Robots and Immigrants

Rhetoric around immigrants ‘stealing people’s jobs’ has become common in contemporary British politics, especially during the debates around the 2016 Brexit referendum. Meanwhile, rising automation has spurred discussion of how many jobs will be taken over by the ‘robots’. The ways we talk about these two threats of job losses can be strikingly similar and both pose questions about how the labour market will be structured in the future.

A new book examining these discourses and their role in British economic and political debate, called Robots and Immigrants: Who Is Stealing Jobs?, was published last month by Bristol University Press. It’s by Dr Kostas Maronitis, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Leeds Trinity University, and Dr Denny Pencheva, Lecturer in European Politics and Public Policy at UCL.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Maronitis, K., & Pencheva, D. (2022). Robots and Immigrants: Who is stealing jobs? Bristol University Press.

UCL’s Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy offers a uniquely stimulating environment for the study of all fields of politics, including international relations, political theory, human rights, public policy-making and administration. The Department is recognised for its world-class research and policy impact, ranking among the top departments in the UK on both the 2021 Research Excellence Framework and the latest Guardian rankings.