A colleague recently commented that he is confused where I stand with regard to the academic use of MIPEX data. Apparently I have been rather critical and quite enthusiastic about it. I guess this sums it up quite well. I’ve always been critical of the (historical) lack of a theoretical base for the indicators used, and the often uncritical use of the aggregate scores as indicators of ‘immigration policy’ in the literature. I’m enthusiastic about its coverage (compared to other indices), the effort to keep it up-to-date, and the availability of the detailed data.
A few years back, I verified that it is OK to use the MIPEX as a scale (as is often done), highlighting redundancy in the items and that such scales could be improved:
- Ruedin, Didier. 2011. “The reliability of MIPEX indicators as scales.” SOM Working Paper 3: 1–19.
In the context of the SOM project, we have demonstrated that it is feasible to expand the MIPEX indicators back in time. We did so for 7 countries back to 1995. I refined these data by using the qualitative descriptions provided to identify the year of the change, giving year-on-year changes since 1995 for the 7 SOM countries. These data are experimental in that they rely on the documentation and not original research. If that’s not enough, Camilla and I have then created a complete time series of the MIPEX indicators in Switzerland since 1848. This showed that we definitely can go back in time, but also that quite a few of the things MIPEX measures were not regulated a century ago.
- Ruedin, Didier, Camilla Alberti, and Gianni D’Amato. 2015. “Immigration and integration policy in Switzerland, 1848 to 2014”, Swiss Political Science Review 21(1): 5-22. doi:10.1111/spsr.12144
Even with the short time in the SOM data, these data are quite insightful:
- Morales, Laura, Jean-Benoit Pilet, and Didier Ruedin. 2015. “The Gap between Public Preferences and Policies on Immigration: A Comparative Examination of the Effect of Politicization on Policy Congruence” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 41(9):1495-1516. doi:10.1080/1369183X.2015.1021598
Later I provided a different approach: re-assembling! The idea is generic and does not apply to the MIPEX alone: make use of the many indicators in the database, but use your own theory to pick and choose the ones you consider most appropriate (rather than be constrained by the presentation in the MIPEX publications). I have demonstrated that the MIPEX data can be used to closely approximate the Koopmans et al. data, but immediately cover a wider range of countries and observe changes over time. Now we can have theory and coverage!
- Ruedin, Didier. 2015. “Increasing validity by recombining existing indices: MIPEX as a measure of citizenship models.” Social Science Quarterly 96(2): 629-638. doi:10.1111/ssqu.12162
And yes, we can apply these data to gain new insights, like the nature of the politicization of immigrant groups:
- Ruedin, Didier. 2017. “Citizenship regimes and the politicization of immigrant groups”. Austrian Journal of Political Sciences. 46(1):7-19. doi:10.15203/ozp.1591.vol46iss1
