Qualitative Comparative Analysis Using R: A Beginner’s Guide

Abstract

always wants more restrictive immigration while interest groups and immigrant-sending countries always want more liberal immigration policies. While this makes applications of her argument easier to follow, I am not entirely convinced that this approach doesn’t explain away some important considerations. First, although Ellerman does a fine job empirically supporting the premise of a public (and policy-maker) xenophobic orientation, there’s often a conspicuously anodyne treatment of the abjectly white supremacist logics underpinning both status quo policies and public discourse. Throughout each of these cases of immigrant policy, the “ethno-racial undertones” could benefit from more explicit unpacking (Ellerman is best on this within the US case). Moreover, while the international actors and diplomatic pressure play a relatively minor role in the case studies, the assumption that all sending countries see emigration as a “safety valve” (pp. 20, 59–60) seems to foreclose potentially interesting variation in the dynamics between sending and receiving countries. Recognizing the heterogeneity within and between different sending countries over time could open an additional avenue for comparative policy analysis, particularly when thinking about states with robust diaspora engagement policies, including incentivizing citizens to return home. Indeed, perhaps the best marker of Ellerman’s book as a major contribution is for the potential extensions and expansions. This is a comprehensive and comparative theory that can (and should) travel. Indeed, Ellerman concludes with compelling (if brief) extensions of the framework to other migration policies (e.g. asylum, integration) as well as the policymaking process at both subnational and supranational levels. And yet I found myself thinking through so many more possible applications for the policy arenas framework; for example, could the political insulation apply to climate policy, another complex policy issue with competing domestic pressures and international dimensions? How could we adapt or extend the theory beyond the Global North to think through immigration (or other) policies in the Global South, particularly in democracies with sizable immigrant and emigrant populations, but perhaps not the state capacity or economic clout to accommodate all domestic and international pressures? How adaptable is the insulation theory in more authoritarian contexts? This new book, combining a robust and flexible theoretical framework with meticulous case studies, is both a model and a catalyst for cuttingedge comparative policy research. Reviewer: Elizabeth Iams Wellman © 2022 Visiting Assistant Professor Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA; Postdoctoral Research Fellow University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa biw1@williams.edu