The ‘Epistemic Turn’ in Immigration Policy Analysis

Research on immigration policy has undergone what can be described as an ‘epistemic turn’ over the past few years, with numerous contributions exploring the role of knowledge and research in policy-making on immigration and integration. This paper explores this trend, reviewing recent contributions on the ways in which research is used in political contestation and policy-making. The predominant conclusion of this research is that immigration policy remains largely impervious to research, with political debate and policy-making instead underpinned by more ‘lay’ (and frequently populist) knowledge. I argue that in order to understand this finding, we need more thorough cross-sectoral comparison to identify what distinguishes immigration policy from other policy areas. I will suggest some of the dimensions of policy areas that might account for cross-sectoral variation: risk, time, salience and resource dependence. Some of these dimensions might be combined to produce an explanatory typology for classifying policy sectors and specifying the conditions under which they are likely to rely on/make use of expert knowledge, and what form such utilisation might take. The paper concludes with some reflections on the striking absence of cross-sectoral comparison in immigration policy research.