Selective Enclosure: An Institutional Approach to the History of Immigration Law

Schlegel, Stefan (2022). Selective Enclosure: An Institutional Approach to the History of Immigration Law. Zeitschrift für Migrationsforschung / Journal for Migration Studies, 2(2), pp. 61-92. Universität Osnabrück, Institut für Migrationsforschung und Interkulturelle Studien (IMIS) 10.48439/zmf.171

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This article reconceptualizes the history of immigration law as an ongoing and ever more sophisticated enclosure of sets of institutions. It lays out how the right to decide over one’s migration to a given place, or rather into given institutions, is a property right that grants control over access to these institutions. Sets of institutions are composed of public institutions (like courts and parliaments) and private institutions (like companies). The ability of private institutions to provide opportunities depends on the quality of public institutions.
If the right to control one’s migration is a property right, then the history of immigration law can be conceptualized as an ongoing enclosure: the delineation and concentration of these property rights. I argue that pressure to delineate these property rights in more detail, to reallocate them, and to change transaction rules stems from changes in the value of the underlying resource (access to institutions) and changes in the costs of the transaction of
this property right. This insight sheds light on possible future developments
of immigration law.

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