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Europe is in crisis. In recent years, there has been a rise of xenophobic parties in a number of European countries. While arguing that there is indeed a European crisis, this article focuses on the Swedish take on the crisis. The aim is to contribute to the understanding of migration, from a Swedish vantage point. This orientation has particular significance since Sweden has traditionally been extolled as defending human rights and multiculturalism by opening its doors to refugees – the so-called Swedish exceptionalism. Reality, however, is quite different and former policies are contested, raising the question whether this signals the end of this exceptionalism. In Sweden, ongoing processes are transforming the core social fabric of what was previously known as the Swedish model. It is potentially a bellwether for the transformation of a previously inclusive democratic society into something quite different, in which 'the Other' increasingly plays a defining role.

This paper is part of the joint project between the Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs of the European Commission and the OECD's Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs on "Review of Labour Migration Policy in Europe". This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Grant: HOME/2013/EIFX/CA/002 / 30-CE-0615920/00-38 (DI130895) A previous version of this paper (DELSA/ELSA/MI(2015)2) was presented and discussed at the OECD Working Party on Migration in June 2015. This paper presents an overview and analysis of the policy development at the EU level regarding external labour migration (ELM). It reviews the shift in ELM policy at the EU level by examining documents and debates. It looks at the treatment of ELM, setting out from the Amsterdam Treaty and then follows the development up to the present, paying close attention to the evolving rational for increasing ELM. The difference between the horizontal approach and the sectoral approach is explained. The major ELM Directives under the sectoral approach are presented and discussed in terms of how they were negotiated and how they fit into the overall ELM policy strategy. The document concludes by identifying current political challenges for expanding the EU approach beyond its present form.

As migrants throughout the world make important contributions to their families' social welfare, migration often implies changes in the ways in which individual's and families' needs for economic and social-welfare protection are met. This book contributes to the existing literature on transnational mobility and social protection by bringing in empirical evidence from across the globe which illustrates the multitude of mechanisms in which welfare concerns shape individual and family decisions about mobility and vice versa. By focusing on individuals, households and families rather than on nation states, the book's contributors distance themselves from the macro and nation-state level of analysis in the field of migration and welfare research. Despite the emphasis on migrants' subjective rationalities, the book's chapters often highlight the political nature of many dilemmas faced by migrants and their families and expose national-welfare systems' inherent sedentary bias. This book is designed for a broad range of audiences, from established scholars and policy-makers to graduate students of Sociology, Political Science, Anthropology and Human Geography who are interested in transnational mobility and social protection. We hope that the readers will find the contributions to this book insightful and valuable for their understanding of migrants' experiences of social-welfare protection in a globalised world.

This paper asks what role schools play in the gentrification process, a topic that remains understudied outside the Anglo-American context. I analyze how the discourse about schools has shaped the gentrification process in Berlin's working-class and immigrant-dense Neukölln district. By considering the different perspectives and narratives of parents, the local government, property owners, and investors, I show that, even in a context in which education remains mainly public, schools play a crucial role in determining the housing and educational strategies of different stakeholders in the area. I argue for a more thorough engagement of European urban studies with the histories of racism and migration, in specific with the question of school segregation and territorially based ethno-racial stigma, to fully grasp the current gentrification of previously neglected neighborhoods across western European cities.

This paper expands on the visual essay 'Trash/Traces: Lives adrift along the border', which narrates the author's experiences at the frontline of refugee rescue operations during the 2015 European 'refugee crisis' and explores the Aegean borderscape's affective geography by tracking the human and material traces of undocumented border-crossings on Lesvos island. Drawing on humanities' turn to affect and new materialism, and theoretical advancements in border studies this twofold project implements visual and (auto)ethnographic methods to indicate obscured dimensions of the contemporary European border regime and illustrate the affective and somatic impact of its politics upon a variety of actors. This is done through the visual and narrative chronicling of bordercrossing humans and materials, which are regarded and handled as trash to be promptly removed from public view, through their irregular trajectories' narration by the seawashed personal items. An archaeogeography of undocumented migration emerges through the tracing, conservation, and articulation of the flows of human and material 'waste' and their intersections and layerings across liminal landscapes, thereby instigating a rethinking of the affective, bodily and material economies of emplacement and mobility across the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Greek island of Lesvos has a centuries-old history as a site of departure, arrival, coexistence and resistance for the forcibly displaced. This migratory chronology, however, was overwritten by the unprecedented attention that Lesvos attracted during the 2015 'refugee crisis'. This paper examines vernacular aspects of bordering, specifically the practice of border crossers and other groups standing in solidarity with—or against—them, to inscribe messages on walls in and around carceral and public spaces, viewed as a process of constructing and contesting borders from below. Closely reading numerous inscriptions collected around Lesvos reveals how borders are constructed, enacted and contested from below through borderlanders' discursive practices on some of the very walls that constitute the EU frontier's material infrastructure. This study aims to advance understandings of the historical continuity of the Aegean borderscape as a complex landscape of border effects and affects that exceed borders' legal, infrastructural and political dimensions, while also highlighting the persistence and importance of personal agency, self-authorship and identity reclamation by border populations even in the direst of circumstances.

