Regionalisation of migration policies and its limits: Europe and North America compared

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 20, Issue 5, 1999, Pages 995-1011

  Pellerin, Hélène ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COMPARATIVE STUDY; IMMIGRATION POLICY; NEOLIBERALISM; REGIONALIZATION;

EUROPE; NORTH AMERICA;

EID: 0033385067     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01436599913451     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. On regionalism and migration, see A B Simmons, 'Introduction', in Simmons (ed), International Migration, Refugee Flows and Human Rights in North America: The Impact of Free Trade and Restructuring, New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1996, pp 1-27;
2. and G D Korella & P M Twomey (eds). Towards a European Immigration Policy, Brussels: European Interuniversity Press, 1995. On globalisation and migration, see among others, M P Smith, 'Can you imagine? Transnational migration and the globalization of grassroots polities', in P Knox & P J Taylor (eds). World Cities in a World-System, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
3. OECD, Foreign Direct Investment. OECD Countries and Dynamic Economies of Asia and Latin America, Paris: OECD, 1995; and OECD, Trends in International Migration, Paris OECD, 1998.
4. OECD, Foreign Direct Investment.
5. The 1996 law on personal responsibility and work opportunities, which denies newly arrived immigrants food coupons, supplemental security income and most federal programmes for five years, has been partially turned down by the administration, which reinstated most of the transfers in the 1998 budget. Nevertheless, the possibility that migrants would be denied these services is still there, as many forces in US society, starting with the US Commission on Immigration Reform, strongly believe that migrants are a cost to society and that their access to the country should be limited. See OECD, OECD Economic Survey 1996-97. United Slates, Paris: OECD, 1997. See also A Ceyhan, 'Emulation franco-américaine'. Le Monde Diplomatique, October 1996, p. 11.
6. A Thompson, 'Canada, US strike new deal on refugees', Toronto Star, 24 November 1995, p A18.
7. T Hammar, 'Laws and policies regulating population movements: a European perspective', in M M Kritz, L L Lim & H Zlotnik (eds). International Migration Systems. A Global Approach, Oxford: Clarendon, 1992, pp 245-263.
8. A Cruz, 'Carrier liability in the member States of the European Union', CCME Briefing Paper, no 17, Brussels: CCME, September 1994.
9. Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 'La ministre Robillard se rendra aux Etats-Unis pour avoir des entretiens sur ^immigration" ', Press Release, Ottawa: Government of Canada, 1997.
10. Six measures were envisaged to abolish barriers to the circulation of factors of production: removal of checks on persons and goods at national borders; harmonisation of standards and technical rules; allowing services to be offered everywhere in the Community on the same terms-including banks, insurance; harmonisation of consumption taxes, particularly of value-added tax; Europe-wide invitations to tender for public orders above a certain financial level; extension of the freedom-of-movement ruling to persons not in gainful employment and facilitation of intra-Community mobility, for example by mutual recognition of qualifications. H Werner, 'Regional economic integration and migration: the European case'. Annals, AAPSS, 534, July 1994, pp 147-164.
11. Hammar, 'Laws and policies regulating population movements'.
12. Eleven countries form the Schengen space. France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg all initiated the process in 1985. Italy joined in 1990; Spain and Portugal in 1991. Sweden, Austria and Finland joined in 1995. The Dublin Convention stems from a slightly different process, notably through the police and security collaboration between European countries, the first pillar of the EU. It was signed in 1990. The effect of the Dublin Convention has so far been a harmonisation of refugee policies among member states towards the lowest common denominator. C Wihtol de Wenden, La Citoyenneté européenne, Paris: Presses de Science po, 1997.
13. R Grinspun & M Cameron (eds). The Political Economy of North American Free Trade, New York: St Martin's Press, 1993.
14. N A Phelps, Multinationals and European Integration. Trade, Investment and Regional Development, London: Jessica Kingsley, 1997; OECD, International Direct Investment Statistics Yearbook, 1996, Paris: OECD, 1996; H Pellerin, 'New global migration dynamics', in S Gill (ed) Globalization, Demoralization and Multilateralism, Tokyo: UNU Press, pp 105-126.
15. In its 1994 White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness, Employment: the challenges and ways fonvard into the 21st century, the European Community promoted, among other things, the reduction of the cost of unskilled and semi-skilled workers, as well as an increasing effort in R&D, and inter-company cooperation in this matter. The creation of structural funds in the 1980s had limited effects compared with the efforts put into the creation of sites of high technology. Community programmes include the European Strategic Programmes for Research and Development in Information Technology (ESPRIT); the Research Programme on Advanced Telecommunication Technologies (RACE) and the Strategic Programme for Innovation and Technology Transfer (SPRINT). For an analysis o the Union in restructuring the economy and labour markets see G van Liemt, 'Labour in the global economy: challenges, adjustments and policy responses in the European Union', in G Memedovic, A Kuyuenhoven & W T M Molle (eds), Globalisation of Labour Markets, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1998, pp 237-251.
16. OECD, Trends in International Migration.
17. OECD, Industrial Structure Statistics 1994, Paris: OECD, 1996; OECD, OECD Economic Survey 1996-97; UNIDO, Industrial Development, Global Report 1995, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1995; and OECD, OECD Economic Survey 1997-98, Mexico, Paris: OECD, 1998.
18. OECD, International Direct Investment Statistics Yearbook, 1996; and Grinspun & Cameron, The Political Economy of North American free Trade.
19. Grinspun & Cameron, The Political Economy of North American Free Trade.
20. J Stafford, "The impact of the new immigration policy on racism in Canada', in V Satzewich (ed), Deconstructing a Nation: Immigration, Multiculturalism and Racism in '90s Canada, Halifax: Fernwood, 1992, pp 69-92; and G Del Castillo & G Vega Canovas, The Politics of Free Trade in North America, Ottawa: Centre for Trade Policy, 1995.
