Colonising Italians: Italian Imperialism and Agricultural ‘Colonies’ in Australia, 1881–1914

The historiography of Australian imperialism before the First World War has often neglected a context wider than the relationship with Great Britain. Yet this era also implicated non-British governments and their emigrants. Despite their small numbers, Italian settlers are significant for highlighting Italy's empire-building and Australia's struggles for national and imperial unity. Italy's foreign policies after 1901 opened commercial opportunities across its diasporic networks, which included subsidising agricultural ‘colonies’ in Australia. The contemporary discourses of sectarianism and racism voiced before Federation articulated political and popular resistance against Italian immigrants. The rhetoric shifted after Federation as state governments examined the issue of land tenure for closer settlements (small agricultural farms), appealing to an argument about serving unemployed Australians before approving foreign settler schemes. The history leading up to two Italian projects in Western Australia and Queensland in 1907 allows reflections on Italy's diaspora colonisation and Australian responses to foreign imperialism.     

Population replacement,social mobility and development in Italy in the twentieth century

Abstract

Many scholars have expressed alarm at the low fertility and sustained immigration that have characterized Italy in the last decade (1.3 children per woman and an increase of more than 200,000 immigrants per year). This article takes a different approach, showing how low fertility and strong migratory balances (involving migration both between Italian regions and from abroad) have enhanced the formation of human capital, facilitating family strategies of upward social mobility, the construction of a more balanced labor market, increases in income and a decline in the graying of the population. The combination of low fertility and sustained immigration, therefore, has been and still is a fundamental resource for development of the population and of Italian society, especially in central and northern Italy. The article also discusses modifications in family and immigration policies suggested by these findings.     

扼制还是纵容？——浅析美国移民制度对中国非法移民的影响

在过去的二三十年间,中国非法移民已成为美国华人社会一个日益严重的社会问题,它同时也引起美国政客和社会学家的关注.为什么在美国政府制定了一系列移民政策以阻止非法移民进入美国的同时,非法移民潮却始终禁而不绝?本文选取美国移民政策中的两大法令--政治庇护制度和雇主制裁条例,以说明美国移民制度中存在的一些漏洞及自相矛盾之处,这些对非法移民特别是中国非法移民的形成与发展产生了重要影响.     

The Politics of Welfare Exclusion: Immigration and Disparity in Medicaid Coverage

The rapid growth of the immigrant population in the United States, along with changes in the demographics and the political landscape, has often raised questions for understanding trends of inequality. Important issues that have received little scholarly attention thus far are excluding immigrants’ social rights through decisive policy choices and the distributive consequences of such exclusive policies. In this article, we examine how immigration and state policies on immigrants’ access to safety net programs together influence social inequality in the context of health care. We analyze the combined effect of immigration population density and state immigrant Medicaid eligibility rules on the gap of Medicaid coverage rates between native‐ and foreign‐born populations. When tracking inequality in Medicaid coverage and critical policy changes in the post‐PRWORA era, we find that exclusive state policies widen the native‐foreign Medicaid coverage gap. Moreover, the effect of state policies is conditional on the size of the immigrant population in that state. Our findings suggest immigrants’ formal integration into the welfare system is crucial for understanding social inequality in the U.S. states.     

Policy Climates,Enforcement Rates,and Migrant Behavior: Is Self‐Deportation a Viable Immigration Policy?

U.S. immigration policy has been the subject of considerable debate in recent years. Previous research has focused on how temporal variation in federal policy has altered the migratory behavior of immigrants. The effect of spatial variation in enforcement remains untested. Relying on the criminological distinction between general and specific deterrence, we argue that high rates of enforcement are unlikely to encourage undocumented immigrants to self‐deport. We also examine the effects cultural and economic immigration policies adopted by the states. Previous research suggests that migrants will choose to remain in states with favorable environments, but this claim has not been directly tested. We draw on data from the Mexican Migration Project (MMP) to address these gaps. MMP data are supplemented with government data on federal enforcement obtained from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and measures of state policy. Our findings suggest that higher rates of enforcement and the establishment of negative policy environments do not encourage undocumented immigrants to leave the United States at a higher rate than their documented counterparts do. Rather, high enforcement contexts exaggerate the differences between documented and undocumented migrant behavior, with undocumented migrants staying longer. Liberal state policies have no discernible effect.     

