The Emerging Migration State

Since 1945, immigration in the core industrial democracies has been increasing. The rise in immigration is a function of market forces (demand-pull and supply-push) and kinship networks, which reduce the transaction costs of moving from one society to another. These economic and sociological forces are the necessary conditions for migration to occur, but the sufficient conditions are legal and political. States must be willing to accept immigration and to grant rights to outsiders. How then do states regulate migration in the face of economic forces that push them toward greater openness, while security concerns and powerful political forces push them toward closure? States are trapped in a “liberal” paradox –…