Understanding Policy in Immigration
Understanding Policy in Immigration

Author(s): Simeon S. Magliveras
Subject(s): Civil Society, Governance, Public Administration, Public Law, Migration Studies, Asylum, Refugees, Migration as Policy-fields
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Policies; social institution; governments; contemporary societies; social; biological; policy; essentialize; cultural norms; ideologies; society;
Summary/Abstract: Policies have become a form of social institution and are tools which governments use to organize contemporary societies (Shore and Wright 1995) . The intensions and functions of organically formed institutions evolve as the social/biological environment changes through time but, policy in its genesis has specific intensions. Post-modernist thought avoid the nature of policy because it focuses of the individual and the individuals' ability to usurp power structures by avoiding categorization (Kirtsoglou 2004; Butler 2005). However, the nature and purpose of policy is to essentialize and categorize people and define subjects' access to power structures and determine individuals' roles and statuses in society (Shore and Wright 1995; Haines 2013). Thus, individuals are defined, enabled and limited by the categories policy imposes on them (as Citizen, refugee, legal/ illegal immigrant, etc). Thus, deeply embedded in policy are the cultural norms and ideologies, which help us understand power rhetorics and meanings of a society.

• Details
• Contents