Globalizing Migration Regimes

It has been half a century since the Geneva Refugee Convention came into place, but there is still no comparable international regime which provides for the increasing phenomenon of mobile economic migrants. At a time of global mobility, when migration policies are constantly changing and the security and rights of migrants are called into question, there is clearly a need for strengthened international cooperation. This volume brings together an international team of authors to examine the prospects for improvements in such cooperation and for the establishment of a framework of basic global or regional norms of conduct. Issues addressed in the book include how to augment the development effects of migration for source countries, how to meet the security and rights interests of both states and migrants and how to improve the prospects for integration of migrants in destination countries. With its fresh, policy-focused and global approach, this volume will be of great value to both academics and policy-makers.

This volume considers 'global mobility' as an alternative concept to 'international migration' in order to gain insights into international cooperation on movements of people across international borders.

The present international migration system is failing to respond to the new challenges and opportunities that movements of people now present. Rising levels of migration and its increasingly complex pattern–marked by economic globalisation, a widening variety of source countries and unpredictable and intense flows–is making migration management more and more difficult. Fears have been expressed that a breakdown of the migration system, already under heavy strain, could spell political and economic disaster, creating in its wake a major setback in human progress. Not surprisingly, there have been calls in recent years for the establishment of a more robust and comprehensive multilateral framework to help revamp the present fragmentary and predominantly reactive arrangements. But little systematic work has been done to develop this idea. The study takes up this challenge. In this ground-breaking study, the issues and prospects of a multilateral response to the challenge of movements of people is explored. It presents, within a single, cohesive framework, the views, perceptions, and critical analyses of a group of eminent specialists drawn from different disciplines but with an in-depth knowledge of migration issues. It argues, that if a co-ordinated multilateral response is indeed necessary, what should be its exact configuration? In addressing this critical question, the book introduces the concept of an internationally harmonized migration regime, based on the principle of regulated openness - commonalty of policy objectives, harmonized normative principles and co-ordinated institutional arrangements.

This series is dedicated to theoretical contributions and systematic empirical studies of political, economic and cultural formations which cross the borders and boundaries of states. The focus is on the main areas of public policy: security, human rights, legitimacy of political systems, welfare, and developments in the Global South. This third volume looks at the role of neoliberalism in the institutionalization of differential rules for capital and migration flows in the global economy.

This book explores the role that boundary making plays in creating a societal understanding of current migration dynamics and, by extension, in legitimising migration regimes. By comparing most recent developments in Europe and China, it reveals insights on convergent social and political practices of boundary making under divergent conditions.

This book examines the vulnerability caused by migration, in particular, the vulnerability of women that may cause forced migration, and the ways in which this is dealt with by national authorities in affluent European states. It explores transnational migration, gender and human rights, migration regimes, and anti-trafficking efforts in Norway.

Any consideration of global migration in relation to work and citizenship must necessarily be situated in the context of the Great Recession. A whole historical chapter – that of neoliberalism – has now closed and the future can only be deemed uncertain. Migrant workers were key players during this phase of the global system, supplying cheap and flexible labour inputs when required in the rich countries. Now, with the further sustainability of the neoliberal political and economic world order in question, what will be the role of migration in terms of work patterns and what modalities of political citizenship will develop? While informalization of the relations of production and the precarization of work were once assumed to be the exception, that is no longer the case. As for citizenship this book posits a parallel development of precarious citizenship for migrants, made increasingly vulnerable by the global economic crisis. But we are also in an era of profound social transformation, in the context of which social counter-movements emerge, which may halt the disembedding of the market from social control and its corrosive impact. This book was published as a special issue of Globalizations.