An analysis of classical- and neo-liberal imperatives in the immigration policy and ethnic relations in New Zealand for a cohesive multi-ethnic civil society : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Sociology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

Abstract

The influence of classical- and neo-liberal imperatives in relation to immigration is not confined to the settlement processes of new immigrants. It seems to penetrate the whole procedure, including the formation of immigration policy, the selection of immigrants, their settlement, their residential and economic activities, and social experiences. Furthermore, it extends, on a national level, to the nation-building project of New Zealand for a cohesive multi-ethnic civil society. Current tensions and conflicts surrounding immigration in Western countries appear to be the immediate products of the collision between, on the one hand, ethnic immigrants who experience socio-economic discrimination in their search for social and economic spaces for them in the host society and, on the other, the existing inhabitants of the host society who might experience anxiety over the changed social space around them. The ultimate cause of these tensions and conflicts, however, seems to be the collision between, on the one hand, global and local capitalist imperatives to incorporate nationstates into the global capitalist system and, on the other, the social imperatives of nationstates to maintain a cohesive national society. In order to achieve the cohesive multi-ethnic national society, a countermovement may be required which, in Polanyi’s term, facilitates the de-commodification of both labour and ethnicity, against the grain of classical- and neoliberal imperatives.