When I entered graduate school in the mid-1990s, international migration was very much on the margins of political science. Things have changed. The various dimensions of international migration—emigration, immigration, forced migration, citizenship policy, and assimilation/integration (among others)—are now the subject of an ever-increasing number of books, journal articles, and conference papers and panels. As the books under review demonstrate, political scientists interested in migration are drawing on a diverse range of theories and methods in their work. They are also making a strong case for the reasons that challenges provoked by migration are central to many of political science's core preoccupations, including democratization, state and nation building, and political development.
In Contesting Citizenship, Anne McNevin argues that governments' heavy-handed responses to irregular migration (she prefers “irregular” to “nonstatus,” “undocumented,” and “illegal” [pp. 19–20]) are reflective of their desire to reassert some semblance of “control” during a period in which neoliberal globalization has challenged the integrity of sovereign, territorially defined nation-states (p. 21). Policies and practices targeting irregular migrants offer “a reassuring cap on [the] freer flows of commercial traffic” generated by market forces (p. 41). These “sovereign acts” also salve anxieties raised by threats to national security, particularly in the wake of recent terrorist attacks. Most importantly, restricting access to irregular migrants reaffirms the identity of citizens: “Citizens … come into being only alongside noncitizens” (p. 16).
Irregular migrants do not accept their exclusion passively. McNevin contends that they “contest” conventional citizenship by staking claims for rights, challenging prevailing conceptions of belonging, and, most provocatively, directing attention to potentially new forms of membership that are not premised on the nation-state ideal (pp. 99–102). Irregular migrants are neither the supine victims of sovereign power depicted by Giorgio Agamben nor the vanguard of a global “multitude” breaching the walls of “Empire” as per Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (pp. 95–97). Rather, they engage in discreet “acts of citizenship” that problematize “the very terms in which citizenship and noncitizenship as well as legality and illegality are defined” (p. 100).
McNevin draws on the Australian case to support her claims regarding the relationship of border policing and neoliberal globalization. She claims that Australia's politicization of refugee policy and harsh treatment of asylum seekers was meant to assuage “the disaffection borne of economic reform” and dampen “questions of legitimacy around the state's globalizing agenda” (p. 81). She explores contestations of citizenship through case studies of the Sans-Papiers (those “without papers”) in France and recent debates over the fate of irregular migrants in the United States. In both cases, irregular migrants rejected their marginalization by means of protests and other forms of contentious politics, arguing that their very presence in communities, contributions to local economies, and possession of basic human rights entitled them to secure residency and other fundamental rights. In the United States, irregular migrants enjoyed some measure of success by establishing programs at the state and local level that enabled them to vote in municipal elections, pay “in state” tuition fees, and cooperate with local law-enforcement officials without fear of being apprehended and deported (pp. 136–37). The author maintains that the emergence of a distinctively local citizenship at the urban scale points to the way that notions of territorial belonging premised on the nation-state ideal are being transformed by irregular migration.
Yet, as McNevin also points out, these “victories” have been offset by more stringent crackdowns in other jurisdictions (p. 138). What is missing from her account is an attempt to explain variation in responses to irregular migrants' political mobilization: Why did some jurisdictions move in a more liberalizing direction while others clamped down? Answering this question would have required taking a closer look at the politics of immigration in the United States—a politics driven by the logic of checks and balances that limits the exercise of a clearly defined “sovereign power.”
Despite its sophistication, McNevin's theoretical apparatus neglects these more prosaic forms of politics. The ideologies, interests, and tactics of political parties, nongovernmental organizations, and interest groups are brushed aside in favor of an exclusive focus on the contentious actions of irregular migrants. The end result is a compelling argument about the interplay of globalization and sovereignty that would benefit from more detailed empirical analysis and a consideration of the broader political context informing contestations of citizenship.
To date, political scientists have been preoccupied with the ways in which immigration, through both regular and irregular channels, has been dealt with by receiving states. Jonathon Moses's Emigration and Political Development is useful in that it turns our attention to the political consequences of emigration. Moses focuses on a simple but important question: Does emigration help or hinder in the political development of sending countries? He defines his dependent variable expansively, combining standard measures of democratization captured in statistical indices with a broader notion building on the “capabilities” approach advanced by economist Amartya Sen, philosopher Martha Nussbaum, and the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index (pp. 23–32). According to the capabilities approach, “political development can be understood as an expansion of the real freedom people enjoy[,] measured in terms not only of the extension of formal democratic rights and freedoms but also of changes to the general environment that can facilitate the employment of these rights and freedoms” (p. 33).
