Justin Gest
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 132846 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Justin Gest |
| NOMBRES | Justin |
| APELLIDO | Gest |
| FIRMA | GEST J |
| AFILIACIONES | George Mason University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5286-4551 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 29 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 290 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 29 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2013 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
The Trump Effect
Executive Summary This paper studies the effect of destination state immigration policy shifts on the behavior and perceptions of migrants in transit. We leverage a novel survey of over 40,000 migrants in transit through Central America between 2021 and 2025 to examine their behavioral and attitudinal responses to shifts in United States (US) immigration policy under the US administrations of Presidents Joseph Biden and Donald Trump. Our research…
Gray Area
Japan is one of the world’s fastest aging societies, with projections showing a population decline of almost 40 million people as the country grays during the next 40 years. By the end of this period, those aged 65 and older will comprise almost 40% of the population. Despite efforts to boost fertility rates and millions of septuagenarians working full-time, Japan remains one of the least receptive immigration destinations. In this study, we inve…
The Effect of Slow-Onset Climate Change on Migration Decisions
What explains why people choose to stay or emigrate in the face of slow-onset climate change? We leverage an original survey of prospective migrants who are exceptionally vulnerable to threats from climate change, but who possess the freedom to legally migrate to another country with relative protection from environmental degradation. Using a conjoint experiment, we assess subjects’ latent preferences before they depart by asking them the circums…
Demographic and Economic Implications of Alternative U.S. Immigration Policies
Due to the United States’ decades-long stalemate in federal immigration policy-making, major institutional forecasts of the U.S. population have not included assumptions about changes in immigration policy. However, the 2016 election of President Donald Trump and the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated just how much policy shifts can affect immigration flows, with substantial implications for the country’s demographic future. We created national-level…
Nostalgic deprivation and populism
Populist parties have been increasingly successful in European politics over the last decade. Although research suggests that nostalgic deprivation – a perceived loss of economic, political or social status — is linked to support for populist parties, the generalizability of this argument across voters and national contexts remains unclear. In this research note, we leverage original representative surveys across 19 European countries to demonstr…
Dilemmas in Representation
As global migration continues to intensify, legislatures in liberal democracies increasingly feature policymakers with direct experiences with immigration. Concurrently, scholars often argue that electoral accountability creates incentives to appeal to public opinion, which in the context of immigration policymaking favors restrictions over admission. In this paper, we study these competing dynamics among these immigrant legislators. We theorize …
Ebb and Flow
Understanding why people choose to adapt or emigrate when facing slow-onset climate events is central to the design and implementation of policy addressing displacement spurred by climate change, especially climate-refugee programs. In this article, we leverage extensive field interviews and a novel survey in the Federated States of Micronesia, a country at high risk of environmental degradation but whose citizens have carte blanche access to the…
Migrant Rights Protections and Their Implementation in 45 Countries
To what extent do national governments protect the human rights of migrants, and what are the political and economic circumstances associated with more robust protection? To address these questions, we leverage a rigorous, novel database of migrant rights derived from international laws and standards. We evaluate the extent to which 64 indicators—divided into 17 different categories of migrant rights—appear in national statute and case law in 45 …
Viewers like you
As the political salience of immigrant-origin minorities continues to increase in the United States and Europe, researchers are increasingly focused on understanding what interventions reduce exclusionary attitudes. While several recent studies have examined the effect of different narrative and interpersonal communication techniques, few have focused on the role of the "messenger" that delivers these techniques. Drawing from psychological resear…
Pull Factors and Migration Preferences
Which national characteristics do voluntary migrants prioritize when considering destinations? Although this question is salient for policymakers, extant studies face challenges when seeking to identify how various pull factors shape destination preferences. Surveys of migrants are typically conducted after they arrive, introducing selection bias and post-hoc reasoning. Moreover, desirable national characteristics tend to co-vary, implying that o…
A Segmented Theory of Immigration Regime Development
Demographic change and backlash
Why are backlash politics so prevalent in the context of demographic change? And so that we may understand how to mitigate social conflict, what role do government and political actors play in their inflammation or reconciliation? Drawing from a larger study of six societies that have dealt with significant demographic change, I review the ways that government and political leaders’ actions can produce three different social cleavages: (1) an ove…
Majority Minority
This study asks: What drives divergent reactions to demographic transformation? This question has grown in salience as the politics of the United States and Western Europe react to the prospect of becoming Majority Minority states — where the native constituency of people, defined by race, ethnicity, and/or religion, loses its numerical advantage in the territory of a sovereign state. Relatively little is known about how societies govern such dem…
Protecting and Benchmarking Migrants’ Rights
