Prying Open Fortress Europe

Globalization has increased international migratory pressures, but in advanced industrialized countries entrenched social interests eager to maintain restrictive policies make it difficult for governments to encourage mass migration. This book explains how countries in Western Europe have responded to this challenge by establishing sector-specific labor migration policies that are capable of managing migration toward industries with particular labor shortages while still offering the semblance of managed migration necessary to make such policy politically palatable.

Prying Open Fortress: The Turn to Sectoral Labor Migration is unique in the field of migration studies since it traces the microeconomic motivations of the relevant economic actors who influence labor migration policy. The book updates the study of the political economy of immigration through a focus on the central and pro-active role of employers, exploring how they interact with trade unions and government to reconfigure the labor migration paradigm in Western Europe. By doing so, it is attentive to the logic behind their strategies, being sensitive to macroeconomic changes that produce sectorally variant policy outcomes. Beyond offering a micro-economically informed explanation for immigration policy, the study transcends the field of migration studies by offering insights relevant to larger debates concerning the nature of national varieties of capitalism. Challenging the 'national models' understanding of capitalism through a multi-country, multi-sectoral study of employers' policy preferences, it demonstrates how in the area of labor migration, economic branches evidence different worker flexibility needs that lead to differing policy results within countries yet similar responses in the same industries of different countries. Though the book's case studies examine policy development and the role of German, British, Austrian, and Dutch employers, the central comparison is that of Germany, with its highly regulated economy, to the more laissez-faire UK. The book analyzes labor migration policy with four concentrations: IT, hospitality, construction and metalwork, the impact of differing worker flexibility requirements upon employer calculations to make findings more obvious.

Chapter 1 - A New Paradigm for Labor Migration; The Centrality of Labor Migration Policy; Theories of Employer Preferences; Employer Preferences and Domestic Institutions; The Strategy of the Book
Chapter 2 - Flexibility at the Origin of Employer Preferences; Labor Migration Policy and the relevant actors; The Impact of Flexibility Concerns on Labor Migration Policies; The Power of Domestic Institutions; Macroeconomic Change at the Root of Flexibil
Chapter 3 - Germany: A Tug of War between Employers and Domestic Institutions; German Immigration and Labor Migration Policy; Information Technology and the Green Card; The Hospitality Sector; The Metal Industry; Construction and the European Union; Concl
Chapter 4 - The United Kingdom: Employer Dominance or Revitalized Corporatism?; British Immigration and Labor Migration Policy; Strong Government Responsiveness in IT; Special Recognition of Low Skill Needs in Hospitality; British Metalwork: No Sectoral P
Chapter 5 - Austria and the Netherlands: Corporatist Birds of a Feather?; Immigration in the Land of Corporatism; Austria's Cautious Embrace of Information Technology; Corporatist Control of Labor Migration in Hospitality; Immigration and Labor Migration
Chapter 6 - European Labor Migration: Quo vadis?; Employers and the Need for Flexibility; The Varying Preferences by Sector; The Future of Integration; Conclusion