近代中国政府处理华侨国籍问题的法制化进程

以近代中国政府先后颁布的国籍法为纵向坐标,通过对国籍法颁布前后中国政府处理华侨国籍问题的不同状况进行对照,分析了近代中国政府在处理这个问题上经历的逐步法制化的过程。得出结论,国籍法颁布前,中国政府处理华侨国籍问题时无法可依、随机处理,在此类的外交交涉中处于被动地位;国籍法颁布后,中国政府依据成文的国籍法和相关的国际惯例来处理华侨的国籍问题,在此类交涉中占据了比较有利和主动的位置。     

Ethnic return migration and the nation‐state: encouraging the diaspora to return ‘home’

ABSTRACT. Countries of immigration are generally faced with a dilemma: they wish to accept immigrants for economic purposes, but also to restrict immigration for ethnonational reasons. This is especially true in ethnic nation‐states, where immigration is seen as a threat to ethnonational unity more than in civic nation‐states. However, in recent decades, various ethnic nation‐states have adopted immigration policies that have encouraged their diasporic descendants born and raised abroad to return to their ethnic homeland. Ethnic return migration apparently solves the immigration dilemma by providing ethnic nation‐states with a much‐needed unskilled labour force without causing ethnonational disruption because the immigrants are co‐ethnic descendants. After comparing ethnic return migration policies in European and East Asian countries, this article analyses the development of such policies in Japan and their eventual failure to solve the country's immigration dilemma. As a result, Japan (and other ethnic nation‐states) have imposed restrictions on ethnic return migration.     

Secularization of immigration policy vs. religion's influence on integration: Israel's non‐Jewish Jews' immigration in a comparative perspective

This article deals with the complex relationship between religion and immigration in Western countries, with an emphasis on Israel. The main argument it presents is that the legal procedures of immigration, i.e. laws relating to the acquisition of civil status, have undergone dramatic secularization, while religion's influence is expressed in the social and cultural aspects of the integration of immigrants belonging to religious minorities. This division reinforces the classical theory of secularization, as the formal boundaries of nations are not subject to religious affiliations, but it also supports the theories of competition and complementation between religion and secularism in the social sphere. The tension in the Israeli case between the immigration, naturalization and integration of non‐Jewish Jews, who are part of the extended Jewish population that is not defined by religious parameters, confirms this thesis. The immigration of hundreds of thousands of non‐Jewish Jews' under the Law of Return based on ethno‐national‐secular parameters is an ultimate expression of the secularization of Jewish nationality. On the other hand, the state's encouragement of non‐Jewish immigrants to convert to Judaism so that they can better assimilate into Jewish society signifies the importance of religion in the social integration aspect.     

The second Prodi government and Italian foreign policy: New and improved or the same wrapped up differently?

This article examines whether Italian foreign policy has undergone significant and substantial changes under the second Prodi government. The first part identifies the variables affecting continuity and change in a country's foreign policy and addresses the question of the conditions under which one can expect changes as a result of a change in government, and the conditions under which continuity is instead more likely. The second part looks at the second Prodi government's foreign policy on a number of topical issues, most of which were also faced by the Berlusconi government, to see to what extent the Prodi government's approach to foreign policy indeed changed from that of its predecessor. The article concludes that the Prodi government did not change Italian foreign policy in any substantial manner; differences existed only in the way the new government occasionally chose to present and justify its policies publicly.     

The institutional odyssey of the Italian Parliamentary Republic

This article examines the Italian foreign policy of the second Berlusconi government. The first section focuses on the episodes that critics have used to argue that, under the second Berlusconi government, there has occurred a process of ‘Americanization’ of Italian foreign policy, and provides an interpretation of their significance. The second section looks at these episodes against the historical background of Italian?–?American relations since the end of World War II and argues that, from this perspective, very little, if anything, has changed in Italian?–?American relations or Italian foreign policy in general.     