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration ( GCM ) was to be “guided by human rights law and standards” in recognition of the rights of international migrants, who are currently protected by an overlapping patchwork of treaties and international law. The GCM contains many laudable commitments that, if implemented, will ensure that states more consistently respect, protect, and fulfil the rights of all migrants and also that state…
Crossroads
In this ambitious study, Anna K. Boucher and Justin Gest present a unique analysis of immigration governance across thirty countries. Relying on a database of immigration demographics in the world's most important destinations, they present a novel taxonomy and an analysis of what drives different approaches to immigration policy over space and time. In an era defined by inequality, populism, and fears of international terrorism, they find that g…
Methodological Appendix
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Response to Christopher Ellis’ review of The New Minority
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Roots of the Radical Right
Following trends in Europe over the past decade, support for the Radical Right has recently grown more significant in the United States and the United Kingdom. While the United Kingdom has witnessed the rise of Radical Right fringe groups, the United States’ political spectrum has been altered by the Tea Party and the election of Donald Trump. This article asks what predicts White individuals’ support for such groups. In original, representative …
Comparing Immigration Policies
This paper introduces a method and preliminary findings from a database that systematically measures the character and stringency of immigration policies. Based on the selection of that data for nine countries between 1999 and 2008, we challenge the idea that any one country is systematically the most or least restrictive toward admissions. The data also reveal trends toward more complex and, often, more restrictive regulation since the 1990s, as…
Measuring Immigration Policies
The white working-class minority
This article contributes a counter-narrative about white working-class people in the USA and the UK. It argues that the systematic and social disempowerment of white working-class people is creating a new minority group. I begin by clarifying the occasionally nebulous definition of “working-class white” communities. I then describe the concept of “post-traumatic cities” – exurbs and urban communities that lost signature industries in the mid- to …
Reluctant pluralists
An emerging consensus among scholars of Muslim political and social identity suggests that Western Muslims live out an anti-essentialist critique of identity construction. Considering this view, this paper examines a cross-national comparison of British Bangladeshis in London and Spanish Moroccans in Madrid that solicits the perceptions of working-class Muslim men. While the results indeed reaffirm respondents' concomitant relationships to a vari…
Pro- and anti-system behavior
Theories of participation and non-participation are largely unable to capture and distinguish anti-system behavior, which ranges from deliberate silence to political violence. To better understand and measure these diverse forms of citizen participation, and to distinguish these from forms of alienation and marginalization, this article builds a new model of anti-system behavior in a way that facilitates the development of empirically observable …
Silent citizenship
Measuring Immigration Policies
Roots of the Radical Right
Following trends in Europe over the past decade, support for the Radical Right has recently grown more significant in the United States and the United Kingdom. While the United Kingdom has witnessed the rise of Radical Right fringe groups, the United States’ political spectrum has been altered by the Tea Party and the election of Donald Trump. This article asks what predicts White individuals’ support for such groups. In original, representative …
Comparing Immigration Policies
This paper introduces a method and preliminary findings from a database that systematically measures the character and stringency of immigration policies. Based on the selection of that data for nine countries between 1999 and 2008, we challenge the idea that any one country is systematically the most or least restrictive toward admissions. The data also reveal trends toward more complex and, often, more restrictive regulation since the 1990s, as…
Migration studies at a crossroads
International migration and its scientific examination have reached a crossroads. Today, migrants are pursuing opportunities in new destination societies with growing economies and different forms of governance from democratic states—transformations that complicate established understandings about national immigration models and their evolution. In light of these transformations, this article reviews the field of migration studies and its sketchi…
Pull Factors and Migration Preferences
Which national characteristics do voluntary migrants prioritize when considering destinations? Although this question is salient for policymakers, extant studies face challenges when seeking to identify how various pull factors shape destination preferences. Surveys of migrants are typically conducted after they arrive, introducing selection bias and post-hoc reasoning. Moreover, desirable national characteristics tend to co-vary, implying that o…
Majority Minority
This study asks: What drives divergent reactions to demographic transformation? This question has grown in salience as the politics of the United States and Western Europe react to the prospect of becoming Majority Minority states — where the native constituency of people, defined by race, ethnicity, and/or religion, loses its numerical advantage in the territory of a sovereign state. Relatively little is known about how societies govern such dem…
A Segmented Theory of Immigration Regime Development
Nostalgic deprivation and populism
Populist parties have been increasingly successful in European politics over the last decade. Although research suggests that nostalgic deprivation – a perceived loss of economic, political or social status — is linked to support for populist parties, the generalizability of this argument across voters and national contexts remains unclear. In this research note, we leverage original representative surveys across 19 European countries to demonstr…
Protecting and Benchmarking Migrants’ Rights
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration ( GCM ) was to be “guided by human rights law and standards” in recognition of the rights of international migrants, who are currently protected by an overlapping patchwork of treaties and international law. The GCM contains many laudable commitments that, if implemented, will ensure that states more consistently respect, protect, and fulfil the rights of all migrants and also that state…