Moses posits four means by which emigration may lead to political development: indirectly, by encouraging economic development (which, in turn, can prompt political development), and directly by a) allowing emigrants to transfer new ideas to their home country, b) enabling disgruntled citizens to exit the state and seek opportunities elsewhere (and, in so doing, creating the possibility of increased voice for those who stay), and c) compelling states to “compete with one another over potentially mobile residents” (p. 38).
This book makes clear the benefits of mixed-methods analysis done right. Broader patterns are tracked via statistical analysis drawing on EMIG 1.2, a database compiled by Moses that comprises “6,537 observations of annual emigration counts, covering 115 countries and 159 years (1850–2008)” (pp. 60–61). His analysis of emigration patterns over time suggests that periods of high mobility overlap with Samuel Huntington's “three waves of democratization.” Moses's statistical analysis also hints that emigration is “related to political development, as measured by both in terms of governance (by the Polity indicator) [and] democracy (by the Vanhanen indicator) … even after controlling for the effects of economic development” (p. 84). Limitations in the data are pointed out, and claims drawing on statistical analysis are sensibly tempered.
Moses's case study chapters allow him to draw on the EMIG 1.2 database while also exploring the four causal mechanisms noted earlier through contextual analysis. His discussion of Norway in Chapter 5 is outstanding. Emigration played a role in Norway's political development between 1850 and 1913, through the introduction of new ideas (often transmitted in emigrants' letters back home), the destabilization of class relations (as a consequence of reductions in the domestic labor force), and efforts on the part of state elites to improve conditions in the country in order to stem the emigration tide. Moses notes that emigration had an especially potent effect in Norway because the broader international migration regime was relatively open (pp. 114–15).
A similar effect occurred via the “Great Migration” of African Americans from the South to the North in the United States from 1919 to 1970. Massive emigration, facilitated by African Americans' right to freedom of movement, played a role in propelling political development in the American South by pushing up the cost of labor and encouraging efforts at mechanizing cotton production (pp. 177–82). Success in this regard allowed for the end of the plantation system and a concomitant shift away from the social relations that grew out of it.
Conversely, emigration under conditions of relative restriction is less transformative. Moses suggests that controls on internal migration in China have blunted the effect of emigration with respect to political development (although provinces “experiencing the highest rates of emigration are those that, on average, [are] experiencing the largest improvements in human development in recent years” [p. 194]). Similarly, guest-worker programs in the post–World War II period were highly regulated and therefore did not deliver the kind of development boost experienced by Norway during a period of greater openness. Even in these cases, however, Moses rightly notes variation in outcomes: While the Bracero program did little to advance political development in Mexico (pp. 125–32), Greece, Portugal, and Spain did experience political development in the wake of outward labor flows (p. 142). Here, however, the author fails to note that the southern European states also experienced massive internal flows that effectively transformed them from rural to urban societies. One might draw on his ideas to suggest that a combination of moderate emigration and significant internal migration helped drive political development in Greece, Portugal, and Spain.
The upshot of Moses's analysis for policymakers is clear: Given that our current period is also marked by a restrictive international migration regime, emigration will continue to play a limited role in driving political development. Real progress in this regard will depend on rich, developed states opening themselves to mass immigration, in the way that the United States opened itself to Norwegians in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. “Managed migration,” it would appear, simply does not allow for the scale of emigration needed to catalyze political development in sending states.
Oxana Shevel's Migration, Refugee Policy, and State Building in Postcommunist Europe explores the politics of refugee admission policy in Russia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, and Poland. Shevel rightly notes that none of these states had a well-defined refugee policy regime before its transition to democracy; refugee policy had to be written on a “blank slate” (p. 3). Despite these similar starting points and the presence of a well-established international refugee regime, the countries under consideration developed very different approaches (at least initially—more on this a little later). The Czech Republic “was notably more receptive to refugees than Poland, granting refugee status to a large share of applicants” (p. 4). Outcomes in the author's pair of post-Soviet cases also varied, with Russia opting to favor “nontraditional” coethnic refugees over “traditional” refugees from the developing world, and Ukraine establishing a nondiscriminatory regime (p. 5).
