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The Not So Silent Revolution Postwar Migration to Western Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Anthony M. Messina
Anthony M. Messina
Affiliation:
Tufts University
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Abstract

In the 1990s scholars working within the subfield of immigration studies in Western Europe have advanced four major arguments. (1) In a liberal era of global economic markets the capacity of states to govern their territorial borders has significantly eroded. (2) The widespread diffusion of liberal norms has severely inhibited the ability of governments to execute a rational immigrant policy. (3) The experience of mass immigration has transformed the boundaries of national citizenship. And 4) postwar immigration has fostered the surge of radical right-wing populist movements. This article evaluates these arguments in light of the evidence presented in both the collected scholarship under review and other select works. It concludes by arguing the case for new scholarly initiatives to synthesize and unify the separate literatures represented by the volumes under review.

Type
Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , October 1996 , pp. 130 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1996

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References

1 See, for example, Castles, Stephen and Kosack, Godula, Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Europe (London: Oxford University Press, 1973)Google Scholar; Freeman, Gary P., Immigrant Labor and Racial Conflict in Industrial Societies: The French and British Experience, 1945—1975 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979)Google Scholar; and Miller, Mark J., Foreign Workers in Western Europe:An Emerging Political Force (New York: Praeger, 1981)Google Scholar.

2 Examples of this scholarship include Cross, Gary S., Immigrant Workers in Industrial France (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Messina, Anthony M., Race and Party Competition in Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989)Google Scholar; and Herbert, Ulrich, A History ofForeign Labor in Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

3 See, for example, Richmond, Anthony H., Immigration and Ethnic Conflict (London: Macmillan Press, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Castles, Stephen et al., Herefor Good: Western Europe's New Ethnic Minorities (London: Pluto Press, 1984), 1Google Scholar.

5 Falchi, Nino, International Migration Pressures (Geneva: International Organization for Migration, 1995), 23Google Scholar.

6 Recent publications within the literature that surveys global migration patterns include Weiner, Myron, The Global Migration Crisis: Challenge to States and to Human Rights (New York: Harper Collins, 1995)Google Scholar; and Teitelbaum, Michael S. and Weiner, Myron, eds., Threatened Peoples, Threatened Borders: World Migration and U.S. Policy (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995)Google Scholar.

7 Jones, K. and Smith, A. D., The Economic Impact of Commonwealth Migration (London: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 92Google Scholar.

8 Anthony Fielding, “Migration, Institutions, and Politics: The Evolution of European Migration Policies,” in King, Russell, ed., Mass Migration in Europe: The Legacy and the Future (London: Belhaven Press, 1993), 16Google Scholar.

9 Contrary to the prevailing scholarly consensus, however, some political elites were extremely farsighted. A concise discussion of the British case is contained in Layton-Henry, Zig, The Politics cf Immigration (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), 23–36Google Scholar.

10 See, among others, Castles et al. (fn. 4), 29; and Rogers, Rosemarie, “Post-World War II European Labor Migration: An Introduction to the Issues,” in Rogers, Rosemarie, ed., Guests Come to Stay: The Effects of European Labor Migration on Sending and Receiving Countries (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

11 Messina (fn. 2), 27–28.

12 See, for example, Jenkins, Shirley, ed., Ethnic Associations and the Welfare State: Services to Immi grants in Five Countries (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Layton-Henry, Zig, ed., The Political Rights of Migrant Workers in Western Europe (London: Sage Publications, 1990)Google Scholar; Miller, Mark J., Foreign Workers in Western Europe: An Emerging Political Force (New York: Praeger, 1981)Google Scholar; Hammar, Tomas, ed., European Immigration Policy:A Comparative Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 See also Martin O. Heisler, “Transnational Migration as a Small Window on the Diminished Autonomy of the Modern Democratic State,” in Martin O. Heisler and Barbara Schmitter Heisler, eds., “From Foreign Workers to Settlers?” Annals 485 (special issue) (May 1986), 153–66.