Tracking the Process of International Norm Emergence
This article provides a systematic understanding of international norm emergence and illuminates the various strategic pathways to altering global dialogue and standards of practice. It traces the steps leading to global norm emergence and identifies the range of conditions that are necessary or sufficient for potential norms to move from one step to the next. Accordingly, it analyzes the progress of six separate international norm agendas to dev…
Silent citizenship
The white working-class minority
This article contributes a counter-narrative about white working-class people in the USA and the UK. It argues that the systematic and social disempowerment of white working-class people is creating a new minority group. I begin by clarifying the occasionally nebulous definition of “working-class white” communities. I then describe the concept of “post-traumatic cities” – exurbs and urban communities that lost signature industries in the mid- to …
Reluctant pluralists
An emerging consensus among scholars of Muslim political and social identity suggests that Western Muslims live out an anti-essentialist critique of identity construction. Considering this view, this paper examines a cross-national comparison of British Bangladeshis in London and Spanish Moroccans in Madrid that solicits the perceptions of working-class Muslim men. While the results indeed reaffirm respondents' concomitant relationships to a vari…
Pro- and anti-system behavior
Theories of participation and non-participation are largely unable to capture and distinguish anti-system behavior, which ranges from deliberate silence to political violence. To better understand and measure these diverse forms of citizen participation, and to distinguish these from forms of alienation and marginalization, this article builds a new model of anti-system behavior in a way that facilitates the development of empirically observable …
Gray Area
Japan is one of the world’s fastest aging societies, with projections showing a population decline of almost 40 million people as the country grays during the next 40 years. By the end of this period, those aged 65 and older will comprise almost 40% of the population. Despite efforts to boost fertility rates and millions of septuagenarians working full-time, Japan remains one of the least receptive immigration destinations. In this study, we inve…
Dilemmas in Representation
As global migration continues to intensify, legislatures in liberal democracies increasingly feature policymakers with direct experiences with immigration. Concurrently, scholars often argue that electoral accountability creates incentives to appeal to public opinion, which in the context of immigration policymaking favors restrictions over admission. In this paper, we study these competing dynamics among these immigrant legislators. We theorize …
Ebb and Flow
Understanding why people choose to adapt or emigrate when facing slow-onset climate events is central to the design and implementation of policy addressing displacement spurred by climate change, especially climate-refugee programs. In this article, we leverage extensive field interviews and a novel survey in the Federated States of Micronesia, a country at high risk of environmental degradation but whose citizens have carte blanche access to the…
Demographic change and backlash
Why are backlash politics so prevalent in the context of demographic change? And so that we may understand how to mitigate social conflict, what role do government and political actors play in their inflammation or reconciliation? Drawing from a larger study of six societies that have dealt with significant demographic change, I review the ways that government and political leaders’ actions can produce three different social cleavages: (1) an ove…
Tracking the Process of International Norm Emergence
This article provides a systematic understanding of international norm emergence and illuminates the various strategic pathways to altering global dialogue and standards of practice. It traces the steps leading to global norm emergence and identifies the range of conditions that are necessary or sufficient for potential norms to move from one step to the next. Accordingly, it analyzes the progress of six separate international norm agendas to dev…
Measuring Immigration Policies
Measuring and Comparing Immigration, Asylum and Naturalization Policies Across Countries
Measuring and Comparing Immigration, Asylum and Naturalization Policies Across Countries
Academics and policy makers require a better understanding of the variation of policies that regulate global migration, asylum and immigrant naturalization. At present, however, there is no comprehensive cross‐national, time‐series database of such policies, rendering the analysis of policy trends across and within these areas difficult at best. Several new immigration databases and indices have been developed in recent years. However, there is n…
Migration studies at a crossroads
International migration and its scientific examination have reached a crossroads. Today, migrants are pursuing opportunities in new destination societies with growing economies and different forms of governance from democratic states—transformations that complicate established understandings about national immigration models and their evolution. In light of these transformations, this article reviews the field of migration studies and its sketchi…
Measuring Immigration Policies
The white working-class minority
This article contributes a counter-narrative about white working-class people in the USA and the UK. It argues that the systematic and social disempowerment of white working-class people is creating a new minority group. I begin by clarifying the occasionally nebulous definition of “working-class white” communities. I then describe the concept of “post-traumatic cities” – exurbs and urban communities that lost signature industries in the mid- to …
Reluctant pluralists
An emerging consensus among scholars of Muslim political and social identity suggests that Western Muslims live out an anti-essentialist critique of identity construction. Considering this view, this paper examines a cross-national comparison of British Bangladeshis in London and Spanish Moroccans in Madrid that solicits the perceptions of working-class Muslim men. While the results indeed reaffirm respondents' concomitant relationships to a vari…
Pro- and anti-system behavior
