Immigration and Asylum

Question 1

Why do many european believe immigration to be a problem?

Answer 1

Asylum seekers and low skilled migrants are an economic burden
Ethnic diversity undermines solidarity needed for strong welfare states
Muslim residents are a threat to security
Challenge to european national identity

Question 2

What was the trigger for the perception of a ‘migrant crisis’?

Answer 2

End of cold-war
Right wing politicians predicted many eastern migrants would swap the west - dragging down living standards and welfare systems

Question 3

Were right wing predictions about a migrant crisis correct?

Answer 3

No - fairly modest movement due to ethnic and labour market factors
Crucial period in perception of migration and an upsurge in academic interest in the subject

Question 4

Art form the end of the Cold War being a obvious marker, what else created the conditions for an increase in the diversity of migration?

Answer 4

Neoliberal globalisation - glibly labour market based on inequality and differentiation, cultural capital in form of knowledge of overseas opportunities disseminated through the media, cheaper transport and communications

Question 5

What were the trends that european governments had to deal with despite not being prepared for?

Answer 5

Labour migrants becoming permanent ethnic minorities

Globalisation of markets for skills creating increasing mobility into and out of Europe

Question 6

What must be studied in order to understand this topic?

Answer 6

History of migration and ethnicity that has been interwoven in nation state formation

Question 7

What have historians often neglected?

Answer 7

The importance role migration has played in socio-political european life since 1650 - many historians neglected talking about such minorities to further a nationalist discourse of a homogenous people

Question 8

What is a key aspect of nation state formation?

Answer 8

Managing cultural ad religious diversity - many differing models emerged which would effect how european reacted to immigration after 1945

Question 9

What was the nation state formation model in the United Kingdom?

Answer 9

Required political loyalty but could accept a certain level of cultural difference - didn’t mean equality as minority cultures still treated as inferior

Question 10

What was the nation state formation model in France?

Answer 10

1789 revolution established principles of equality and the rights of man that rejected group cultural identity - designed to include people as equal political subjects (civic identity required a unitary national identity)

Question 11

What did all of the European model have in common?

Answer 11

No openness to new forms of ethnic/religious belonging imported by immigrants - either excluded from the nation, assimilated at the price of cultural conformity within the national culture (France) or assimilated into one of the accepted regional of religious groupings (Britain)

Question 12

What were the dominant perception when immigration began in 1945?

Answer 12

Incorporation of newcomers not seen as a major thing
Numbers not expected to be large
‘Controllability of difference’ - idea that immigrants wouldn’t being change in dominant social practises

Question 13

What was a common view in the immediate postwar years in Europe?

Answer 13

That Europe was overpopulated - after devastation of past 20 years many Europeans sought to immigrate to American and Oceania

Question 14

What ‘displaced people’ had to be absorbed?

Answer 14

People from eastern and Central Europe displaced from their homes due to war
E.g. 12 million people into west Germany

Question 15

What resulted from the independence of colonies?

Answer 15

Former colonists and administrators heading back to their home country e.g. French from Algeria and Brits from Kenya

Question 16

What happened despite population increase that encouraged more immigration?

Answer 16

Economic growth was so successful that labour shortages appeared - employers and governments sought to hire migrant workers

Question 17

What was the first type of labour migration?

Answer 17

Many Western European counties recruited temporary labour - administrators sought to prevent settlement through high state control of the process and implementing a ‘rotation’ of workers (contestant circulation of short term migrants)

Question 18

What was the second type of labour migration?

Answer 18

Labour from former or existing dependencies e.g. the Caribbean for Britain
No official recruitment - started by knowledge of opportunities in the former metropole and a legal right of entry

Question 19

What colonial factor facilitated labour recruitment?

Answer 19

Many colonised people granted citizenship of in the British case being subjects of the crown as a form of ideological integration - meant immigrants could bring dependents and settle (governments paid little attention to long term consequences)

Question 20

What occurred in the 1960s?

Answer 20

In light of economic decline and community relations problems, governments sought to introduce restrictive laws to stop immigration from former colonies - then on the status of guest workers and immigrants converged

Question 21

How many immigrants were there in Western Europe by 1970?

Answer 21

12 million - process of ethnic minority formation became irreversible but this wasn’t apparent to lawmakers

Question 22

What occurred in the 1970s?

Answer 22

Recession meant shutdown of immigrant recruitment and traditional mass production

Question 23

What was immigrant labour recruitment replaced by in the mid 1970s?

Answer 23

Capital outflows to new industrial areas of the global south - migrants now went to gulf countries
Western governments expected migrant workers to return home in the hope they would export out unemployment

Question 24

Did migrant workers leave?

Answer 24

Ones from Southern Europe did (which would eventually join the european community)
Workers from impoverished areas tended to stay and brought their families with them

Question 25

What demographic changes within the immigrant communities occurred when they brought their families?

Answer 25

No more dominance of young men
New families formed and original immigrant aged
Self perceptions changed form temporary workers to permanent residents
Social and economic networks of ethnic business and services emerges

Question 26

Why were Western European governments slow to accept the realty of new permanent economic communities?

Answer 26

Afraid of electoral backlash from populations who’d been told immigration was temporary

Question 27

Did Germany and France try and limit immigrant families arriving?

