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Quantification and Targets in UK Immigration and Asylum Debates

This study examines the role of quantification and targets in UK debates on immigration and asylum. It explores the impact of targets on the political debate, moral deliberation, and policymaking. The study highlights both the positive and negative effects of quantification, including transparency and accountability, but also distortion, simplification, and the narrowing down of complex issues.

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Quantification and Targets in UK Immigration and Asylum Debates

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  1. Governing by Numbers: The Role of Quantification and Targets in UK Debates on Immigration and Asylum Prof Christina Boswell School of Social and Political Science University of Edinburgh

  2. Context • New Centre for Science, Knowledge and Policy (June 2014) • ESRC project on The Politics of Monitoring (2013-16)

  3. Background: Targets in UK Government • Use of quantified performance indicators and targets, 1980s onwards • Labour Government: Public Service Agreements, 1998 • Asylum targets: • Removals (2000) • Processing (2000) • Applications (2003) • Backlog/legacy (2006) • Immigration target: • Net migration (2010)

  4. Targets: Force for Good or Evil? Good: • Transparency, holding to account • Galvanising improvements Bad: • Distortion and gaming • Compressing complexity – ‘black-boxing’ • Reification and legitimation through quants

  5. Asylum

  6. Daily Mail headlines, 1998-99 ‘ASYLUM-SEEKERS POUR IN FROM BRUSSELS’ ‘OPEN DOOR FOR BOGUS REFUGEES’ ‘ALARM AS REFUGEES KEEP ON FLOODING IN’ ‘MECCA FOR BOGUS ASYLUM SEEKERS’ ‘CRISIS FOR OPEN DOOR BRITAIN ‘ ‘REFUGEES TIDE IS HEADING FOR A NEW HIGH’ ‘STRAW'S TURMOIL AS NUMBER OF ASYLUM SEEKERS ROCKETS’

  7. Extract, 2000 Public Service Agreement

  8. 'I would like to see us reduce it [asylum applications] by 30 or 40 per cent in the next few months and I think by September we should have it halved’ (Tony Blair, Newsnight, 7 Feb 2003)

  9. Impact on Political Debate • Technocratisation • Simplification: single category, directional goal • Binary construction • Narrowing down of debate • Spillover of quantification to other areas

  10. Migration

  11. ‘We would like to see net immigration in the tens of thousands rather than the hundreds of thousands’ (David Cameron, Andrew Marr Show, 10 January 2010)

  12. Impact on Political Debate (#2) • Technocratisation • Simplification: single category, directional goal • Binary construction • Narrowing down of debate

  13. Targets & Moral Deliberation

  14. Impact on Moral Deliberation • Quantification as ‘flattening’/equalising? BUT: • Defining the scope of justice/equal treatment • Codifying hierarchy of entitlements

  15. Conclusion Impact of quantification: • Compression, simplification • Technocratisation, binary coding Especially dangerous where moral values are contested: • Codifies hierarchy of entitlement • Abstracts from rich description vital for extending duties

  16. Thank you! christina.boswell@ed.ac.uk @BoswellPol www.skape.ed.ac.uk

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