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Deservingness by Design? Temporal Governance in the Canadian Immigration System.

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Deservingness by Design? Temporal Governance in the Canadian Immigration System.

Saleh, Sofiya (2024) Deservingness by Design? Temporal Governance in the Canadian Immigration System. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

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Abstract

The scholarly fields of geography and sociology have identified time as an important factor shaping the policy design that instruct the flow of migrants, however this phenomenon remains sparsely investigated in the political science discourse. Considering this gap in the literature of migration studies and political science, this thesis operationalizes temporal governance in the Canadian policy design context as a tool of control and investigates its differential application in the categories of skilled migrants, family sponsorship and refugees and asylum seekers. To address this gap, I use Melanie Griffith’s coined term, “temporal governance” to assert that time is used as a policy tool to design permissive and restrictive eligibility criteria and it is used differently across Canada’s permanent immigration categories: economic migration, family sponsorship and refugee sponsorship. Second, I use Schneider and Ingram’s social constructions theory to assert that the temporally permissive and restrictive policy design reveals that the economic migration receives permissive policy treatment based on their positive social constructions and usefulness in achieving the state’s economic immigration objectives. Whereas family sponsorship and refugee sponsorship receive restrictive policy treatment due to their weak political associations. Ultimately, this policy design decides which categories are more “deserving by design”.

Divisions:Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > Political Science
Item Type:Thesis (Masters)
Authors:Saleh, Sofiya
Institution:Concordia University
Degree Name:M.A.
Program:Political Science
Date:1 December 2024
Thesis Supervisor(s):Paquet, Mireille
Keywords:migration, time, temporal governance, policy design, canada, citizenship, policy tools
ID Code:994859
Deposited By: Sofiya Saleh
Deposited On:17 Jun 2025 17:02
Last Modified:17 Jun 2025 17:02

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