Labour market integration and transnational lived citizenship: Aspirations and belonging among refugees in Germany

Transnational lived citizenship has gained prominence as a means to analyse mobility and foreground activist notions of citizenship over legal status. I argue that lived citizenship and transnational movements are strongly intertwined with aspirations and belonging. I use the material example of labour market integration as the space of enactments of citizenship and analyse the patterns of belonging those create and contest. I develop my argument through the empirical example of labour market integration of refugees in Germany. I demonstrate how such integration transforms social, and more importantly, economic location and in turn creates complex and often contradictory forms of transnational allegiances. I ultimately argue that lived citizenship can in important ways advance aspirations of refugees and migrants. At the same time, transnational lives and multiple allegiances are often hindered by state-based citizenship and the rights this confers. Legal status thus remains an important marker of citizenship.     

Portfolios of mobility: the movement of expertise in transnational corporations in two sectors — aerospace and extractive industries

This article is about how UK‐based transnational corporations source expertise and move highly skilled people among their sites. TNCs rely heavily on their internal labour markets for skills. We examine patterns and trends in the ways that TNCs in two sectors, aerospace and extractives, dynamically orchestrate and deploy their networks of expertise internationally to address the demands of different markets. We chart the types of mobility that exist, identify how and why they are used, and explore some of the institutional, industrial, organizational and technological factors that influence these trends. We show that different types of mobility play distinct roles in organizations. Companies respond to mobility calls from diverse stimuli by linking together mobility options into portfolios of moves that represent negotiated responses to industrial and individual requirements.     

Europe and the Immigration of Highly Skilled Labour

The competition for highly skilled labour continues to be fierce and is taking a more institutionalized pattern across most of the developed world. This article sketches the changes in policies, legislations, and procedures across various EU countries and compares these with those of other developed countries.
The article shows that EU member states not only compete with non-EU countries and regions but also among themselves in order to attract and maintain sufficient flows of highly skilled labour.     

The transnational politics of the Tomato King: meaning and impact

Abstract In this article we deploy transnational ethnography to explore the transnational electoral politics by which Andrés Bermúdez, a successful tomato grower and labour contractor from Winters, California, who came to be called ‘the Tomato King’, was elected mayor of the municipality of Jerez in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. We seek to explain the meaning of his transnational electoral victory and its impact on the role of ‘the migrant’ as a new social actor in Mexican political development. We thus situate the Bermudista phenomenon in the context of the literature on migrant transnational politics. We hope to move the literature on migrant political transnationalism forward by advancing an agency‐oriented perspective that incorporates both the politics of representation of ‘el migrante’ in transnational electoral campaigns and the emerging dynamics of transnational coalition politics. Our approach underlines the need to carefully historicize the relationship between transnationalism and citizenship ‐ namely, to map the contingency and agency underlying the changing practices of states, migrants, and transnational institutional networks vis‐à‐vis questions of transnational citizenship. This is best done by paying close attention to the actual social and political practices whereby human agents pursue historically specific political projects that extend the practices of citizenship across borders.     

The social order of transnational migration markets

The ‘infrastructural turn’ in labour migration studies has shifted attention away from the experiences of migrants to the role of public authorities and private actors in facilitating migrant mobilities. As part of a broader turn towards studying transnational mobilities rather than immigration and settlement, this research shows that the formalization of transnational labour migration has made mobility both freer and more difficult. In this article, I reinterpret mobility infrastructures from a market sociological perspective. Transnational labour migration, I argue, is more clearly conceptualized as the organized ‘making’ of cross‐border labour markets. Moreover, from a market sociological perspective the construction of cross‐border labour exchanges is at the same time a question of how the uncertainties inherent in market exchanges are coordinated by market actors. In its focus on how exchanges across borders are possible at all, a market sociological perspective makes note of the conflicting interests, power imbalances and uncertainties that must be handled for a social order of transnational migration markets to emerge. An important question concerns whether alternatives to the less regulated neo‐liberal market order that is evident in most migration corridors are possible and under what conditions. With reference to the challenges facing the regulation of cross‐border labour markets, in my conclusion, I map an agenda for future research.     

Comparing the Incomparable? Migrant Integration Policies and Perplexities of Comparison

This article examines the level of development of integration policies in the European Economic Area and the attempts to compare and standardize them. We discuss national integration models and policies based on the results of the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) and OECD/EU indicators of integration. Indicating the possible pitfalls of measuring and comparing integration policies, the results of researches into labour mobility and access to citizenship are examined. This comparative study shows that the indicators of immigrant integration are often at odds with the development level of integration policies, which results in their inadequate implementation in practice. Furthermore, EU countries face different challenges in the enactment of integration policies which spring from diverse (im)migration experiences, the scope of past migrations, and recent migratory flows. This is why integration policies should be re‐indexed, taking into consideration the particularities of (im)migration flows, the size of the immigrant population and other relevant factors.     

