ABSTRACT
Perhaps the most important thing that we hope you get from this book is the understanding that the politics of immigration are complex and often don’t fall in line with the mythologies that have become central to many countries’ nation-building efforts. As we have explained in the chapters of this book, the courses that different countries have taken around immigration policy have been impacted by early nation-building efforts and, more recently, the need for workers to recover from war or fuel a tech boom. What is clear, is that immigration policy is a function of the political system and the electoral politics that define political party competition. For the conclusion of this book, we begin by examining the ongoing dynamics of immigration politics in the 21st century. We conclude with a discussion of the possibilities for regional and global governance that have developed along with trade pacts that focus on the flow of goods and, yet, only secondarily, the flow of people.
