As the twentieth century draws to a close, one can find sharply contrasting views among leading scholars on almost every key issue in positive international political economy. How strong are international as opposed to domestic influences on policy? How important are issues of national security (”high politics”) versus economic considerations(”low politics”)? What role do institutions—international and domestic—play in influencing and constraining the behavior of governments? Why is international cooperation rare but not unheard of? The list goes on and on.

This article examines the domestic political sources of immigration control in advanced market economy countries after World War II. Immigration control can be distinguished from the broader concept of immigration policy by its emphasis on state policies that define the permissible level of resident alien admissions. The analysis is based on the well-established fact that immigrant communities are geographically concentrated. I argue that this geographic concentration creates an uneven distribution of costs and benefits, providing a spatial context for immigration politics. In this context, net public demand for tighter immigration control increases in localities where immigrants concentrate when those areas experience higher unemployment, rapid increases in immigration, higher immigrant proportions, and more generous immigrant access to social services. Each of these conditions aggravates competition between immigrants and natives, and hence native hostility, in these communities while employer support for immigration usually diminishes. Yet national politicians may ignore changes in the demand for immigration control unless these constituencies are also able to swing a national election from one party to another. The larger and less “safe” the local constituencies, the greater their influence in this sense. Evidence from the United Kingdom between 1955 and 1981 is consistent with these propositions.

With the end of the Cold War, many observers expected that international conflict would be less likely to occur and easier to manage. Given the successful resolution of the Gulf War and the European Community's (EC) efforts to develop a common foreign policy, observers expected international cooperation to manage the few conflicts that might break out. Instead, the disintegration of Yugoslavia contradicted these expectations. Rather than developing a common foreign policy, European states were divided over how to deal with Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia. Germany pushed for relatively quick recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, whereas other members of the EC wanted to go slower. Some observers expected Russia to fall in line with the West because of its need for investment and trade, but instead it supported Serbia. It is puzzling that Europe failed to cooperate regardless of whether greater international cooperation could have managed this conflict. How can we make sense of the international relations of Yugoslavia's demise? Since secession is not a new phenomenon, we should study previous secessionist conflicts to determine if they share certain dynamics, and we should consider applying to Yugoslavia the arguments developed to understand such conflicts.