False and frustrated policy transfer: Spanish immigration policy and Catalonia

In: Policy & politics, Band 37, Heft 3, S. 423-438

Abstract

This article questions the claim that policy transfer is 'on the rise', preferring instead to treat the assertion as a hypothesis to be investigated. Using the literature's own predictive categories, it investigates immigration policy making in Spain more broadly, as well as how it applies specifically to the case of Catalonia. The results of the investigation demonstrate a curious enigma: that while Spanish immigration policy making seems little influenced by policy transfer, Catalonia has made precocious, but failed efforts to create an autonomous model of immigration.