Migration information campaigns: How to analyse their impact?

Information campaigns aim at discouraging potential migrants from leaving their countries irregularly. This article discusses how to analyse the impact of such campaigns by identifying different research lines in the literature. The impact of migration information campaigns may be explored by, firstly, focusing on transnational migratory data and inter-state relations (the macro-level); secondly, by investigating their impact on narratives within societies (the meso-level); and, finally, by investigating the micro-level of their influence on migratory decision-making. At each level, scholars face considerable methodological challenges to filter out the impact of campaigns. This article suggests that a promising research avenue is to analyse more widely the narratives and information sources upon which (potential) migrants rely. Opening up the research focus may avoid the risk of over-emphasising the impact of information campaigns by only looking at them. It allows to better understand which sources of information actually influence migratory behaviour.     

Return Migration and Transnationalism: How Are the Two Connected?

Return migration and migrant transnationalism are key phenomena in research on international migration. Here we examine how the two are connected. The article introduces a special section and draws partly upon this selection of papers and partly upon the broader literature. First, we argue that there is often a blurred boundary between mobility as a transnational practice, for instance in the form of return visits, and purportedly permanent or long‐term return migration. Second, we examine the effects of transnationalism on return migration intentions and experiences. Third, we explore how migration trajectories, involving various forms of ‘return’ moves, create different forms of transnationalism. Examples include the ‘reverse transnational’ practices of returnees and the ‘residual transnationalism’ of migrants who have had an unsuccessful return experience and decided to settle permanently abroad. We end by considering how both return migration and transnationalism exist in the interplay between the personal and the social.     

How limited is reformism?

Conclusion According to the reformist limitations thesis, a labor movement that organizes around a reformist program can never mount a challenge to capitalism itself. This program can be implemented without touching the sides, as it were, of the reigning system. Our own interpretation of the post-war history of the British and Swedish labor movements suggests the opposite. Unless the dominant political element in a reformist labor movement can be deflected from its program, and the internal cohesion of the movement thereby destroyed, a challenge to capitalism is inevitable.In the British case, the labor party remained the politically dominant component in the labor movement, and it turned its back on its own reformist commitments and espoused the defense of profits and managerial prerogatives. For historical reasons, the British trade-union movement never escaped from this dubious political guardianship and hence never developed the resources to continue a reformist political struggle in spite of the labor party.The Swedish social-democratic party shared throughout the post-war period the same focus on stabilization on the terms of an ongoing capitalist system as its British counterpart. But its escape from its reformist commitments was only partial, as its egalitarian traditions and ties to LO were stronger. To the extent to which it kept its political faith and went beyond mere welfarism, it saved itself from the disintegration and marginality of the British labor party and sustained the outward unity of the labor movement. To the extent to which the party fell from reformist grace, the trade-union movement displaced it as the political leading edge of the organized working class. The measure of reformism's compatibility with capitalism is thus the relationship between LO's (and increasingly also TCO's) policies and organization on the one hand, and the vital institutions of capital on the other.The dynamics of class conflict under capitalism point to two institutions the integrity of which must be defended if the system is to survive as such. The first of these is private property coupled to a market mechanism that gives private managements exclusive power over the allocation of productive resources. The social power of private property is exercised impersonally by market forces on the capital market, and personally in managerial prerogatives in the firm. The second vital institution of capitalism is its labor market under-pinned by the bourgeoisie's power to create unemployment and thus subvert opposition to its rule through deflation and failures of business confidence. Here lie the clues to what a progressive - cumulative - transition to socialism looks like. The normal mechanisms and règles du jeu of these two markets give way to political resource allocation, and corporate management yields up more and more of its prerogatives to the mobilized collective will of the workforce. Labor is de-commodified, and the investment function is enmeshed in a net of direct and indirect social controls.To project these changes in a written manifesto would presumably be revolutionary. The development of Swedish trade unionism suggests that, to go on pursuing the basic social justice and job security that reformists have always plodded after, meant implementing these changes anyway - piecemeal and as a matter of pragmatic necessity. The difference between revolution and reform thus boils down to their relative effectiveness in working-class mobilization and thus their historical potential.     

How secular is Europe?

A large body of literature has developed, yielding evidence that religion in general and Churches and Church leaders in particular have lost their once dominant position in contemporary Europe. Evidence is often cited in declining levels of church attendance. Whether Europe should also be qualified as secularized in terms of religious beliefs remains unclear. In this paper we investigate the degree to which European people are secular, focusing not only on religious practices, but also on beliefs. We argue that trajectories of religious change occur all over Europe, but not at similar speeds. We formulate hypotheses regarding the differences in the degree to which individuals and societies are secularized. Data from the recent European Values Study surveys are used to empirically test these hypotheses concerning patterns of variation in religious beliefs and practices. The findings provide evidence in favour of secularization theories and in contradiction to rational choice theories. In Europe, religious pluralism produces not higher levels, but lower levels of religiosity. The findings also reveal that religious denomination as well as cultural and socio-economic heritages are important factors in explaining the patchwork pattern in levels of religiosity and religious participation in contemporary Europe.     

