Mediterranean Labor Markets In The First Age Of Globalization

Scholars have studied the nineteenth century's unprecedented labor flows in global and specific country contexts, but have lacked a comprehensive analysis of the world's old economic core, the Mediterranean. This work provides answers to important questions, such as: If the Mediterranean labor market really was integrated, then why did globalization affect the Western and Eastern Mediterranean so differently? Why did wage inequality rise in the East while it fell in the rest of the labor-abundant periphery? More broadly, was low emigration from Iberia and the East to blame for the Mediterranean's failed integration with the fast-expanding global economy? This ground-breaking research relates these questions to ongoing historical debates on the intensity of intra-Mediterranean integration in goods and labor, to current heated debates on North African emigration to Europe, and to discussions on European economic integration more generally.

This book provides the first wide-ranging account of the Maltese economy in the modern era, from colonialism to European Union membership. It sets arguments about growth and development, and the impact and legacy of colonization, against detailed histories of agriculture, manufacturing and trade, and different economic policy regimes. It is based on volumes of newly collected archival evidence and the latest thinking in economic history. By extending coverage up to the present, the book explains how one of the world's smallest nation-states achieved lasting economic development, quintupling its per capita income level since 1970, when many other postcolonial and advanced economies stagnated.

"The Mediterranean in the Age of Globalization is a welcome corrective to the tendency to present globalization as a homogenous concept, and the failure to describe how it operates in specific regions. Ribas-Mateos examines globalization and migration across the Mediterranean, using an innovative, integrated framework so as to map social places by describing how social, political, cultural, and economic forces are embedded within a globalizing environment.The author articulates an original and compelling narrative, mapping the Mediterranean as a global place where international and regional forces are intertwined in multiple threads. In doing so, she identifies two key components of globalization--affecting specifically forms of welfare and issues of mobility--in the context of a weakening European welfare state and the relocation and reinforcement of Mediterranean borders. Nine Mediterranean cities are investigated as ""gateway"" cities, which shape two major effects of globalization: welfare and mobility. The book challenges conventional North-South perspectives, and focuses and systematizes the way international migration should be conceptualized.The originality of the book results from the author's fieldwork, which is rich in descriptive detail, and from a theory centered around global perspectives. Seven case studies in Southern Europe--Algeciras, Athens, Barcelona, Lisbon, Naples, Turin, and Thrace--deal with issues related to migration and the welfare state. She also includes two ethnographies that represent two Mediterranean gateways in the North-South Mediterranean division: Tangiers (in Morocco) and Durres (in Albania), which are mapped as border-cities in the global Mediterranean context. Because of its intrinsically multidisciplinary nature, this superb volume will be of particular interest to academics and social science researchers as well as policymakers and international agencies."

This collective volume aims at studying a variety of labour history themes in Southern Europe, and investigating the transformations of labour and labour relations that these areas underwent in the 19th and the 20th centuries. The subjects studied include industrial labour relations in Southern Europe; labour on the sea and in the shipyards of the Mediterranean; small enterprises and small land ownership in relation to labour; formal and informal labour; the tendency towards independent work and the role of culture; forms of labour management (from paternalistic policies to the provision of welfare capitalism); the importance of the institutional framework and the wider political context; and women’s labour and gender relations.

A journalist’s spellbinding account of the shocking murder of his muckraking mother and a quest for justice that has reverberated far beyond their tiny homeland An archipelago off the southern coast of Italy, Malta is a picturesque gem eroded by a climate of corruption, polarization, inequality, and a virtual absence of civic spirit. In this unpromising soil, a fearless journalist took root. Daphne Caruana Galizia fashioned herself into the country’s lonely voice of conscience, her muckraking and editorializing sending shock waves that threatened to topple those in power and made her at once the island’s best-known figure and its most reviled. In 2017, a campaign of intimidation against her culminated in a car bombing that took her life. Daphne was also he devoted and inspiring mother to three sons, who with their father have carried on the quest for justice and transparency after her death. Spellbindingly narrated by the youngest of them, the award-winning journalist Paul Caruana Galizia, A Death in Malta is at once a study in heroism and the powerful story of a family’s crusade for accountability in a society built on lies, with reverberations far beyond their homeland.

This book focuses on issues that are relevant for the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. The depth and the extension of the current political crisis in the area have changed the perspectives of conventional Euro-Mediterranean integration policies. The book provides the grounds for new patterns of analysis and addresses policy guidelines which are able to respond to the dramatic challenges that Mediterranean regions are facing. By implementing a multidisciplinary approach, the volume uncovers the structural determinants of migrations in the area: territorial and social imbalances, climate change, unemployment, weak institutions, poor governance, lack of efficient redistributive policies. Each chapter proposes innovative and rich analyses of the socio-economic conditions of all Mediterranean countries. The prevailing evidence suggests that while the North-South imbalances still persist inside the basin, the recent world economic and financial crises have deepened social, intergenerational and gender inequalities. These inequalities cross all territories both nationally and internationally and affect the living conditions of large segments of population in Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries. To bridge these gaps it is necessary to strengthen territorial cohesion, reduce income differentials, and improve the access of marginal areas to basic infrastructure. These long term goals can be achieved through an inclusive development model for which young people and women can enjoy the same opportunities of education and work. Offering innovative and practical guidelines for future programs and policies, this book is essential reading for policy makers, researchers at policy think tanks as well as academics and post graduate students of Mediterranean studies and Economic Policy. The general policy recipes, provided to govern migration flows, make useful reading for national and international research centres and major governmental agencies interested in migration issues.

The studies in this exceptional volume explore the challenges and opportunities presented by globalization events prior to 1950, and identify how countries around the Mediterranean responded to them. In addition to comparative assessments of regional performance, the volume offers detailed case studies of Spain, Italy, the Balkans, Turkey, Israel and Egypt.

Why have countries increasingly restricted immigration even when they have opened their markets to foreign competition through trade or allowed their firms to move jobs overseas? In Trading Barriers, Margaret Peters argues that the increased ability of firms to produce anywhere in the world combined with growing international competition due to lowered trade barriers has led to greater limits on immigration. Peters explains that businesses relying on low-skill labor have been the major proponents of greater openness to immigrants. Immigration helps lower costs, making these businesses more competitive at home and abroad. However, increased international competition, due to lower trade barriers and greater economic development in the developing world, has led many businesses in wealthy countries to close or move overseas. Productivity increases have allowed those firms that have chosen to remain behind to do more with fewer workers. Together, these changes in the international economy have sapped the crucial business support necessary for more open immigration policies at home, empowered anti-immigrant groups, and spurred greater controls on migration. Debunking the commonly held belief that domestic social concerns are the deciding factor in determining immigration policy, Trading Barriers demonstrates the important and influential role played by international trade and capital movements.