Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- The logics and politics of post-WWII migration to Western Europe
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Origins and Trajectory of Post-WWII Immigration
- 3 The Organized Nativist Backlash
- 4 Immigration and State Sovereignty
- 5 The Logics and Politics Of a European Immigration Policy Regime
- 6 The Domestic Legacies of Postwar Immigration
- 7 The Logics and Politics of Immigrant Political Incorporation
- 8 Conclusions
- References
- Index
8 - Conclusions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- The logics and politics of post-WWII migration to Western Europe
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Origins and Trajectory of Post-WWII Immigration
- 3 The Organized Nativist Backlash
- 4 Immigration and State Sovereignty
- 5 The Logics and Politics Of a European Immigration Policy Regime
- 6 The Domestic Legacies of Postwar Immigration
- 7 The Logics and Politics of Immigrant Political Incorporation
- 8 Conclusions
- References
- Index
Summary
Immigration may not be the answer to all our demographic and economic challenges but there is no answer to these issues that does not include immigration.
(Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, 2003)Immigration policy is not a morality play; it is interest-driven like most everything else.
(Gary P. Freeman, 2002: 94)This book began by raising two interrelated questions. The first – why have the major immigrant-receiving states of Western Europe historically permitted and often abetted relatively high levels of immigration? – is genuinely perplexing given the general public's opposition to new immigration and, as we saw in Chapter 3, the emergence and the sometimes spectacular growth of anti-immigrant groups and political parties since the early 1970s. The second question – to what degree can governments and states effectively regulate immigration flows and manage the domestic social and political fallout they precipitate? – was inspired by the work of scholars who insist that the capacity of Western European states to implement rational and self-serving immigration and immigrant policies is now (in contrast to the not so distant past) severely constrained by exogenous and endogenous forces and actors. Implicit in both questions are a deep-seated pessimism about the current and projected future condition of interdependence sovereignty and concern about whether and to what degree contemporary mass immigration flows are a cause and/or a symptom of eroding sovereignty.
Against the backdrop of this pessimism and concern, three scenarios in which interdependence sovereignty could potentially be eroding were raised in the Introduction.
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- The Logics and Politics of Post-WWII Migration to Western Europe , pp. 224 - 246Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007