Publications, Schar School of Policy and Government
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This collection contains preprints and postprints of published work from the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government
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Browsing Publications, Schar School of Policy and Government by Author "Gest, Justin"
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Item Measuring and Comparing Immigration, Asylum and Naturalization Policies Across Countries: Challenges and Solutions(John Wiley & Sons, 2014-05-12) Gest, Justin; Boucher, Anna; Challen, Suzanna; Burgoon, Brian; Thielemann, Eiko; Beine, Michel; McGovern, Patrick; Crock, Mary; Rapoport, Hillel; Hiscox, MichaelAcademics and policy makers require a better understanding of the variation of policies that regulate global migration, asylum and immigrant naturalization. At present, however, there is no comprehensive cross-national, time-series database of such policies, rendering the analysis of policy trends across and within these areas difficult at best. Several new immigration databases and indices have been developed in recent years. However, there is no consensus on how best to conceptualize, measure and aggregate migration policy indicators to allow for meaningful comparisons through time and across space. This article discusses these methodological challenges and introduces practical solutions that involve historical, multi-dimensional, disaggregated and transparent conceptualizing, measuring and compiling of cross-national immigration policies. Such an approach informs the International Migration Policy and Law Analysis (IMPALA) database.Item Migration Studies at a Crossroads: A Critique of Immigration Regime Typologies(Oxford University Press, 2014-08-22) Boucher, Anna; Gest, JustinInternational migration and its scientific examination have reached a crossroads. Today, migrants are pursuing opportunities in new destination societies with growing economies and different forms of governance from democratic states—transformations that complicate established understandings about national immigration models and their evolution. In light of these transformations, this article reviews the field of migration studies and its sketching of immigration patterns in the contemporary period. It critically examines existing systems of classification in a way that creates space for revised approaches. In doing so, this article identifies three key limitations with existing approaches. First, existing classifications largely focus on Western states, and especially traditional destination countries. Second, existing classifications are weakened by unclear or poorly defined indicators. Finally, even those classifications with improved indicators are hindered by approaches that examine admission and citizenship/settlement regimes independently of each other, ignoring a possible migration integration policy nexus.Item Reluctant Pluralists: European Muslims and Essentialist Identities(Routledge, 2014-07-28) Gest, JustinAn emerging consensus amongst scholars of Muslim political and social identity suggests that Western Muslims live out an anti-essentialist critique of identity construction. Considering this view, this paper examines a cross-national comparison of British Bangladeshis in London and Spanish Moroccans in Madrid that solicits the perceptions of working class Muslim men. While the results indeed re-affirm respondents’ concomitant relationships to a variety of identity paradigms, interview content demonstrates that subjects’ multiplicity is complicated by their desire to meet—not reject—the essentialist standards of belonging to the identity paradigms discursively available to them. Rather than defiantly cherry-picking preferred characteristics of religion, ethnicity and nationality, individuals’ responses suggest that they are trying to fulfill perceived standards of authenticity. Such a contention helps explain the prevalence of Western Muslims’ expressed and well-documented “identity crisis,” suggests the enduring relevance of identity essentialisms, and more broadly, complicates post-modern conceptions of identity formation.