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Portrait of Mireille Paquet

Mireille Paquet

Research Chair on the Politics of Immigration, Concordia University and Scientific Director of the Équipe de recherche sur l’immigration au Québec et ailleurs
Education PhD, Université de Montreal

Visiting Toronto Metropolitan University

Fall 2023

Research focus while a CERC Scholar - Public administration and politics in immigration governance

Immigration scholars have long shown that bureaucracies are sites of contingent policy innovation due to their simultaneous monopoly of expertise on immigration systems and their dependence on less specialized political principals. Yet, most research on the new politics of immigration has focused on political parties and elected officials, leaving aside how polarization and salience are managed by immigration bureaucracies.  Mireille’s current research program explores the evolution of administrative structures responsible for immigration in different settings and aims at theorizing the role of immigration bureaucracies in contemporary immigration politics. 

Career Achievements

Mireille Paquet is an accomplished researcher in the field of immigration politics, recognized for her policy influence and her leadership of research infrastructures. She holds the Concordia Research Chair on the Politics of Immigration at Concordia University and is the scientific director of the Équipe de recherche sur l’immigration au Québec et ailleurs (ÉRIQA (external link) ). She has held fellowships at Harvard University and UC Berkeley and was the recipient of the 2016/2017 Concordia University Research Award in Social Sciences. In 2020, she was selected as the inaugural Scholar in Residence of the Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation at the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP), and in 2022, she was an International Research Fellow at the Institut Convergences Migrations at the Collège de France. Mireille is routinely invited to present her research to governments in Canada and internationally. Moreover, she is directly involved in public policy, as she acts as a consultant and advisor for different government departments and NGOs on policy design and research projects. She maintains an active presence as a public intellectual by engaging in outreach through traditional media and by publishing articles in accessible venues in French and in English.

Relevant Publications

Paquet, M. & Lawlor, A. (2022) Numbers and Images: representations of immigration and public attitudes about immigration in Canada. Canadian Journal of Political Science. doi:10.1017/S0008423922000786.

Paquet, M. & Joy, M. (2022) Canadian Sanctuary Policies in Context. Canadian Public Administration 65(4), 629-646.

Paquet, M. (2021) Research, Monitoring, and Managing: immigration policy work and Canadian exceptionalism.” American Review of Canadian Studies, 51(1),62-77. 

Paquet, M. (2020) Immigration, Bureaucracies and Policy Formulation: The Case of Quebec. International Migration 58(1),166-181. 

Mireille Paquet’s full list of publications is available here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3jG7sA8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao (external link)