The Politics of Vertical Coercion: Immigrant Policy-making in South Korea

• In Event: The Politics of Immigration Policy in East Asia

Abstract

South Korea has been an attractive destination for migrant workers and foreign brides. Facing the increasing inflow of immigrants, the South Korean government has designed various immigration policies, including immigrant control, assimilation, and immigrant policies. Given that local governments have also proposed and enacted their own legislation on immigration, the central government often plays a significant role as a policy entrepreneur in immigration policymaking, in order to make a more coherent policy at the national level. Then, how do the dynamics of central-local relations affect local immigration policy-making? Focusing on local responses to the central immigrant policy coercion in South Korea, this study answers to this question. Specifically, exploring local enactments of the Ordinance on Support for Foreign Residents, which is driven by a broader national policy initiative in South Korea in 2007, this study investigates how the politics of central-local relations affect: 1) the timing of policy adoption; and 2) local governments’ strategic defection. Ultimately, this study will show that political factors such as partisan discrepancies between central and local governments and government ideologies influence local strategies in immigrant policy-making.

Author

• YeonKyung Jeong, University of Rochester