Theories of participation and non-participation are largely unable to capture and distinguish anti-system behavior, which ranges from deliberate silence to political violence. To better understand and measure these diverse forms of citizen participation, and to distinguish these from forms of alienation and marginalization, this article builds a new model of anti-system behavior in a way that facilitates the development of empirically observable …
Silent citizenship
Comparing Immigration Policies
This paper introduces a method and preliminary findings from a database that systematically measures the character and stringency of immigration policies. Based on the selection of that data for nine countries between 1999 and 2008, we challenge the idea that any one country is systematically the most or least restrictive toward admissions. The data also reveal trends toward more complex and, often, more restrictive regulation since the 1990s, as…
Crossroads
In this ambitious study, Anna K. Boucher and Justin Gest present a unique analysis of immigration governance across thirty countries. Relying on a database of immigration demographics in the world's most important destinations, they present a novel taxonomy and an analysis of what drives different approaches to immigration policy over space and time. In an era defined by inequality, populism, and fears of international terrorism, they find that g…
Methodological Appendix
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Response to Christopher Ellis’ review of The New Minority
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Roots of the Radical Right
Following trends in Europe over the past decade, support for the Radical Right has recently grown more significant in the United States and the United Kingdom. While the United Kingdom has witnessed the rise of Radical Right fringe groups, the United States’ political spectrum has been altered by the Tea Party and the election of Donald Trump. This article asks what predicts White individuals’ support for such groups. In original, representative …
Protecting and Benchmarking Migrants’ Rights
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration ( GCM ) was to be “guided by human rights law and standards” in recognition of the rights of international migrants, who are currently protected by an overlapping patchwork of treaties and international law. The GCM contains many laudable commitments that, if implemented, will ensure that states more consistently respect, protect, and fulfil the rights of all migrants and also that state…
Demographic change and backlash
Why are backlash politics so prevalent in the context of demographic change? And so that we may understand how to mitigate social conflict, what role do government and political actors play in their inflammation or reconciliation? Drawing from a larger study of six societies that have dealt with significant demographic change, I review the ways that government and political leaders’ actions can produce three different social cleavages: (1) an ove…
Majority Minority
This study asks: What drives divergent reactions to demographic transformation? This question has grown in salience as the politics of the United States and Western Europe react to the prospect of becoming Majority Minority states — where the native constituency of people, defined by race, ethnicity, and/or religion, loses its numerical advantage in the territory of a sovereign state. Relatively little is known about how societies govern such dem…
Pull Factors and Migration Preferences
Which national characteristics do voluntary migrants prioritize when considering destinations? Although this question is salient for policymakers, extant studies face challenges when seeking to identify how various pull factors shape destination preferences. Surveys of migrants are typically conducted after they arrive, introducing selection bias and post-hoc reasoning. Moreover, desirable national characteristics tend to co-vary, implying that o…
A Segmented Theory of Immigration Regime Development
Viewers like you
As the political salience of immigrant-origin minorities continues to increase in the United States and Europe, researchers are increasingly focused on understanding what interventions reduce exclusionary attitudes. While several recent studies have examined the effect of different narrative and interpersonal communication techniques, few have focused on the role of the "messenger" that delivers these techniques. Drawing from psychological resear…
Ebb and Flow
Understanding why people choose to adapt or emigrate when facing slow-onset climate events is central to the design and implementation of policy addressing displacement spurred by climate change, especially climate-refugee programs. In this article, we leverage extensive field interviews and a novel survey in the Federated States of Micronesia, a country at high risk of environmental degradation but whose citizens have carte blanche access to the…
Migrant Rights Protections and Their Implementation in 45 Countries
To what extent do national governments protect the human rights of migrants, and what are the political and economic circumstances associated with more robust protection? To address these questions, we leverage a rigorous, novel database of migrant rights derived from international laws and standards. We evaluate the extent to which 64 indicators—divided into 17 different categories of migrant rights—appear in national statute and case law in 45 …
Gray Area
Japan is one of the world’s fastest aging societies, with projections showing a population decline of almost 40 million people as the country grays during the next 40 years. By the end of this period, those aged 65 and older will comprise almost 40% of the population. Despite efforts to boost fertility rates and millions of septuagenarians working full-time, Japan remains one of the least receptive immigration destinations. In this study, we inve…
The Effect of Slow-Onset Climate Change on Migration Decisions
What explains why people choose to stay or emigrate in the face of slow-onset climate change? We leverage an original survey of prospective migrants who are exceptionally vulnerable to threats from climate change, but who possess the freedom to legally migrate to another country with relative protection from environmental degradation. Using a conjoint experiment, we assess subjects’ latent preferences before they depart by asking them the circums…
Political science (24 obras) · Law (19 obras) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (18 obras) · Immigration (17 obras) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (17 obras) · Sociology (16 obras) · Politics (15 obras) · Economics (13 obras) · Law (11 obras) · Political economy (11 obras)