Answer 27

Yes - but stopped but their own constitutions and legal systems

Question 28

By the mid 1970s what percentage of the population were immigrants?

Answer 28

Around 4-8%

Question 29

What started in the 1980s?

Answer 29

Inflows of asylum seekers (applying for recognition as refugees)

Question 30

What is the definition of a refugee?

Answer 30

Person recognised by host country as in need of protection - recognition given if individual can’t return to home country due to a well founded fear of persecution

Question 31

What is the definition of an asylum seeker?

Answer 31

Person whose application for recognition as a refugee has yet to be determined

Question 32

In the early cold-war period where did most asylum seekers come from?

Answer 32

Communist countries

Question 33

At the end of the Cold War period where were asylum seekers coming from?

Answer 33

Third world - escaping east-west proxy wars in which Europe often sided with authoritarian regimes (Western Europe reluctant to grant them refugee status)

Question 34

What did refugee and immigrant families need?

Answer 34

Social infrastructure e.g. housing, medical and other public services

Question 35

How did Western European governments respond to immigrant needs for social infrastructure?

Answer 35

Commissioned studies into ‘race relations’ and plans were drawn up - reluctant to recognise immigrant communities as a long term presence

Question 36

What was the cause of asylum seekers in the 1990s?

Answer 36

Economic transformation, political upheaval and ethnic conflicts e.g. wars in Yugoslavia triggering over 1.3 million asylum applicant to Germany

Question 37

How did asylum application become politicised?

Answer 37

Far right moralisation resulting in arson attacks on asylum seeker hotels and assaults on foreigners (threading public order)

Question 38

What was the response of european government to anti-asylum movements?

Answer 38

In fear of right wing electoral backlash governments restricted recited the rights of foreigners to claim asylum e.g. in Germany and Sweden and implemented temporary protection schemes

Question 39

How did European governments work together in matters of border control and refugee determination procedures?

Answer 39

Schengen Agreement - tighten entry controls towards the outside but created a zone of free movement within
Dublin convention - person can only apply for asylum in the first European country they enter
Cop operation of police forces and efforts to increase economic development in states bordering the EU

Question 40

What was the effect of the new restrictive polices of the European community to asylum seekers?

Answer 40

Many had to enter illegally - rise in ‘mixed flows’ making it difficult for governments to distinguish between refugees and economic migrants

Question 41

What occurred in the north western countries that used to take guest workers from specific areas but then adopted a zero tolerance approach?

Answer 41

New waves of immigration from further abroad - increasing diversity and a result of better transport and communication networks

Question 42

What was another important shift in the 1990s?

Answer 42

Increasing public awareness that the postwar migrant and new waves were leading to large scale settlement - in some countries migrant polices were adopted but in Germany the continued to deny the problem until 1998

Question 43

What happens by the turn of the millennium?

Answer 43

Immigration turned into a key political issue and it changed the face of european politics e.g. many governments relied on the support of anti-immigrant parties

Question 44

Name an example of a government coming to power due to playing on immigration issues.

Answer 44

1994: Silvio Berlusconi in Italy gained a majority through an alliance with the anti-immigrant and populist Lega Nord

Question 45

What was ake issue of immigration within the EU?

Answer 45

Workers form newer and poorer counties e.g. Romania and Bulgaria sought work in economical advanced member countries such as the UK

Question 46

Post 2000 where did immigrants come from?

Answer 46

Between a third and 2 thirds were family reunions

10% were asylum seekers

Question 47

What measures do many Western European governments take up to limit asylum seekers?

Answer 47

Detention of applicants, prohibition of employment and exclusion from welfare programmes

Question 48

What may have been the motivation for policies detecting asylum seekers?

Answer 48

Fear of further far right mobilisation

Question 49

What drove irregular migration patterns in the early 2000s?

Answer 49

Unmet labour market demands for low skilled workers
Difference in income compared to poorer countries of origin
Failure of governments to introduce legal migration opportunities

Question 50

What was the political dilemma of migration?

Answer 50

Migrants needed in context of declining national workforces

Public opinion was negative towards immigration - exacerbated by security fears following 9/11 and 7/7

Question 51

What were the demographic needs for immigration?

Answer 51

Population decline e.g. 9.6% predicted in Germany

Ageing workforce e.g. predicted 30% of population will be over 60

Question 52

What did the EU’s migration plan focus on?

Answer 52

Attracting highly skilled immigrants despite need for low skilled work - reluctance to hire low skilled migrants led to jobs being carried of by irregular ethnic workers (racialised labour)

Question 53

How much of the european population was foreign born by 2005?

Answer 53

8%

Question 54

Why has their been a resurgence in the emphasis on a national identity?

Answer 54

Critics arguing that multiculturalism has undermined the National is entity and social cohesion
As a form of resistance amongst globalisation and process that have devalued the role of the working class

Question 55

What are the approaches to the backlash against multiculturalism?

Answer 55

Blaming immigrants for clustering together and refusing to integrate
Others propose forced integration initiatives to achieve greater equity for immigrants

Question 56

What is the racialisation of ethnic difference?

Answer 56

Minorities have poorer economic opportunities forcing them to live in low income neighbourhoods and segregation - this then used as evidence of failure to integrate