Spanish migratory movements towards Argentina during the period considered to be that of massive immigration (1850–1930) have been widely researched from social, cultural and political points of view. Nevertheless, in recent years, due to the results of several studies, the need to deepen the analysis of this migration flow during the second half of the twentieth century has become clear. The focus is on unravelling the logic of a new configuration of population movements, in which the categories of refugees, exiles or those ‘without documentation’ prevailed over the traditional immigrant. Likewise, during this period the nation-state's intervention increased over the migration flows, becoming inscribed in many international organisations’ action agendas. Following this trend, Emilio Redondo Carrero explores the role of the Comité Intergubernamental para la Migración Europea (Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration, CIME) in guiding the emigration policy of the Franco regime, and the Argentine immigration policy of the Peronist government (1946–55), the dictatorial government (1955–8) and the desarrollista (developmentalist) government (1958–62).
From a transnational approach, the author emphasises the role of international politics in the design of global migration policies. He analyses the creation of the CIME as a response to the need to avoid social conflicts caused by the relocation of the European population surplus, as well as displaced people, after the Second World War. But he also emphasises the importance of the initial conflict over migration control between the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the US government. This dispute was resolved in favour of the United States, resulting in acceptance of its two conditions: (i) to create an intergovernmental agency, in order to avoid interference in the sovereign policies of each government; (ii) to exclude the participation of the communist countries, given the Cold War climate. Moreover, the context of reconfiguration of the CIME in the 1960s is explained in connection with structural factors that led to changes in international migration flows, such as the growth of the European economy, the decolonisation processes that redirected migration to the old continent and the transformation of international politics towards Latin America after the outbreak of the Cuban Revolution. Consequently, the CIME is interpreted by the author as an instrument of the Alliance for Progress to alleviate, through the immigration of qualified technicians, the poverty of the urban and rural Latin American environment, in order to make it less receptive to communist ideology.
One of the book's achievements is that the author does not limit himself to studying the impact of the CIME's decisions on Argentine and Spanish migratory flows, but rather analyses the internal conditions and the international circumstances of each of these countries to explain their adhesion to the intergovernmental agency and the development and redrafting of their migration policy. For example, Argentina's accession in 1953 responded to its dual need to increase the contribution of foreign workers to its economic development plans as well as clean up its negative international image associated with its neutral position during the war and its discriminatory immigration policy. Spain's incorporation in 1956 was due to the Franco dictatorship's urgent desire to be recognised by the world powers so as to overcome its international isolation, and its need to establish economic, political and cultural relations with Latin American countries. In the late 1960s, Argentina reformulated its alliances with the CIME, hoping that the agency would collaborate in the selection and training of highly qualified workers for development plans under frondizismo (the Frondizi government, 1958–62). Argentina's objectives also coincided with those of the United States regarding the prevention of the advance of communism in the region. Despite the fact that spontaneous migratory movement was redirected to an already economically recovered Europe, Franco's regime, for its part, continued to intervene in the channelling of the flow to Latin America, with the aim of preserving the historical cultural links that supported the Hispanic doctrine and provided legitimacy to the regime.
At the intersection between the global dimension of migration policy in the second half of the twentieth century and internal migration policy conditions in Argentina and Spain, the author proposes nuances that avoid considering the 1950s and 1960s as a uniform period. Thus, for example, he disputes the common historiographical notion that assimilates the immigration policy of Arturo Frondizi's presidency to that of the preceding dictatorial government. In this sense, he argues that frondizismo’s selective criterion towards foreign immigration flow, far from relying on racial or ideological criteria, was based on a development project that privileged requirements based on professional qualification.
It is noteworthy that the book is the result of a valuable work of documentary identification, systematisation and analysis in the repositories of the International Organization for Migration (Geneva), the New York Public Library and government agencies in Spain and Argentina. On the one hand, these sources’ combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches contributes to the comprehension of global migration policy initiated in the second half of the twentieth century, its scope, its limitations and its reconfigurations. On the other hand, the discovery of these documents opens up the possibility of new research that, taking a social history approach, could inquire into the experiences of migrant subjects. For example, one could consider the correspondence maintained between the Argentine consuls in Madrid and the Spanish citizens who intended to immigrate to Argentina once Spain adhered to the CIME in 1956.
In short, the book is highly recommended for those interested in the transformations of migration policies during the post-1945 period. It is mainly deeply thought-provoking in terms of the population displacement processes that take place today and the strategies used by states and international organisations who tried, and still try, to regulate them.
