Policy Streams and Immigration to Russia: Competing and Complementary Interests at the Federal and Local Levels
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12227 |
| Author | Beth Mitchneck,Igor Kuznetsov,Erin Trouth Hofmann,Julia L. Carboni |
| Date | 01 April 2016 |
| Published date | 01 April 2016 |
Policy Streams and Immigration to Russia:
Competing and Complementary Interests at
the Federal and Local Levels
Erin Trouth Hofmann*, Julia L. Carboni**, Beth Mitchneck*** and Igor Kuznetsov****
ABSTRACT
This article uses Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework to explain forms of national- and
region-level governance used in the Russian Federation to manage unprecedented levels of
international immigration. First, we identify the ways that the Russian federal government has
legislated and governed international migration from 1991 through 2010. We then compare the
federal level to the case of the Krasnodar region, an ethnically diverse region in the North
Caucasus. We find that that migration policy adoption in Russia at the federal level is rela-
tively immune to economic trends or labour needs but more sensitive to foreign and domestic
political objectives. At the regional level, local socio-political and economic concerns predomi-
nate and political objectives are secondary. Finally, we argue that migration policy changes or
adopted policy at the regional level may be explained by an interaction effect between changes
in political leadership, federal level policy adoption, and regional level context.
INTRODUCTION
Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union (FSU), the Russian Federation has become home to
the second largest pool of international migrants, after the United States (United Nations, 2013).
Becoming the primary destination for international migrants in the FSU has presented substantial
policy challenges for Russia. The Soviet Union had elaborate regulations governing internal migra-
tion, but scholars debated whether these policies had any meaningful influence on migration pat-
terns (for examples of arguments that Soviet migration policy was largely irrelevant, see
Grandstaff, 1980; Kerbey, 1983; for arguments that Soviet policies did have meaninful impacts, see
Buckley, 1995; Author et al, 1995). A similar debate exists today over the relevance and logic of
migration policy in the Russian Federation (see Korobkov, 2007; Robarts, 2008; Schenk, 2013).
In this article, we use Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) to demonstrate the under-
lying processes of migration policy development in Russia. We begin by considering the dominant
approaches to understanding migration policy adoption and conclude that in the Russian case, more
complex approaches may help explain why certain forms of governance and policies are adopted.
We use MSF to demonstrate that the dynamic and seemingly random process of policy adoption in
Russia is driven by multiple factors that differ at the federal and regional levels (Kingdon, 1999).
* Utah State University, Logan
** Purdue University, Indianapolis
*** University of Arizona
**** Kuban State University
doi: 10.1111/imig.12227
©2015 The Authors
International Migration ©2015 IOM
International Migration Vol. 54 (2) 2016
ISS N 00 20- 7985 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
The article focuses on the development of migration policy from 1991 to 2010 at the federal and
regional levels, using Krasnodar, an ethnically diverse region in the North Caucasus, as a case
study. We find that policy adoption in Russia at the federal level is relatively immune to economic
trends or labour needs but sensitive to foreign and domestic political objectives. At the regional
level, we find that while political concerns are important for policy adoption, regional social and
economic concerns predominate in the policy arena. Migration policy adoption at the regional level
may be explained by an interaction between changes in political leadership, federal level policy
adoption, and regional level context. The MSF is a valuable tool for understanding Russia’s devel-
oping migration policy, and may prove equally valuable in understanding the complex influences
on immigration policy in other states.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Explanations of immigration policy
Explanations of migration policies typically consider one (or more) of three areas: national inter-
ests, interest groups within society, and the role of institutions. National interests arguments high-
light the rational nature of immigration policy. In this view, governments adopt policies to manage
international migration flows based upon a combination of economic growth and demographic fac-
tors that determine labour force needs (Appleyard, 2001). Other national interest arguments focus
on security. Chain or networked migration leads to concerns over security and creates national con-
versations about limiting immigration from particular places –especially those that send sustained
migration flows (Hollifield, 2004).
Interest group arguments demonstrate that different groups within a society have different goals.
Working-class groups see immigrants as a threat and advocate for restriction (Foreman-Peck, 1992;
Meyers, 2000); industries relying on immigrant labour push for specific types of admissions (Facchini
et al., 2011); and established ethnic communities advocate on behalf of their compatriots (Freeman,
1995; Zolberg, 1999). The relative power of different groups, with their ability to form alliances,
shapes national immigration policies, which may not appear rational when considering only macro-
level national interests (Breuning and Luedtke, 2008; Castles, 2004; Cerna, 2014; Zolberg, 1999).
Institutional theories highlight the role of the context in which interest groups advocate and poli-
cies are adopted (Castles, 2004). International organizations provide a set of transnational institu-
tions that shape national policies, although to a limited extent (Opeskin, 2012; Slominski, 2013).
National institutions appear to play a stronger role. Electoral systems shape how responsive parties
are to specific constituencies (Perlmutter, 1996), decentralization tends to promote policy gridlock
(Sainsbury, 2012), and a professionalized bureaucracy promotes policies that are more aligned with
long-term national interests rather than popular opinion (Monogan, 2013). Notably, however, insti-
tutional theories have focused on the institutional context of liberal democratic countries (Hollifield,
2004), and at the national and transnational levels. A growing body of literature on migration pol-
icy at the sub-national level, focused especially on USA, demonstrates that policymaking is further
complicated by the interplay between local and national elites, and the influence of local interest
groups (Stewart and Jameson, 2013).
National interests (both economic and security), interests groups, and institutional constraints are
all potentially relevant to the Russian case. With limited research to draw on, it is difficult to know
which factors may be most important, and how they will operate in the Russian case. The MSF is
valuable because it allows us to consider all of these factors and their interactions in our analysis
of national and regional migration policy in Russia by understanding how problems, potential
policies and politics interact to lead to policy adoption.
Policy Streams and Immigration to Russia 35
©2015 The Authors. International Migration ©2015 IOM
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