"Limiting the scope of conflict: Deportation and damage control in Germany and the United States"

Ellermann, Antje. (2003) "Limiting the scope of conflict: Deportation and damage control in Germany and the United States". In: UNSPECIFIED, Nashville, TN. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

To what extent can executive agencies in liberal democracies uphold political controversial decisions when confronted with public opposition? My paper examines this question by studying a highly contested area of public policy in Germany and the United States: deportation polity. I ask, what explains variation in the extent to which implementing immigration agencies reverse individual deportation decisions when faced with public opposition? While agencies in some context are able to contain these instances of case mobilization successfully, in other instances they are forced to concede defeat in the face of public protest. This paper attributes varied success in conflict containment to variation in the ability of bureaucrats to insulate their decisions from electoral politics. Crucially, the availability of strategies of electoral insulation depends upon the institutional context in which immigration agencies operate. Of particular significance are the degree of overlap between the jurisdiction of immigration agencies and the constituency of elected officials, the relationship between legislatures and bureaucracies, and the role that partisanship plays in immigration politics. The findings suggest that the institutional context in Germany has allowed bureaucrats to successfully utilize centralized administrative structures to insulate themselves from electoral politics-a bureaucratic strategy which is not available to U.S. bureaucrats.

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