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This chapter deals with the two liberal regime countries — the US and the UK — and how the defining properties of the liberal welfare regime, such as heavy reliance on means tested benefits and market solutions, have influenced immigrants' social rights. The chapter begins with the USA, which has been regarded as the prototype of the liberal welfare regime, and then moves to the UK. For each country, the basic features of social provision, the nature of the incorporation regime, and the broad contours of immigration are discussed. Then formal inclusion of immigrants in social provision, the impact of retrenchment, welfare state restructuring, and changes in the incorporation regime on immigrants' social rights are examined. The chapter concludes with a comparison of the two countries' welfare regimes and incorporation regimes, emphasizing how similarities and differences affect immigrants' social rights.

Chapter 4 discusses the two conservative corporatist countries — Germany and France — and the impact of welfare regime attributes, such as work performance and contribution requirements, on immigrants' social rights. The chapter examines immigrants' formal inclusion and access to benefits, and how retrenchment, welfare state restructuring and changes in the incorporation regime have affected immigrants' social rights. In the German case the incorporation regime has been very important because until recently it differentiated between co-ethnic immigrants and foreigners. The concluding discussion compares the German and French welfare and incorporation regimes and their impact on immigrant rights. It also offers an assessment of the proposition that Germany and France are exemplars of contrasting models of citizenship and incorporation in light of policy developments during the past two decades.

The focus of Chapter 5 is the social democratic regime countries — Sweden and Denmark — and how regime characteristics, such as universalism and entitlements based on citizenship and residence, have affected immigrants' social rights. The chapter discusses immigrants' formal inclusion in social provision, the impact of welfare cutbacks on immigrants' social rights and economic well-being, and the influence of changes in the incorporation regime on immigrant rights. The concluding discussion compares how similarities and differences in the Swedish and Danish welfare and incorporation regimes have affected immigrants' social rights. The comparison is also extended to the other regime countries.

Chapter 1 provides a short introduction to the book as a whole. It calls for recasting the debate on immigration and welfare states so that immigrant rights are a major focus, and it discusses the importance of studying immigrants' social rights. The chapter positions the book in relation to comparative welfare state research and international migration literature to clarify its major contributions. The comparative welfare state literature has largely ignored the situation of immigrants and immigrant rights, and a major contribution is to fill this void in the literature. A second contribution is to analyze both the extension and contraction of immigrants' social rights, and a third is to move beyond a description of policy differences and similarities across countries to an analysis of the politics behind the policies. The chapter presents a brief overview of the book and concludes by emphasizing the policy relevance of the book.