t he new migration and development optimism

1. the new migration and development optimism alan.gamlen@vuw.ac.nz

2. migration and development mania

3. migration and development mania

4. the new ‘migration-and-development’ optimism • migration benefits everyone if the policies are right • migrants win through expanding freedoms and higher living standards, but risk vulnerability • destination countries win through cheap low-skill labour and new ideas, but risk ethnic tensions • origin countries win through remittances and knowledge transfers, but risk brain drain • the risks of migration are best minimized (and rewards maximized) by promoting ‘circulation’ and ‘engaging diasporas’ • Stark and Bloom (1985) The new economics of labour migration, The American Economic Review 75(2): 173-78.

5. the old optimism: 1950s-60s • Kindleberger (1965) Emigration and Economic Growth. BancaNatzionale Del Lavoro Quarterly Review, 28, 235-54. • key ideas • migration balances wage differentials • rising wages at source promote innovation • laissez faire approach leads to ‘balanced growth’ • background: postwar growth drives demand for migrant labour jethrotull’s seed drill rural labour ‘freed’ to work in industry Image sources: http://www.industrialrevolution.sea.ca/seed_drill.gif http://niciwiki.pbworks.com/f/workers1.jpg

6. the old pessimism: 1970s-80s • Papademetriou & Martin (1991) The unsettled relationship: labor migration and economic development. New York/London: Greenwood. • Castles and Kosack (1973) Immigrant workers and class structure in Western Europe. London: Oxford University Press. • key ideas: • migration driven by capitalist exploitation • ‘asymetric growth’: destinations win, but origins and migrants lose • neo-marxist economic theory • background: oil-shocks reduce demand for migrant labour and ethnic tensions emerge Turkish Guest Workers in Germany, 1969 Mexican Braceros compare paychecks, 1956 Images: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/images/Gastarbeiter%20copy2.jpg http://americanhistory.si.edu/ONTHEMOVE/collection/image_1524.html. Photo by Leonard Nadel

7. the new optimism: 1990s-2000s • key ideas: • migration generally benefits all, provided the policies are right • the right policies involve circular migration and engaging diasporas • ‘third-way’ neoliberal economic theory • background: search for ways of ‘governing globalization’

8. the new optimism: 1990s-2000s • states see need to cooperate, but unwilling to accept centrally imposed global migration governance • search for areas where interests coincide • migration and development optimism suggests a grand bargain is possible if states cooperate • e.g. Rolph Jenny 2006 Image source: http://www.marriedtothesea.com/031709/three-way-handshake.gif

9. conclusions • migration and development thinking has swung back and forth from optimism to pessimism since the 1950s at least • the new migration and development optimism offers states a starting point for cooperation over migration, in lieu of global migration governance • the way we think about the impacts of migration is driven not only by social science but by wider historical factors