21. See H Overbeek, "The impact of global restructuring on the European labour market: the political economy of transnational regulation', paper presented at the 38th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, 18-22 March 1997, Toronto.
22. OECD, Trends in International Migration, Paris: OECD, 1996.
23. The notion of population distribution is usually used in the literature on internal migration, and more particularly in connection with processes of modernisation and development. The concept can be useful for studying international migration as well insofar as it addresses both dynamics of movement among migrants, and the political attempts to control these movements. See S Amassari, 'International migration, population distribution and development policy', Discussion Paper 342, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, May 1994.
24. For this discussion, see D Harvey, "The geopolitics of capitalism', in D Gregory & J Urry (eds), Social Relations and Spatial Structures, London: MacMillan, pp 128-163.
25. M Albert, Capitalisme contre Capitalisme, Paris: Seuil, 1991.
26. S Gill, 'European governance and new constitutionalism: economic and monetary union and alternatives to disciplinary neoliberalism in Europe', Ne\v Political Economy, 3 (1), 1998, pp 5-28.
27. International and regional organisations have concurred in diagnosing Europe's growth problem in terms of rigidities: 'It has also been argued that in Europe, due to inflexible relative wages and strong institutions, declining relative demand for low-skilled workers has led to higher unemployment rather than lower earnings'. G Van Liemt, 'Labor in the global economy: challenges, adjustment and policy responses in the European Union', in Memedovic el al, Globalization of labour markets, p 247;
28. and K F Zimmermann, 'Tackling the European migration problem'. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9 (2), 1995, pp 45-62 .
29. A Bastenier & P Targosz, Les Organisations syndicales et l'immigration en Europe, Louvain-La-Neuve: Academia, 1991.
30. Henri Lefebvre has identified three interrelated ways in which space is occupied: physical, symbolic and imaginary. The physical occupation of space is the actual use of space for living, working and having social activities. The symbolic space, or space of representation, is the graphic use of space, as well as its codification for the purpose of its physical occupation. These two forms of occupation are thus complementary to each other. Finally, the imaginary occupation of space is the one that is represented in the minds of people, of collectivities. Lefebore La Production de l'Espace, Paris: Anthropos, 1974. Since collectivities have various ways of occupying space, various spatial imaginaries exist. The first two forms of occupation of space represent the limits of the possible, whereas the third represents the infinite possibilities of imagining space that can coexist in a specific context and timeframe. Within this continuum of infinite possibilities, however, some representations are more important than others as they rest on hegemonic sources of power.
31. For Hammar, the notion of 'denizen' refers to the legal rights and privileges that migrants can obtain in the context of welfarist and liberal democratic societies, and that make them separate from full members of these societies, that is from the citizens. T Hammar, 'Laws and policies regulating population movements'.
32. H Overbeek, 'The impact of global restructuring on the European labor market'.
33. On this issue see A M Messina, 'Political impediments to the resumption of labour migration to Western Europe', West European Politics, 13 (1), 1990, pp 31-46.
34. While many forces, more nationally orientated, warn of a security threat and the time bomb that comes with a laissez-faire strategy of demographic growth, many other forces, coalesced around neoliberal interests, have insisted on the importance of sustaining demographic growth for the future needs of our economies. See S D Mumford, 'NSSM 200 and the world population explosion', Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies, 20 (1), 1995, pp 35-63.
35. C L Taylor, Dimensions of Diversity in Canadian Business. Building a Business Case for Valuing Ethnocultural Diversity, Ottawa: Conference Board of Canada, 1995.
36. T O Hueglin, Towards a critical theory of governance in the EU: can federalism help to understand what is going on?', paper presented at the ECPR workshop 'The Transformation of Governance in the European Union', Oslo, 29 March-3 April 1996;
37. and L Lewycky, 'Multiculturalism in the 1990s and into the 21st century: beyond ideology and Utopia', in Satzewich Deconstructing a Nation pp 145-162.
38. While this is happening, the concept of citizenship is progressively emptied of its political content in terms of constituting the foundations of popular sovereignty. Economic citizenship increasingly replaces political citizenship in a neoliberal context, and only rights to barter and trade are considered legitimate. In the European integration process, being 'European' means being 'linguistically, technically and culturally flexible'.
39. S J Silvia, "The social charter of the European Community: a defeat for European labor", Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 44 (4), 1991, pp 626-643.
40. See also H Werner, 'Regional economic integration and migration: the European case'. Annals AAPSS, 534, 1994, pp 147-164.
41. This is the conclusion made by Huntoon when exploring the implications of immigration to Spain for a regional migration policy framework. See L Huntoon, 'Immigration to Spain: implications for a unified European Union immigration policy'.
42. The IOM, has, in the postcold war era, been continuing, its policies of encouraging the free circulati people from the Eastern bloc. It is also involved as consultant in the development of regional integration schemes such as the one between North and Central America. The système d'observation permanente des migrations internationales (SOPEMI) has been created by the OECD as a clearing house for migration statistics and, more recently, for the migration policies and integration measures of OECD countries and beyond. Finally, the Trilateral Commission has produced a task force report on migration entitled International Migration. Challenges in a New Era,
43. by D M Meissner, R D Hormats, A G Walker & S Ogata, Report 44, New York: Trilateral Commission, 1993.