James F. Hollifield – Immigration and the ‘Republican’ Model in France

This news story first appeared on May 22, 2013. For more information click here.

To what extent is the French republican model still viable in debates over immigration and integration in France today?  Viewed from the perspective of the last thirty years, which saw the rise of a powerful anti-immigrant political movement, the Front National, one might conclude that immigration in postwar France has been raging out of control.  Yet despite the remarkable showing of the Front National in recent presidential elections, France has remained a relatively open immigration country, a tradition which dates from the middle of the nineteenth century.  Annual levels of immigration have not fallen much below 100,000 since the early 1950s, the right to asylum has been respected by every postwar government, and France has maintained what is arguably the most liberal naturalization policy in Western Europe.  How can we explain this continuity in the midst of crisis?  I argue that the continuity in the principles and outcomes of French immigration policy is closely linked to the power of the republican model and to the limits of control that are a function of rights-based politics.

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21917D_068_HollifieldJames F. Hollifield is Ora Nixon Arnold Professor of International Political Economy in the Department of Political Science and Director of the Tower Center for Political Studies at Southern Methodist University (SMU). He received his PhD in political science from Duke University in 1985. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he has worked as a consultant for a variety of governmental and intergovernmental organizations, and has published widely on international political and economic issues, including Immigrants, Markets, and States (Harvard UP, 1992), L’immigration et l’Etat Nation (L’Harmattan, 1997), Controlling Immigration (Stanford UP, 2nd Edition, 2004), Migration Theory: Talking Across Disciplines (Routledge, 2nd Edition, 2008), and International Political Economy: History, Theory and Policy (Cambridge UP, forthcoming) along with numerous other books and scientific articles. Hollifield has been the recipient of grants from private corporations and foundations as well as government agencies, including the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Social Science Research Council, the Sloan Foundation, the Raytheon Company, and the National Science Foundation. His current research looks at the rapidly evolving relationship between trade, migration, and development with a special focus on human capital and how states use migration for strategic gains. He sits on several boards and is currently Chairman of the Owens Foundation and the Dallas County Historical Foundation, the governing body of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.