Working Paper

This paper generalizes the puzzle underlying my dissertation and offers conceptual and empirical innovations that contribute to its solution.

Abstract
How are states’ territorial openness towards immigration and their level of internal equality related? In this paper, I make conceptual and empirical contributions to the solution of this Openness-Equality Puzzle (OEP). Conceptually, I argue that the OEP has been narrowly specified as the correlation between openness and equality variables. I contend that it is more useful to conceptualize it through the OE-Typology (OET). The OET is configurational at heart but can accommodate correlational perspectives and be applied to various relevant domains. Focusing on immigration and immigrant rights policies as crucial and exemplary domains, I argue further that the resulting four ideal-types can be metaphorically described as different types of fruit. Moreover, the OET allows us to systematically connect these “fruits of immigration” to various positions in normative political theory. Empirically, two original analyses using existing cross-sectional and panel data demonstrate that openness-equality correlations can become positive and are only weakly moderated by regime type. In addition, I show the added value of analyzing this data through the prism of the OET. The findings challenge widespread normative and empirical assumptions about the (in)compatibility of openness, egalitarianism, and democracy.