This article examines the role of support mechanisms for new migrant communities provided by networks of statutory, third sector and refugee community organisations. The article explores the dynamics of the relationships between support groups, with analysis located in the urban context of NorthTown. The findings point to the possibility of tension between migrant support groups where there is a perceived need to compete over resources or political influence. Moreover, it is argued that there is a risk that institutional goals of organisational sustainability may take precedence over substantive goals of support provision. The ability of support groups to assert agency in terms of strategic responses to structural constraints on sustainability is explored. It is argued that an organising logic based on the creation of a political community within the new migrant population can prove more sustainable than contingent communities based on commonalities of language or nationality.

9/11 has reinforced the discursive securitization of migration and integration politics and policies in major immigration countries, the so-called migration-security nexus. To explore this argument, the analysis deals with three propositions. First, the end of the Cold War has opened political space for focusing on diffuse and hard-to-grasp security threats that do not emanate from sovereign states but from non-state actors, involving issues such as crime, drugs, migration. International migration has served as a convenient reference point for unspecific fears. Second, securitizing policies such as stepped-up border controls and stricter internal surveillance of immigrants produces unintended effects. Securitizing policy issues creates higher expectations among voters that governments are actually able to effectively control transnational movements. Third, 9/11 entails ambiguous consequences for immigrant integration. Clearly, the levels of harassment against immigrants from the Middle East increased considerably, at least on the short term. Yet the crisis situation may even lead to an increased immersion into the politics of the respective national immigration states. General attitudes and policies towards cultural pluralism will probably not be significantly affected by 9/11. Overall, the exploration of the migration-security nexus is part of broader studies into the virtuous and vicious cycles of transnationalization, the growing importance of non-state actors in world and national politics.

The paper consists of two parts. The first reviews an appraisal of the contemporary theories of international migration. Among older theories, the push-and-pull model, the segmented labour market theory, world-system theory, and the political economy model are examined as macro-level explanatory approaches, and, at the micro-level, the neoclassical economic (otherwise known as rational choice) theory, human capital theory, new economics of migration, migration network or social capital theory, and the cumulative causation model are examined. The second part presents an encompassing theoretical approach, migration as structuration process, and identifies its advantages over other models. This approach is then comparatively applied to eight immigrant groups chosen as case studies.

The externalization of the EU's migration policies has seen a sharp increase in recent years but many aspects of its historical roots, internal dynamics, and broader implications remain insufficiently explored. This special issue analyses recent developments in the EU's external migration policies including the extra-territorial reach of EU migration policies; the power relationships between the EU and third countries involved in EU migration policies; the overlap with critical development studies and post-colonialism; the replication of many of Australia's external migration policies; the impact of EU external migration policies on third countries, and civil society contestation of those policies. As the contributions show, the series of policies discussed here go beyond the specific empirical area of migration control to have significance for both the future of the European Union and its role in global affairs.

This chapter analyses how expatriate women navigate national political ideals formulated around gender equality and the dual-earner model upon their return to Sweden. The study is based on 46 in-depth interviews and participant observation conducted in a network for returning migrant women in Sweden. The vast majority were married to Swedish men working in transnational companies and had returned to Sweden due to their husbands' completed expatriate contracts. As the women had been situated outside the formal labour market during their time abroad, they had no work experience or pensionable income in the Swedish welfare system, which is based on the idea that women and men share labour- and family-related work. Hence, their positions as 'trailing spouses' had a severe impact on their opportunities for reintegration into Swedish society. On the one hand, the women's work enabled their husband's mobility and working life in transnational companies. On the other, national social benefits did not take this (gendered) work into account. Thus, the women continued to depend on their husband's income and private insurances back in Sweden, located in-between different 'global' market-based solutions and a national welfare system.

In this article we present a preliminary theoretical background and some empirical findings concerning a migrating trend between the fields of politics, PR and journalism: one day a political reporter, the next a communication officer; one day a PR consultant, the next a state secretary. To understand contemporary politics one must, we argue, comprehend the convergence between three fields of power holders that together form the realm of politics and communication: elite politicians, elite political reporters and elite communication/PR officers. Together, they form a communication elite that sets the parameters for the public discourse on politics. When politics is produced and constructed in, and through, social networks formed by elite agents from politics, journalism and PR, what does this mean for how democracy is worked out and what does it mean for citizenship in general?

This article attempts to provide a critical understanding of the dual signification of "precarity". It explores what "precarity" as a concept may potentially offer to studies of the changing contemporary political economy of migration. It discusses shifting trends in global migration and point to tendencies for a possible convergence between "South" and "North", "East" and "West". Based on a review of current advances in research, it discusses, with reference to the classical work of Karl Polanyi, the potential for a contemporary "countermovement" which would challenge the precarity of migrants. Bringing forward the issue of the "space for civil society" the article addresses a still lingering democratic deficit in the global governance of migration. ; Policy Implications The article is relevant to policymakers, trade unions and civil society organizations. It contributes to the understanding of policy making processes in emerging multilevel global governance and focuses on issues of precarization, migration, and the implementation and accountability of human, migrant and labour rights.

The impacts of migration on the restructuring of locality remains neglected by both migration scholars and urban geographers, although the importance of global forces in structuring the flows of people, identities, subjectivities, and cultural production and consequent alterations in a time/space continuum is widely acknowledged. Yet migrants both experience and contribute to the forces of integration and fragmentation, as they participate in the rescaling of urban economies, politics and governance and the reshaping of geographies of representation. Consequently any analysis of the restructuring of urban social fabrics will be incomplete without considering the impact of migration and migrants.