Italian Security Policy after the Cold War

This article analyses the main trends in Italian security policy in the post-Cold War period. After a brief look at changes in the Italian perceptions of threat, it examines Italian policies within the UN, NATO and the EU, paying particular attention to how Italian decision makers conceive the relationship among these three organizations, especially with respect to the management of regional crises. The article then turns to examine and assess the foreign policy of the second Berlusconi government, which has often been accused of having broken with the past, especially with respect to Italy's policy in Europe. It concludes with a reflection on the likelihood that Italian security policy will continue to benefit from the type of bipartisan political support it has enjoyed in the last decade.     

The Colonial History of the 1905 Aliens Act

The passing of the Aliens Act of 1905 was a defining moment in British immigration law and history. This article investigates the influence of settler-colonial immigration restriction laws on the passing of the Act, and questions the current historiographical inclination to focus solely on the influence of American immigration restriction laws. By analysing the trajectory of contemporary public debates, the evidence given to the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration (1902–03) and the political discussion on various bills, the article shows that the existence of colonial immigration restriction laws played an important role in the formulation and passing of the 1905 Aliens Act. Putting the Act in this larger context highlights its colonial derivation, but also its uniqueness: the British Act's defence of asylum, the exception extended to those landing as political and religious refugees, has no parallel in either early US law or any of the settler-colonial laws.     

Britishness Reconsidered: Interplay Between Immigration and Nationality Legislation and Policymaking in Twenty-first Century Britain

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to clarify the dynamic interplay between immigration and nationality legislation and policymaking in post-imperial and pre-Brexit Britain. In 1981 and 2002, the years on which this paper focuses, three pieces of legislation were enacted marking watershed moments for British policy regarding immigration and nationality. The British Nationality Act of 1981 established ‘British citizenship’ in the statute book. The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act of 2002 claimed to introduce new meaning and value to the acquisition of British citizenship by introducing a citizenship test and pledge. Furthermore, the British Overseas Territories Act of 2002 expanded the geographic scope of British citizenship by, in theory, providing citizenship to all those eligible in the existing dependent territories. Debates on the meaning of Britishness and the political projects linking immigration and nationality legislation to it, continue today in government, academia, and the media, all of whom are competing to have a tangible impact on policy. This paper addresses two questions. First, how can we account for the protracted nature of the debate on Britishness, and government efforts to enact immigration and nationality legislation based upon it? Second, if the meaning of Britishness has evolved over time, how has it been shaped by the course of these ongoing political debates?     

Liberal nationalism and Central American refugees: What is America's national responsibility?

In an era of unprecedented numbers of migrants from the global south to the global north, nationalism has become synonymous with liberal states' ethnocentric, xenophobic, and racist immigration policies. The Trump administration's treatment of Central American refugees has been taken as a prime example. By focusing on liberal cultural nationalism, this paper demonstrates that these prevailing perceptions about nationalism are unfounded. Although liberal cultural nationalism has been accused of endorsing restrictive immigration policies, the degree to which liberal cultural nationalism's immigration policies are restrictive is context dependent; under certain circumstances, liberal nationalism may call for relaxing immigration policies to admit certain types of immigrants by invoking the idea of national responsibility. Consequently, liberal cultural nationalism offers one of the strongest liberal arguments for admitting certain kinds of migrants from the global south. The Central American refugee crisis at the U.S. southern border is analysed as a case study to illustrate this.     

The geography and economic sociology of recent immigration to Italy

This article provides an overview of the geography and economic sociology of recent immigration to Italy. Its main purpose is to offer a contextual framework for the mainly place‐ and nationality‐specific studies which follow and make up the main contributions to this special issue of the journal. Throughout our account, stress is laid on the regional diversity of the immigrant experience within Italy, and on the diversity of migratory types and nationalities which have entered the country over the last twenty‐thirty years. In the final part of the article we make a brief analysis of the Italian political response to the country's relatively new status as a receiver of large‐scale immigration.     