14 On this point, see Freeman, Gary P., “Can Liberal States Control Unwanted Immigration?” Annals 534 (July 1994)Google Scholar; and Layton-Henry, Zig, “Britain: The Would-be Zero-Immigration Country,” in Cornelius, Wayne et al. ., eds., Controlling Immigration:A GlobalPerspective (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

15 Rogers Brubaker, “Are Immigration Control Efforts Really Failing?” in Cornelius et al. (fn. 14), 227–31.

16 Gary P. Freeman, “Models of Immigration Politics in the Receiving States” (Paper presented at the Conference on Immigration into Western Societies: Implications and Policy Choices, Charleston, South Carolina, May 1994). “This point is made by Patrick Weil in his review of Hollifield's Immigrants, Markets and States in American Political Science Review 88 (March 1994), 236.

17 This point is made by Patrick Weil in his review of Hollifield's Immigrants, Markets and States in American Political Science Review 88 (March 1994), 236.

18 See Layton-Henry (fn. 9); and Rich, Paul, Race and Empire in British Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

19 Freeman (fn. 14).

20 Layton-Henry (fn. 9), 36.

21 These motivations included the very survival of the French Fourth Republic. See Kahler, Miles, Decolonization in Britain and France: The Domestic Consequences ofInternational Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Wenden, Catherine Wihtol de, “Immigrants as Political Actors in France,” in Baldwin-Edwards, Martin and Schain, Martin A., eds., The Politics ofImmigration in Western Europe (Portland, Ore.: Frank Cass, 1994), 94Google Scholar.

23 Eurostat, , Asylum-Seekers and Refugees:A Statistical Report (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publication of European Communities, 1994), 153Google Scholar.

24 Week in Germany (January 12, 1996), 2.

25 In this regard, see Commission for Racial Equality, “Racial Equality Councils” (London: CRE, November 1994).

26 Layton-Henry (fn. 14).

27 Amin, Kaushika and Richardson, Robin, Politicsfor All: Equality, Culture and the GeneralElection 1992 (London: Runnymede Trust, 1992), 55Google Scholar.

28 On this point, see Freeman, Gary P., “The Consequences of Immigration Policies for Immigrant States: A British and French Comparison,” in Messina, Anthony M. et al. ., eds., Ethnic and Racial Minorities in Advanced Industrial Democracies (New York: Greenwood Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

29 See, for example, Veen, Hans-Joachim, Lepszy, Norbert, and Mnich, Peter, The Republikaner Party in Germany: Right-Wing Menace or Protest Catchall? (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1993), 47–54Google Scholar; and Stoss, Richard, Die Republikaner (Cologne: Bund-Verlag, 1990)Google Scholar.

30 On this point, see Husbands, Christopher T., “Extreme Right-Wing Politics in Great Britain: The Recent Marginalisation of the National Front,” West European Politics 11 (April 1988), 65–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 See Messina (fn. 2), 53–78.

32 At one point or another, at least 75 percent of the British electorate endorsed Powell's views on immigration and 20 percent hoped that he would become prime minister. See Messina (fn. 2), 104—9.

33 See Anthony M. Messina, “Are West European Parties in Crisis? Select Evidence from the British and German Cases” (Paper presented at the conference Party Politics in the Year 2000, Manchester, U.K., January 1995).

34 Messina (fn. 2), 126–49.

35 See, for example, Messina, Anthony M., “Political Impediments to the Resumption of Labour Migration to Western Europe,” West European Politics 13 (January 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Layton-Henry (fn. 9), 28–41.

37 Messina (fn. 2), 42–44.

38 Layton-Henry (fn. 14).

39 LaPalombara, Joseph, “Parsimony and Empiricism in Comparative Politics: An Anti-Scholastic View,” in Holt, Robert T. and Turner, John E., eds., The Methodology of Comparative Research (New York: Free Press, 1970)Google Scholar.

40 This issue is partly addressed by Freeman (fn. 28).