Transnational grandparenting: an introduction

This first special issue dedicated to grandparenting patterns and their significance within transnational families sheds new light on transnational grandparenting as a phenomenon reflecting the convergence of three major transformations in today's societies – global ageing, diversification of migration and mobility flows, and lifestyle individualization. It contains five articles based on empirical studies conducted in several European countries (Switzerland, Luxembourg, Spain, Romania, and the Czech Republic) focusing on transnational families from both EU and non‐EU countries (Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, Morocco, Algeria, Switzerland, Britain, Portugal, Romania, and Vietnam). These articles portray transnational grandparenting through the prism of three nexuses (mobile/non‐mobile, migrant/non‐migrant, and kin/non‐kin), thus allowing one to understand grandparents' roles in the transnational circulation of care in the light of contemporary family transformations on the one hand, and of the increased transnationalization of everyday ‘doing family’ practices on the other.     

Labour,Legality and shifts in the Public/Private divide

This article discusses the changing role that work performed in private homes has played, and continues to play, in migration law in the Netherlands and at the EU level. It explores to what degree work performed in the home is defined as (exploitative) contractual labour or as inherent to family life, and what this means for claims to residence rights as a precursor to citizenship. It does this by reviewing case law of the European Court of Justice (CJEU) and of the European Court of Human Rights (EctHR) against the background of the Dutch case. It reveals tension between how citizenship is constructed and reproduced at the national level and how it is constructed and reproduced at the EU level. Following Adam McKeown, this article concludes that different perspectives on (reproductive) labour as a qualification for citizenship may reflect different perspectives on (reproductive) labour and the quality of citizenship.

Policy Implications

• Third Country Nationals must be allowed to reside in the EU with their EU children, to ensure the latter's effective enjoyment of fundamental rights.
• Policies to combat trafficking of domestic workers must respect family life.
• Family migration policies must allow individual family members enough scope to resist exploitation within families.
• Policies concerning labour protection, social protection and migration should no longer take the breadwinner‐citizen as point of departure, but the current reality of flexible labour relations in which the distinctions between home and work, and between employment and self‐employment, are no longer sharply defined.

     

Coping with the unemployment crisis in Europe

Since the 1970s, Europe has been plagued by a chronic unemployment crisis, which has escalated with the current Great Recession. The author discusses a number of relevant elements in this regard, including the extent to which social dialogue and social pacts have been successful in reforming labour markets and pension systems, the effect of active labour market policies and the characteristics of “resilient” economies. She concludes with the need to rethink social dialogue, social safety nets, the granting of loans – especially to SMEs – and the coordination of macroeconomic policies to increase labour demand.     

Transnational status and cosmopolitanism: are dual citizens and foreign residents cosmopolitan vanguards?

Empirically growing transnationalism and normatively demanded cosmopolitanism may be closely connected when considered as different elements of new forms of citizenship beyond the single nation‐state. Do individuals with either full (dual citizenship) or partial (foreign resident) transnational status exhibit more cosmopolitanism than mono citizens? This article decodes the multidimensional character of cosmopolitanism using major democratic theories – liberalism, republicanism, and communitarianism. Multivariate regression analyses of data from a survey among mono citizens, dual citizens and foreign residents in Switzerland reveal that a transnational status is associated with cosmopolitanism in a differentiated way. Dual citizens and especially foreign residents are more likely than mono citizens to exhibit liberal cosmopolitanism; but only dual citizens having full political rights and opportunities in two countries are more likely to exhibit republican cosmopolitanism and only foreign residents excluded from the political community of residence are more likely to exhibit communitarian cosmopolitanism. Each of them can thus be considered as vanguards in specific ways. Our study furthermore demonstrates the added value of disaggregating both cosmopolitanism and transnationalism.     

European policy developments and their impact on social work†

ABSTRACT

Europe, in the throes of global trends, dissolves and yet re-establishes boundaries, both on its external perimeter and in terms of its internal social and political structures in a process reminiscent of the early period after the industrial revolutions. Once again it poses a fundamental question for social work: is the profession’s mandate limited to containing the effects of this process at the level of its individual victims or can it play a role in shaping European social policies which would deal with structural issues and further the cause of European integration? By examining the spaces created by the EU’s ambiguous initiatives on social issues – in areas like child welfare, poverty or migration – it will be shown that social ‘rescue’ attempts might only serve to legitimate exclusion and to further the decline of social solidarity within European states – and ultimately the disintegration of the European Union itself. The alternative lies in taking a wider political perspective and practising ‘relational citizenship’, giving people rights to belong and to participate.     