Shevel develops a novel theoretical framework to make sense of these differences, arguing that in the states she analyzes (unlike states in Western Europe and North America), the influence of political parties, interest groups, organized societal interests, and courts (e.g., business versus labor) is weak (pp. 6–11). The key determinant of refugee admission policy in postcommunist cases, according to the author, is the politics of national identity, through which political actors struggle to assert their positions on the composition and contours of the nation (pp. 47–48). “Uncontested” postcommunist states, such as the Czech Republic and Poland, had relatively small coethnic/diaspora populations outside of their borders at the period of transition, allowing for a greater degree of consensus as to who belonged to the nation and where its boundaries lay. The obverse held for “contested” states, such as Russia and Ukraine. In these cases, the politics of national identity were more fierce and consequential. Shevel argues that disputes over the national question in Russia resulted in a “consensus” view of the nation, featuring general agreement on the desirability of including “compatriot refugees” via preferential treatment in refugee policy; in Ukraine, a “compromise” solution to the national question granted no such preferential treatment to coethnics and created an opportunity for the pursuit of a nondiscriminatory refugee admission regime (pp. 58–59).
In uncontested states, the politics of national identity no longer intruded on refugee policymaking and elites enjoyed greater autonomy in crafting responses to the challenge of forced migration (p. 61). Shevel posits that differences in the transition processes in the Czech Republic and Poland led to distinct elite profiles in the two states. Czechoslovakia's “Velvet Revolution” marked a sharp break with the past and ushered in leaders with dissident backgrounds and liberal worldviews (pp. 194–98). Conversely, Poland's more gradual, negotiated transition allowed for a greater degree of regime continuity and, as a result, the presence of more conservative elites, especially in the Ministry of the Interior (the key institution with respect to refugee policymaking) (pp. 227–31).
Shevel also highlights the role of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in determining the direction of refugee admissions policy in her four cases. The UNHCR's efforts to encourage postcommunist states to take a more welcoming approach to refugees met with different responses depending on how it comported with their particular political contexts. In Russia and Ukraine, the UNHCR's influence depended on “its engagement with, and assistance to, compatriot refugees” (p. 67). The provision of assistance to compatriots generated goodwill from governments and increased the likelihood of their reciprocating “by pursuing policies advocated by the UNHCR” (p. 67). Yet the agency's strategy in this regard varied. The UNHCR only enjoyed some success in Russia after it amended its position on nontraditional refugees and supported Russian policymakers' efforts to resettle compatriot refugees. Having learned this lesson, the UNHCR was more accommodating to Ukraine's request for assistance in resettling Crimean Tatars. In return, Ukrainian officials were more open to the agency's influence in the area of refugee policy.
In the uncontested cases, the UNHCR's success was facilitated by the presence of liberal policymaking elites in the Czech Republic. This ideological affinity allowed the agency to become a regular player in Czech refugee policymaking. It sought to work around the less congenial elites in Poland by lobbying legislators. Such lobbying was relatively effective, as there were no clear partisan positions on refugee policy and legislators were open to the expertise offered by the UNHCR (pp. 69–70). While the its role diminished after the Czech Republic and Poland entered into ascension negotiations with the European Union, the agency continued to be an important player in the politics of refugee policymaking in both countries.
The bulk of Shevel's book features detailed case studies of each of her country cases. The depth and scope of her research is truly impressive, featuring data gathered during the course of 15 months of fieldwork in all four countries and the UNHCR's headquarters in Geneva. I can think of no other book that offers such a rich analysis of refugee policymaking in postcommunist states. As such, this book sets the standard for political scientists working on migration-related issues in the post-Soviet space.
While Shevel's empirical chapters provide plenty of evidence in support of her theoretical claims, the data also raise questions. For instance, the evidence suggests that her neat distinction between Western and postcommunist states is overstated. Over time, all four countries introduced policies that resembled those of states in the West—often at the behest of politicians whose negative views on refugees and asylum seekers differed little from those of their colleagues in Western Europe and North America (e.g., pp. 224–25). Is the reader therefore correct to conclude that the distinctive politics of refugee policymaking that marked the period of transition has been eclipsed by convergence both across postcommunist states and between postcommunist and Western states?
Judging by the quality of all three books under review, the study of international migration by political scientists is progressing in a promising direction. The authors are to be commended for pushing discussions of migration in new and exciting directions and for linking international migration to core questions in our discipline.
