Caress Schenk’s monograph represents the most thorough and comprehensive book on the evolution and the major goals and structural elements of Russian immigration policies yet published outside the Russian Federation (RF). The author, an American scholar who has lived and taught in recent years in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, offers a very interesting perspective on the evolution of Russian immigration policies. Within a 30-year period since the USSR’s dissolution, Russia has turned from one of the most isolated countries into the center of one of the three largest immigration systems in the world. This study of RF immigration policies offers plenty of information, not only about the political and socioeconomic impact but also about the public perception of immigration processes and the role of immigrants in the Russian society. Thus, it becomes a very useful tool for anyone interested in understanding the evolution of the Russian state, politics, and society in the post-Soviet period.
Even so, the importance of Schenk’s research goes way beyond these formally stated goals: she offers a thorough and well-balanced analysis of Russian policies and the current situation in the migration sphere, avoiding the ideological biases and political stereotypes that are characteristic of many pieces of research dealing with both Russia and highly politicized migration issues. An especially valuable feature of the book is the comparative perspective it offers: the author considers other major immigration centers, showing both the differences and similarities in migration flows and the policies of Russia and such states as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy—regardless of the types of political systems in particular migrant-receiving countries. These findings are interesting and important, especially under current conditions when we witness the intensification of discussions in regard to migration policy reform, the rise of anti-immigrant populist movements and trends in public opinion, and the tightening of immigration regimes in the major receiving countries, including the current policies of the Trump administration in the United States.
In this sense, Why Control Immigration? by focusing on Russia, brings a very important perspective to the much wider discourse concerning the issues of migration policies, human rights, governmental reform, and political populism in the United States and the Global North in general. In particular, Schenk clearly shows the importance in both Russia and the West of the informal mechanisms of migration regulation. Another universal feature seems to be the existence of a “magic circle”: public pressure on the governments to introduce curbs on legal immigration leads to the introduction of restrictive measures, giving results opposite to the expected ones. The growing numbers of undocumented migrants have to stay for longer terms to avoid the risks of entering a country, which lead to the growing public irritation, and so on—that is, restrictive governmental migration policies lead to growing numbers of undocumented migrants and the increasingly permanent (or at least long-term character) of immigration. These conclusions should serve as an important lesson to migration policy planners in the West, sending a particularly clear signal to the current US administration.
The author demonstrates a thorough familiarity with both Russian and Western academic discourses, NGOs, and governmental sources dealing with the issue of post-Soviet migration. In addition to her analysis of various published and internal governmental and nongovernmental materials, she conducted numerous on-site interviews. The book is well structured and follows a clear logic. After an overview of previous migration research and theoretical work, Schenk discusses the evolution of Russian immigration policies and governmental structures under the Yeltsin and Putin regimes and the dynamics of the immigrant flows to the RF during the post-Soviet period. The discussion concentrates on the balance between the governmental and nongovernmental, formal and informal mechanisms of migration regulation; the interests of the federal and local authorities; and the interplay of socioeconomic and political considerations in the formulation and execution of migration policies. Special attention is given to two such mechanisms developed during Vladimir Putin’s tenure: a more restrictive and centrally controlled system, based on immigration quotas, and a more permissive and slightly more flexible system at the local level, relying on labor migrant patents.
After a thorough discussion of the main factors influencing the formulation of migration policies and the choice of particular migration regulation mechanisms, the book offers a comparative overview of the situation and migration policies in three key immigration regions: Moscow, the national capital and the largest migrant-receiving center; Sverdlovsk Oblast, a major industrial center with a relatively lax immigration regime; and Krasnodar, one of the leading agricultural regions bordering on the RF ethnic regions and foreign states of the Caucasus—with the latter two serving as regional sources of migrants to the RF. The Krasnodar case is also very important, because this region has been marked by consistently highly restrictive policies and xenophobic rhetoric of the regional government toward migrants.
Thus, Why Control Immigration? offers a valuable comparative perspective on migration policies both internationally and within the RF. These features of the book, along with the wealth of data and the thoroughness of analysis, make it an invaluable source for any academic, NGO representative, or governmental official interested in understanding the RF’s migration situation and governmental policies. But the importance of Caress Schenk’s research goes far beyond that, making the book a very useful tool for anybody interested in understanding global migration and policy trends in immigrant-receiving states in general. Why Control Immigration? also offers an unconventional view on the structure and functioning of the Russian government, the factors influencing the decision-making process, the balance of formal and informal mechanisms of governing, and the government’s interaction with NGOs and other elements of civil society in the RF. Considering the current world and US political trends, I hope that the author will continue her research, looking, in particular, at the populist components of immigration politics and governmental policies—both in Russia and the other migrant-receiving states.