The migration response to the Legal Arizona Workers Act

The 2008 Legal Arizona Workers Act (LAWA) requires all public and private employers to authenticate the legal status of their workers using the federal employment verification system known as E-Verify. With LAWA, Arizona became the first state to have a universal mandate for employment verification. While LAWA targets unauthorized workers, most of whom are Latino immigrants, other groups could experience LAWA's effects, such as those who share households with undocumented workers. In addition, employers may seek to minimize their risk of LAWA penalties by not hiring those who appear to them as more likely to be unauthorized, such as naturalized Latino immigrants and US-born Latinos. Existing research has found a reduction in foreign-born Latino employment and population in response to LAWA. This paper asks a different question: have groups that are most likely to be affected by the law migrated to other states? We find a significant and sustained increase in the internal outmigration rate from Arizona of foreign-born, noncitizen Latinos – the group most likely to include the unauthorized – after the passage of LAWA. There was no significant LAWA internal migration response by foreign-born Latino citizens. US-born Latinos showed some signs of a LAWA-induced internal migration response after the law went into effect, but it is not sustained. The results indicate that local and state immigration policy can alter the settlement geography of the foreign born. This leads us to speculate about how immigrant settlement may adjust in the coming years to the intersecting geographies of post-recession economic opportunity and tiered immigration policies.     

The Impact of Temporary Immigrant Workforce Growth on Employee Verification Policies in the United States

The U.S. Department of Labor admits temporary immigrant workers to address labor shortages in local markets. Yet, do elected officials make it less difficult for some immigrants than others to secure employment in a state? Using U.S. temporary immigrant labor admissions data between 2006 and 2014, I examine the extent to which growth rates of main foreign‐born subgroups influence E‐Verify policies that require employers to authenticate the legal immigration status of employees. I find that state policymakers are less likely to enact E‐Verify policies in response to the growth of immigrants who work in specialty occupations (H‐1b visas). In contrast, the growth of immigrants working in nonspecialty occupations (H‐2a and H‐2b visas) increases the likelihood of enacting E‐Verify policies over time. The results suggest that policymakers release strict rules for employment only for highly educated immigrants who work in specialty occupations that offer higher paying salaries and career advancement opportunities. Disaggregating a monolithic foreign‐born population indicator into more specific class components provides an important contribution to public policy studies. Scholars will likely overlook the contrasting effects of specialty and nonspecialty immigrant workforce growth on policy decisions relating to immigrant employment.     

Construction of crime and the criminal: pathologies of the Italian legal system

This paper discusses the functioning of the Italian legal system, especially with respect to crime and immigration. While political discourse from both right and left stresses the need for the ‘security’ and ‘control’ of immigration, the larger legal-political framework only increases the number of ‘irregular persons’ whose only chance of making a livelihood is to engage in ‘irregular’ jobs. Consequently, public attitudes towards immigrants are becoming systematically tied to ‘crime’ and ‘illegality’. The Italian state draws heavily on its resources to sustain judges, prosecutors, lawyers and a large bureaucratic apparatus, repeatedly running trials that aim to punish crimes often related to the essential condition of being a migrant. Most of these crimes represent no threat to security, nor violate social norms or trust among citizens. Therefore, Italian legislation has the ultimate effect of attracting, above all, those migrants that are willing or more prone to live in a condition of illegality, rather than those that are willing to abide by the law.     

A legal theory for the nation state. Pasquale Stanislao Mancini,Hegelianism and Piedmontese liberalism after 1848

ABSTRACT

This article aims to shed light on the Italian liberals’ contribution to the post-1848 European debate on nationality, representative government and the theory of the state, through focus on the political thought of Pasquale Stanislao Mancini. Building on Vico and Hegel’s philosophies of law and history, Mancini developed a sui generis tradition of national liberalism that founded representative government on a theory of the state that identified freedom and nationality. Far from being the passive and provincial adaptation of Anglo-French currents of liberalism, Mancini’s political thought, while engaging with the contemporary European debates on freedom and constitutional government, nurtured an original constitutional theory that connected conflicting ideas of cosmopolitan freedom and national patriotism.     

Italy and the World Bank: The European Foundations of Development Lending, 1947–51

Foreign financial assistance for economic development and the discipline of development economics have traditionally been associated with US Cold War policy toward the Third World. This article, however, suggests that these practices were also shaped by the experiences of foreign aid for European reconstruction after the Second World War. The article traces loan negotiations between the World Bank and the Italian government, and argues that this process played a substantial role in shaping not only the World Bank's lending policies, but also the way its staff understood the institution's mission. The article emphasises Europe's significance as a site in the early history of development, suggesting new ways of understanding the evolution of development ideas, practices, and institutions after 1951.