Labour market turnover in Latin America: How intensive is it and to what extent does it differ across countries?

The study of labour market turnover is particularly significant in Latin America, which is characterized by marked economic cycles and limited social protection coverage. This article estimates the intensity of transitions from employment in six countries in Latin America in the new millennium and decomposes the differences observed, furthermore evaluating the employment destinations of workers making such transitions. The countries under analysis show very different turnover rates, which are mostly explained by a dissimilar incidence of informal and temporary employment. In all cases, a large share of job exits imply transitions to precarious jobs or unemployment.     

How Visual is Visual Prediction?

Infants are readily able to use their recent experience to shape their future behavior. Recent work has confirmed that infants generate neural predictions based on their recent experience (Emberson, Richards, & Aslin, 2015) and that neural predictions trigger visual system activity similar to that elicited by visual stimulation. This study uses behavioral methods to ask, how visual is visual prediction? In Experiment 1, we confirmed that when additional trials provide additional visual experience with the experimental shape, infants exhibit a robust novelty preference. In Experiment 2, we removed the visual stimulus from some trials and presented the predictive auditory cue alone, allowing the effects of neural prediction to be assessed. We found no evidence of looking preferences at test, suggesting that visual prediction does not contribute to the computation of visual familiarity. In Experiment 3, we provided infants with a degraded visual stimulus to test whether visual prediction could bias visual perception under ambiguous conditions. Again, we found no evidence of looking preferences at test, suggesting that visual prediction is not biasing perception of an uncertain stimulus. Overall, our results suggest that visual prediction is not visual, in the strictest sense, despite the presence of visual system activation.     

Looking for the Best and Brightest? Deservingness Regimes in Italian Labour Migration Management

It is often maintained that contemporary foreign labour recruitment programs have taken an increasingly selective stance and that skills are increasingly crucial in granting migrants easier access and stronger welfare and residency rights in receiving countries. The paper provides a retrospective account of the evolution of Italian labour migration management, paying attention to the changing selection criteria reflected in some of its “front, back and side doors”. It will be shown that Italian labour migration management is increasingly embracing a bifurcated regime of deservingness. Despite some recent tentative signs of change towards an increased evaluation of high skills as a selection principle embedded into a competitiveness‐driven frame, over the last decades labour migration management has been largely dominated by the recruitment of a low‐skilled workforce. The paper discusses the emergence of a specific construction migrants’ deservingness placing Italy in a peculiar position in a European context.     

Information and Communication Technologies: Reshaping Voluntary Organizations?

Electronic networking holds the promise of innovation with involuntary organizations as they seek to respond to deep shifts in the social, economic, and political spheres in which they operate. Evidence from our study of U.K. voluntary organizations demonstrates relatively low uptake of the core networking technologies and applications essential to support the reconfiguration of key relationships in and around the organizations. Friends of the Earth and the Samaritans are exceptions to this trend. Case studies of these organizations suggest they are using information and communication technologies to reshape internal relationships and reconfigure relationships externally. The extent to which the organizations are reconfiguring around intelligent campaigning and intelligent client service is tempered by their long‐standing values.     

Stakeholder participation in evaluation: How important is diversity?

Participatory evaluation seeks in part to promote exchanges of perspective and experience among diverse program stakeholders. Diversity in such exchanges is viewed as integral to the substantive and political strands of the participatory process. Yet, using the grounded experience of two participatory evaluation case studies, we offer some challenges to this ideal of diversity and suggest that when action is the desired outcome, somewhat less rather than more diversity of stakeholder participation is actually desired.     

Moving the Migration Frontier: A Chinese Qiaoxiang Migration Model?

The New Chinese Migration is frequently contrasted to the earlier 19^th century mass migrations in terms of its origins (urban vs rural), migrant types (students and professionals vs coolies) and destinations (developed vs developing countries). A significant component of this new migration from the PRC however, continues to originate from the qiaoxiang – the emigrant‐sending areas of the 19^th century migrations. Based on an extensive review of the literature on the old and new Chinese migration, as well as several years of fieldwork in the major rural sending areas or qiaoxiang of China, we examine the continuities between the new qiaoxiang migration and the old, and propose a qiaoxiang migration model of the entrepreneurial nature of the migration enterprise to account for the sustained and global character of the mobility generated.     

Recession and Migration: A New Era for Labor Migration?

The current recession, the worst in a half century, is likely to affect international migration differently than past recessions. In 1973–1974 and 1981–1982, rising oil prices led to recessions in oil‐importing countries and economic booms in oil‐exporting countries, enabling some migrants to shift from bust to boom areas, as from Europe to the Middle East. The 1997–1998 Asian financial crisis did not spread globally, and was followed by a relatively quick resumption of economic and job growth that attracted migrant workers. The 2008–2009 recession is most severe in countries that had the most severe debt excesses, including the U.S., Spain, and Eastern Europe, and in countries most dependent on trade, including many Asian countries. New deployments of migrants are likely to slow, but what is not yet clear is how many migrants who lose jobs will remain abroad.     

