction in which many democracies across the Global North and South are moving—from granting permanent status (i.e., citizenship) to granting permanent residence—a logical extension of Crossroads might consider whether the relationship between policy and demography would vary if permanent residence acquisitions—or citizenship acquisition refusals—were used in lieu of naturalization rates. This question is especially relevant, because the authors calculate the naturalization rate using a subset of the population who already acquired residency (p. 121). Thus, it is this third dimension of demographic immigration—naturalization—that may offer the most in terms of continuing the conversation, which should also address policies regulating dual citizenship, second- (and in some cases third-) generation citizenship, and permanent residence.
Finally, such ambitious cross-national work presents its own challenges. In the case of Crossroads, country-specific anomalies may problematize the authors’ concepts of immigration and citizenship globally. For one, the definition of immigration regimes as representing “the admission and settlement of foreign-born people over time” (pp. 3–4) necessarily cannot reflect every subset of a given population that is deemed “foreign”—especially when citizenship is rooted in policies of ethnicity or restrictive definitions of formal membership. These policies and definitions further vary across states and across localities within states. Although the authors rightfully pick up on these complications with respect to naturalization (i.e., on p. 119), this concern similarly creeps into temporary employment and asylee flows.
Ultimately, Crossroads succeeds in its task of entering into conversation with comparative and international scholars of immigration and citizenship policy. The book offers a critical reevaluation of how we categorize immigration policies while simultaneously introducing new questions of regime stability, measurement, and political incentives. In doing so, Boucher and Gest not only provide a public good through new and rich data but also deepen our understanding of the relationship between policy and practice, by which paper citizens or permanent immigrants may become visible (e.g., see Noora Lori, Offshore Citizens, 2019). Crossroads therefore succeeds in the authors’ stated goal: beginning a conversation on the relationships between immigration and demographic trends. Where Crossroads leaves off, other scholars are invited to pick up—engaging deeply and globally at this nexus of membership and entry.
