Suchergebnisse

Over the last decade both national and local actors in Spain have picked up on international trends encouraging a policy framework of migration and development. Policies of codevelopment are tied in with issues of migration management in the sense of linking current and future migration flows with processes of development in the country of origin. However, this article demonstrates how codevelopment policies and initiatives of local governments in Catalonia also relate to migrants' local process of incorporation in their country of residence. In so doing the article seeks to bridge and contribute to studies of migration and development as well as issues of national and local citizenship and migrant incorporation. Importantly, the article highlights the role of receiving country local governments in the nexus between migrant transnational practices and processes of incorporation.

This article critically examines transnational political engagement of migrants and refugees in local, national and global political processes. Based on inductive reading of existing scholarship and in particular the author's own research on Turks and Kurds in Europe, the article discusses key concepts and trends in our understanding of why, how and with what consequences migrants engage in transnational political practices. These practices, this article suggests, are influenced by the particular multilevel institutional environment, which migrant political actors negotiate their way through. This environment includes not only political institutions in the sending and receiving country, but also global norms and institutions and networks of other nonstate actors. Finally, the article argues for critical examination of the democratic transparency and accountability of migrants' transnational networks in any analysis of their long and short-term impact on domestic and global politics.

During the Danish local and national elections in November 2001, the scale, intensity and tone of the debates on migration took both national and international commentators by surprise. Within the first year of the new right‐wing government, supported by the influential Danish People's Party, Denmark has become one of the most exclusive and restrictive immigration regimes in Europe. This article takes a closer look at the recent politicization of migration issues in Denmark. While there is certainly concern with the compatibility of migrant 'otherness', in particular Islam, with Danish society and norms, then an equally, or even more central issue regards the 'cost of migration' for Danish social policy standards. Because of high unemployment rates, migrants and their descendants receive a relatively large part of Danish social contributions. This has raised the more general question of how to combine immigration with a tax‐financed universal welfare system where all have rights to full social benefits immediately upon arrival. The answer of the government has been to cut both sides of the equation by implementing stricter entry rules for family reunification and asylum‐seekers, as well as making a historical break with the principle of equal social welfare benefits for all legal residents.Lors des élections danoises locales et nationales de novembre 2001, l'ampleur, l'intensité et le ton des débats sur la migration ont surpris les commentateurs tant nationaux qu'étrangers. Au cours de la première année au pouvoir du nouveau gouvernement de droite, soutenu par le puissant Parti populaire danois, le Danemark a mis en place l'un des régimes d'immigration les plus fermés et restrictifs d'Europe. L'article s'attache à la récente politisation des questions de migration dans ce pays. Sans négliger le souci réel de compatibilité de 'l'altérité' des migrants, notamment l'Islam, avec la société et les normes danoises, il expose un problème aussi, voire plus crucial: le 'coût de la migration' selon les bases de la politique sociale nationale. Compte tenu des forts taux de chômage, les migrants et leurs descendants reçoivent une part relativement importante des contributions sociales danoises. D'où une question plus générale sur la façon de combiner immigration et système social universel financé par la fiscalité, où tous ont droit à l'intégralité des prestations sociales dès leur arrivée. En réponse, le gouvernement a tronqué les deux câtés de l'équation, en appliquant des règles d'entrée plus strictes pour la réunification familiale et les demandeurs d'asile, tout en créant une rupture historique avec le principe de prestations sociales égales pour tous les résidents légaux.

This article examines how the social and political contexts in receiving countries affect the transnational political practices of migrants and refugees, such as their mobilization around political events in their homeland. The case study explores the political participation of Turks and Kurds in Germany and the Netherlands in its full complexity, that is in both the immigration country and in homeland politics. The findings suggest that transnational political practices should not be reduced to a function of the political opportunity structures of particular receiving countries for two main reasons: (a) more inclusive political structures, which provide for more participation and co‐operation on immigrant political issues, may at the same time, and for that very reason, serve to exclude dialogue on homeland politics; (b) homeland political movements may draw on a different range of resources than their immigrant political counterparts, including those outside the local political institutional context.

The role orientation of political representatives and candidates is a longstanding concern in studies of democratic representation. The growing trend in countries to allow citizens abroad to candidate in homeland elections from afar provides an interesting opportunity for understanding how international mobility and context influences ideas of representation among these emigrant candidates. In public debates, emigrant candidates are often portrayed as delegates of the emigrant constituencies. However, drawing on the paradigmatic case of Italy and an original data set comprising emigrant candidates, we show that the perceptions of styles of representation abroad are more complex. Systemic differences between electoral districts at home and abroad are relevant for explaining why and how candidates develop a trustee or delegate orientation.