Adoption and the Race Factor: How Important is It?

As of 1997 federal law prohibits a state from delaying or denying adoption on the basis of race, color, or national origin. This article reports the major research findings, going back over 25 years, pertaining to transracial adoptions. The findings show that transracial adoptions serve the children's best interest and are consistent with the recently enacted federal law.     

Embedding or Uprooting? The Effects of International Labour Migration on Rural Households in Armenia

The impact of international labour migration on human wellbeing and socioeconomic development in communities of origin is an important yet understudied issue in contemporary migration research. This study examines whether men's labour migration from rural Armenia to Russia and other international destinations enhances the economic and social connections of the left‐behind households to their communities or, on the contrary, undermines those connections and encourages household members' own migration. Using survey data, it compares families of migrants and non‐migrants with respect to ownership of productive and major non‐productive assets in the community and women's non‐farm labour force participation, their social engagement in the village, and their desires to migrate abroad. The results of statistical tests indicate that men's migration is negatively associated with households' asset ownership and with women's non‐farm employment. The results for women's social engagement in their villages are less consistent. Finally, regardless of economic attachment, social engagement, and a host of other factors, wives of migrants were significantly more likely to wish to move abroad than women married to non‐migrants, and the difference in propensity to emigrate between migrants' and non‐migrants' wives increases with duration of husband's migration. We situate these findings in the context of Central Eurasia's international labour migration system and discuss their implications for future migration trends and for socioeconomic development of Armenia and similar settings.     

Understanding Membership in a World of Global Migration: (How) Does Citizenship Matter?

This article synthesizes the literature on citizenship and immigration to evaluate the heft of citizenship and theorize why it matters. We examine why citizenship laws vary cross‐nationally and why some immigrants acquire citizenship while others do not. We consider how citizenship influences rights, identities, and participation and the mechanisms by which citizenship could influence lives. We consider frameworks, such as cultural and performative citizenship, that de‐center legal status and the nation‐state. Ultimately, we argue for a claims‐making approach to citizenship, one that is a relational process of recognition, includes actors outside the individual/state dyad, and focuses on claims to legitimate membership.     

Long-term Cereal Price Changes: How Important is the Speculative Element?

The objective of this article is to provide an analysis of the relationship existing between cereal prices and several variables (population, income, exports, the exchange rate, and speculation), by using a linear regression analysis. Specific emphasis is placed on the speculative dimension. Our results show that speculation has played a crucial role during the period June 2001–December 2009. Exports, in some ways connected to the former variable, occupy second place, in terms of significance. However, their impact on cereal prices is less relevant than that of biofuel production. Population growth acts in the opposite direction due to the change in diets, implying that population increases would tend to affect primarily other agricultural markets. Excessive volatility in food prices is a dramatic question. From a demand point of view, consumers in developing countries and vulnerable income groups in other countries (farmers) have to be protected. More than one policy has to be introduced.     

Differential response in child protection: How much is too much?

Recurring maltreatment can have devastating, lifelong consequences for children who are victims of abuse and neglect. The primary mission of child protection services (CPS) agencies is to prevent the recurrence of child maltreatment by offering families services designed to prevent future maltreatment. In order for these services to be effective, however, families must actually engage in them. This study focuses on how differential response programs impact families' successful engagement in services as indicated by long-term child safety outcomes.Differential response refers to a dual track system that allows public CPS agencies to respond to accepted reports of child abuse or neglect with either a traditional investigative response (TR) or an alternative response (AR). The AR is designed to be a less authoritative and less adversarial approach to families presenting a low- to moderate-risk of maltreatment. The AR involves collaboration with the family in a comprehensive assessment of the family's needs, risks and strengths and a referral to services on a voluntary basis. States implementing DR systems statewide vary greatly in the percentage of accepted reports that are assigned to the AR track. The goal of this study is to determine what rate of AR utilization is most effective in reducing subsequent reports of abuse and neglect for cases assigned to the AR.This study compares child safety outcomes for children assigned to the AR and those assigned to the TR within each of the fourteen states which implemented DR statewide between 2000–2012. The analysis uses Cox proportional hazards regression. Data for this observational study are drawn from the 2000–2012 data in the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) child files. Child safety is measured by re-reporting of the child to CPS.The theoretical model underpinning the study is McCurdy and Daro's (2001) Integrated Theory of Participant Involvement (ITPI) which outlines a conceptual model of parental engagement in services. This study hypothesizes that AR utilization rates affect the risk level of cases assigned to the AR. The ITPI model offers a possible explanation as to why higher risk cases may not be as responsive to the AR approach which depends upon the family's voluntary participation in services.The key finding of this study is that, in states assigning > 33% of reports to the AR, children on the AR track are being re-reported at equal or higher rates than those on the TR track. Only in those states utilizing the AR track for < 33% of the cases are AR cases being consistently re-reported at lower rates than those on the TR track. This article explores ways to improve the accuracy of track assignment decisions to prevent the assignment of higher risk families to the alternative response.