Migration in an Uncertain and Challenging World
According to the
International Organization for Migration (IOM), the term migration is
understood as “the movement of a person or a group of persons, either across an
international border, or within a State”; as such, this definition encompasses
the internal, regional, and international dimension of migration. Strikingly,
however, while internal and regional migrations are the largest by far and the fastest
growing trend, international migration, which, according to IOM, remained
constant in the past decades at about 3%, has disproportionately gained more political
salience.
Undoubtedly, the causes
for migration are diverse and constantly vary from one individual migrant to
another. Yet to better understand the phenomenon, two factors are generally
analyzed in migration studies: push and pull factors. While the former refers
to negative developments in a given place such as economic hardships, wars,
political persecutions, arbitrary arrests, natural catastrophes, etc. inducing
people to move away from, the latter refers to positive and attractive
developments in a particular place that motivate people to move to. Moreover, it
is worth noting that the causes for migration, although they are, more often
than not, overlapping and inextricably interwoven, help characterize and
categorize migrants—for instance—into asylum seekers, migration of refugees,
displaced persons, economic migrants, and so on.
Nonetheless,
notwithstanding the fact that it is as old as human existence, migration has
become ever more politically salient in recent decades. More specifically, international
migration of individuals has a triad-effect on the relations between and
amongst sending, transit-, and receiving states; even more remarkable is that
cross borders movements of people often dramatically affect the internal
political dynamics of the states concerned (James F. Hollifield 1992). This is
particularly true for Western liberal democracies, which saw a remarkable surge
of populist leaders in the political scenes. Indeed, since the outbreak of
refugee crises in Europe in 2015 and the ongoing migration crisis in the
Mediterranean, the European Union has been confronted with an existential
crisis that constantly and intermittently threatens to break it up. Also,
migration is widely believed to have played a major role in the Brexit
referendum, and politicians like Donald Trump have succeeded in playing the
migration card to get elected. Beyond the internal political dynamics of
states, however, scholars such as Peter Katzenstein (2018) have emphasized the
increasingly leading role migration is set to play in the contemporary international
affairs. It is, therefore, unsurprising that the concept of migration is
worryingly increasingly perceived as an existential
threat, prompting radically unprecedented measures to slash human flow
across borders.
Although often
overdramatized, it is fair to acknowledge that migration poses many daunting challenges
to countries, namely brain drain, social problems, cultural ‘degradation’,
economic pressures, and security challenges (due to terrorists’ infiltration,
cross border crimes, and drugs and human trafficking, etc.).
In a nutshell, though
alarmist it may sound, it is fair to assert that we are witnessing an era where
migration is a ‘threatening’ concept in this overwhelmingly turbulent world.