The Impact of International Trade on Migration by Skill Levels and Gender in Developing Countries

This study conducts an empirical investigation of the effect of skilled migration on income inequality in the origin countries. Developing countries are low-skilled labour abundant and high-skilled labour scarce. Emigration of high-skilled labour increases the relative supply of low-skilled labour in the country. Excess supply of low-skilled labour depresses the wage rate of these countries while the wage rate of the highly skilled increases leading, to the Gulf of inequality, at least in the short-run. Complementarity between high-skilled and low-skilled labour could be another channel. Consequently, skilled migration is usually seen as inducing losses for the low-skilled left behind. Using a panel of 110 developing countries from 1980-2010, the study finds robust results to different econometrics specifications and subsamples that high-skilled migration increases income inequality in the short-run while there appears to be no effect of low-skilled migration on inequality. A clearer understanding of the channels through which high-skilled migration will be detrimental for income inequality in developing countries may assist policymakers to craft appropriate policies to curtail high-skilled migration, which would serve to improve equality, hence reducing social and political unrest.     

The Migration of Professionals: Theories and Typologies

In an historical context, highly skilled migration typically involved the forced movement of professionals as a result of political conflicts, followed by the emergence of the "brain drain" in the 1960s.
In the current situation, highly skilled migration represents an increasingly large component of global migration streams. The current state of theory in relation to highly skilled migration is far from adequate in terms of explaining what is occurring at the high skill end of the migration spectrum.
Continuing growth of temporary skilled migration is heralding changes in the operation of professions. Formal procedures for recognizing the skills of permanent immigrant professionals are breaking down as "fast-track" processes for assessing the skills of temporary professional migrants are put in place. The increasing globalization of firms and the internationalization of higher education are encouraging professions to internationalize.
In this article, four professions are cited as case studies to show that professional inclusion/exclusion is no longer defined by national professional bodies alone. The operation of professions has become a transnational matter although the extent of internationalization varies with professions.
Typologies for analysing professional migration flows are discussed and a sixth means of categorization, by profession or industry, is introduced to allow for the nature of interactions between the market, the state and the profession/industry. The question whether states should continue to be concerned about self-sufficiency in national professional labour markets in an increasingly globalized environment is also addressed.     

Theorizing and Analyzing Citizenship in Multicultural Societies

I argue that sociologists have directed insufficient attention to the study of citizenship. When citizenship is studied, sociologists tend to concentrate on just one facet: rights. I elaborate four conceptual facets of citizenship. I link two—citizenship as rights and belonging—to theoretical elaborations of multiculturalism. Considering multiculturalism as a state discourse and set of policies, rather than a political or normative theory, I outline linkages between multiculturalism and two additional facets of citizenship: legal status and participation. Over the last 15 years, the idea of multiculturalism has come under withering criticism, especially in Europe, in part because it is claimed that multiculturalism undermines common citizenship. Yet countries with more multicultural policies and a stronger discourse of pluralism and recognition are places where immigrants are more likely to become citizens, more trusting of political institutions, and more attached to the national identity. There is also little evidence that multicultural policies fuel majority backlash, and some modest evidence that such policies enlarge conceptions of inclusive membership. By studying claims‐making and the equality of immigrant‐origin groups, we see that the participatory aspect of citizenship needs to take center stage in future work in political sociology, social theory, social movements, immigration, and race/ethnicity.     

Commentary: A Citizenship without Social Rights? EU Freedom of Movement and Changing Access to Welfare Rights

Despite not being grounded in the classic nation-building dynamic of citizenship identified by T.H.Marshall, EU citizenship offers social rights and welfare protection to non-nationals on a principle of non-discrimination. We narrate a creeping process of retrenchment by which European member states have used policy strategies to undermine this principle, by transforming the unique idea of free movement of persons in the EU to just another form of “immigration” which can be subject to selectivity and exclusion. As Europe’s multiple recent crises have unfolded, political resources were found to effect this transformation tangibly via reshaping access to welfare for EU citizens. Focusing on the cases of the UK and Germany, we discuss how, despite their distinctive welfare regimes and labour market systems, these two countries have led the way toward a dismantling of non-discrimination for EU citizens and effectively the end of the anomalous ‘post-national’ dimension of European citizenship.     

Regulating Transnational Flows of People: An Institutional Analysis of Passports and Visas as a Regime of Mobility

This article challenges the widely held "mobility thesis" by examining the current regime of mobility in regulating transnational flows of people-namely, passports and visas-from an institutionalist perspective. An institutional device linking individuals to the state, the passport is a manifestation of both citizenship and sovereignty. As such, the passport has to be situated in a broader international context in which "organized hypocrisy" (Krasner 1999) underlies the principle of sovereignty. Furthermore, through the "rite of institutions" (Bourdieu 1991), the passport provides foundations for identification, classification, and trust for individuals. The Taiwan passport provides vivid illustrations of how identification, classification, and trust have been breached by organized hypocrisy and how such a breaching has been experienced by individual citizens. However, it is also shown that some capable individuals, through the leverage of their economic power, are able to circumvent or even take tactical advantage of the current system. The political overtone of the Taiwan passport has exposed the nature of the regime of mobility that has often been depoliticized and undertheorized. Just as passports issued by different states are of different values, there has been an inequality of mobility structured by power asymmetries and economic inequalities in the world system. Such an inequality of mobility may have become enlarged under the impact of globalization but has gone mostly unnoticed. Individuals may try to increase their mobility through various economic means, but differentiated access to mobility may have further reproduced and enhanced unequal social, economic, and political relations.     

