Migration Politics across the World
This webinar takes stock of existing research on the politics of migration, including its gaps and biases, and introduces new avenues for empirically grounded theory-building. We draw upon the rich collection of empirical cases assembled in a recently published volume - Argentina, Tunisia, Japan and South Korea, the United States and Australia, the Philippines, China, and Saudi Arabia- to showcase the imbrication of migration politics with broader dynamics of regime change, state formation and nation-state ideology. The research also dissects the role of civil society, legal actors, employers, and international norms across democratic and un-democratic contexts. Our research reveals unexpected similarities in migration policies in different political regimes at a time when states across the globe are increasingly adopting illiberal practices and policies. Ultimately, we collectively found that, beyond contextual variations, migration politics offers an ideal vantage point for understanding state transformations and political changes around the world.
We are dedicating this webinar to the memory of Stephen Castles whose work inspired the editors’ project.
Introduction:
Theorising migration politics: do political regimes matter?
Katharina Natter & Hélène Thiollet guest editors of the special issue « Migration Politics across the World » for Third World Quarterly, Volume 43, Issue 7 (2022)
Participants:
Susanne Melde & Luisa Feline Freier Universidad del Pacifico - “When the stars aligned: ideational strategic alliances and the critical juncture of Argentina’s 2004 Migration Law”
Katharina Natter, University of Leiden - Tunisia’s migration politics throughout the 2011 revolution: revisiting the democratisation–migrant rights nexus
David Scott FitzGerald, UC San Diego & Asher Hirsch Monash University - Norm-busting: rightist challenges in US and Australian immigration and refugee policies
Hélène Thiollet,CNRS CERI Sciences Po - Migrants and monarchs: regime survival, state transformation and migration politics in Saudi Arabia
Discussants:
James Hollifield, Southern Methodist University, editor of Controlling Immigration: a global perspective, Stanford University Press, new edition 2022
Nora el Qadim, Université Saint Denis- IUF author of “The symbolic meaning of international mobility : EU-Morocco negotiations on visa-facilitation”, in Migration Studies, 2017.
Responsable scientifique et contact : Hélène Thiollet
