Performing for multiple audiences: Immigration bureaucracies and horizontal accountability

Immigration bureaucracies play a central role in immigration governance, yet how they seek to demonstrate accountability beyond formal political oversight remains underexplored. Operating at the intersection of politically sensitive policy domains, non-citizen service provision, and competing demands from multiple societal audiences, immigration departments face distinctive accountability challenges. Comparing Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom over a 20-year period (2000–2020), this article conceptualizes immigration departments as strategic actors that proactively perform horizontal accountability toward different publics. Drawing on a systematic analysis of annual reports as instruments of organizational communication, the study reveals pronounced cross-national and temporal variation in the societal audiences to whom accountability is directed. Canada exhibits a stable pattern centered on accountability to societal stakeholders, consistent with a facilitative immigration regime and a stand-alone departmental structure. Australia displays marked temporal volatility, with accountability performances expanding and contracting alongside organizational restructuring. The United Kingdom shows the narrowest repertoire, characterized by episodic and largely public- and media-oriented performances of accountability. Together, these findings highlight how bureaucratic structure, program architecture, and politicization shape horizontal accountability practices, underscoring the strategic role of immigration bureaucracies in sustaining legitimacy within contested political environments.