Comparing the Experiences of Highly Skilled Labor Migrants in Sweden and Japan: Barriers and Doors to Long-term Settlement

As labor markets become increasingly global, competition among industrialized nations to attract highly skilled workers from abroad has intensified. Spurred by concerns over future economic needs caused by the demographic challenges of an aging population, both Japan and Sweden have joined this global competition. This article examines Japanese and Swedish immigration policies for highly skilled migrants and compares the highly skilled migrants’ experiences in the two countries through interviews with these migrants. Despite Japan and Sweden's completely different approaches to immigration itself, both countries’ policies, as well as the experiences of the skilled migrants, are strikingly similar. Highly skilled migrants experience language barriers and prejudice in both countries, making it difficult to build social networks with natives. Career development seems to be perceived as a common problem, although less so in Sweden, where labor markets are more flexible. Overall, these issues reduce both Japan's and Sweden's ability to retain skilled migrants. While they share similarities, Sweden's famed work–life balance and gender equality give it an edge in the competition for skilled migrants, which Japan does not share. This comparison identifies which social conditions facilitate or impede skilled migrant settlement.     

European Mobilities or Poverty Migration? Discourses on Roma in Germany

This article discusses the discursive framing of displacement and legitimacy for Roma migrants living in Germany to explore distinctions between “economic” and “forced” migration. Despite efforts towards their inclusion at the EU level, there has been an escalation in anti‐Roma sentiment across Europe simultaneous with increased transnational mobility. Based on media analysis and ethnographic research spanning 2011 to 2013, the inconsistencies and ironies associated with distinctions between voluntary and forced migration – and the consequences of this distinction for experiences in a host country – are illustrated using three cases. These highlight the range of reactions to Roma as “poverty migrants” (with its a priori assumption about welfare needs) to “bogus” or illegitimate refugees, even when fleeing desperate circumstances. These framings, and the inconsistencies they inherently entail, highlight investment in European identity and citizenship as migrants are defined, categorized, and managed by states seeking to curtail population movements deemed problematic.     

The International Mobility of Highly Skilled Workers in Transnational Corporations: The Macro and Micro Factors of the Organizational Migration of Cadres1

The worldwide movement of highly skilled workers (cadres) in transnational corporations has long been known to literature in the field, yet has not been thoroughly researched. The mechanisms governing their international circulation are, in themselves, somewhat specific. The fact that they use an organizational “channel” for migration means that the constraints differ from those that act on “independent” economic migrants with either low or high levels of skill (the so‐called brain drain). This article focuses on some of the manifestations of this mobility. Its dependence on a set of variables can be considerable: the firm's development phase, investment target choice, leading activity (manufacturing or services), form of technology, type of firm (using greenfield or brownfield investment), whether a firm acquired is healthy or undergoing an economic crisis, and nationality or corporate culture. The occupational insertion of cadres leads to further constraints: while the strictly “technical” assignments generally stem from skill shortages, the general “management” appointments mainly result from questions arising from control and trust. As a whole, the flows of highly skilled workers seem to be related to multiple variables – either social, organizational or individual – which make it difficult to predict future trends.     

Introduction to the special theme: theorizing transnational labour markets

In this introduction to the special themed section, ‘Theorizing transnational labour markets: economic‐sociological approaches’, I introduce the reader to the topic and give an overview of the four contributions. The terms ‘global labour market’ and ‘transnational labour market’ are broadly used to account for contemporary social phenomena as diverse as the ever‐closer integration of China or India, with their huge labour forces, into the world economy, the off‐shoring of specific operations of MNCs to countries with cheap labour, or cross‐border labour migration. In most of these cases, the existence of global or transnational labour markets is taken for granted by the media, consulting agencies and other economic actors. However, scholars in labour market research and cross‐border migration alike have largely ignored the categories of global or transnational labour markets. Thus far, it remains unclear what these terms really mean and how we should address them theoretically. The aim of this themed section, therefore, is to view cross‐border labour migration through an economic‐sociological lens and thus bring into dialogue migration and labour market scholarship. By introducing a transnational perspective into labour market research, we hope to make a useful contribution towards theorizing on cross‐border labour markets and thereby overcome the methodological nationalism that seems to have crept into this area of scholarship.