State response to labour demands

After the guestworker experiences in Europe and the US during the 1950s and 1960s, there was general consensus that guestworker programmes had failed wherever and whenever they had been tried (Castles 1986; Martin 2000; Martin & Teitelbaum 2001). In particular, the conclusion was that they were inherently flawed because, as the saying goes, there is nothing more permanent than temporary foreign workers. Prominent among the reasons given in the academic literature to explain temporary workers’ propensity to settle was the argument that foreigners in liberal democracies are entitled to rights under the aegis of liberal constitutions (Hollifield 1992). In a similar vein, Freeman (1995) concluded that immigration politics in liberal democracies are ‘expansionist and inclusive’ because the benefits related with immigration are concentrated whereas the costs tend to be diffuse. More recently, along similar lines, Martin and Ruhs (2006) have argued that there is a trade-off – which is to say, an inverse relationship – between the number of migrants employed in low-skilled jobs and the rights accorded them: the more immigrants, the fewer rights. A similar argument leads Arango (2003: 3) to conclude that while democratic countries tend to restrict numbers, non-democratic or autocratic societies tend to restrict rights (see section 1.4).

The comparison between Spain and Malaysia seeks, in the first place, to test this argument. By first considering how the Spanish and the Malaysian states have responded to the demand for foreign labour, this book aimed to analyse to what extent we are looking at such distinct models. To be more specific, the question might be worded as follows: to what point has Spain had a policy of low numbers and high rights and Malaysia one of high numbers and low rights? At first sight, a review of entry policies over the past twenty years leads one to the conclusion that, in effect, the state of Malaysia has opted for a policy of high numbers and low rights. The state has not restricted the entry of migrant workers, though has placed limits on time of residence, position in the labour market and social and labour rights. In Malaysia as many foreign workers as demanded for by employers have entered the country. Restrictions do not appear at the point of entry, but are enforced once the immigrants are in the country by limiting their access to membership.