migration and mobility in the european union

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This article was downloaded by: [Columbia University] On: 13 November 2014, At: 21:27 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjms20 Migration and Mobility in the European Union Regine Paul a a University of Bath Published online: 22 Feb 2013. To cite this article: Regine Paul (2013) Migration and Mobility in the European Union, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 39:6, 1037-1038, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2013.772789 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2013.772789 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions

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This article was downloaded by: [Columbia University]On: 13 November 2014, At: 21:27Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of Ethnic and Migration StudiesPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjms20

Migration and Mobility in the EuropeanUnionRegine Paul aa University of BathPublished online: 22 Feb 2013.

To cite this article: Regine Paul (2013) Migration and Mobility in the European Union, Journal ofEthnic and Migration Studies, 39:6, 1037-1038, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2013.772789

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2013.772789

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Reviews

Christina Boswell and Andrew Geddes, Migration

and Mobility in the European UnionBasingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, 272 pp.,

£25.99 pb. (ISBN 978-0-230-00748-2)

Migration and Mobility in the European Union

explores the dynamics of policies governing the

rights and statuses of migrants in Europe. This is

no easy job: policy complexities stem from 1) the

multilevel nature of the policy process between the

EU, member-states, regions and even municipa-

lities, 2) the highly diverse types of migration

involved and 3) high levels of contestation over the

aims and drivers of specific migration policies.

Boswell and Geddes promise nothing less than to

offer a ‘novel analytical framework’ which ‘cuts

through this complexity without being simplistic’.

This review assesses the success of this ambitious

endeavour across three aspects: robustness of the

authors’ analytical framework, its empirical in-

sights, and its sensitivity to critically exploring

policy implications.The analytical framework is developed in two

consecutive chapters. Chapter 2 sets out a rich

analytical context by providing plentiful statistical

and background information on different forms of

migration and policies in Europe, including,

usefully, the ‘core dilemmas’ faced in this policy

area. The authors then go on to engage critically

with the notions of policy failure and securitisa-

tion which dominate many migration policy

analyses. Both, they argue, tend to underestimate

the way in which the ‘often piecemeal, reactive,

inconsistent, and ambiguous nature of policy’

might serve particular purposes and ‘failure’ might

well be a rational outcome. Boswell and Geddes’

alternative approach acknowledges the complexity

of the policy process and aims to disentangle it

empirically. This enables them to show, for

example, that a ‘malintegration’ of tough policy

rhetoric on irregular migration and more lenient

implementation practices tolerating informal mi-

grant workers is not necessarily a policy failure,

but might constitute a deliberate strategy of

serving both the interests of a hostile electorate

and employers’ demand for cheap labour. Chapter

3 goes on to establish a role for the EU in

governing migration and mobility, taking stock

of recent changes in multilevel governance. Thus

a finer framework is created for understanding

that political authority is unevenly distributed

across policy narratives and ‘talk’, the political

mobilisation stage, actual decision-making, and

implementation.Chapters 4�9 apply this framework to explore

the specific dynamics for five different types of

migration*labour, family, irregular, asylum, and

EU-internal mobility*as well as policies targeted

at integrating aliens. Boswell and Geddes explore

the policy responses these have engendered and

how they play out across levels and phases of

policy-making. Here, too, the authors’ framework

enables them to expose the underlying rationalities

of policy contradictions rather than writing them

off as a ‘muddle’ or failure. For example, the

co-existence of a liberal regulation of EU-internal

mobility with domestic concerns over welfare

losses and job competition continues to produce

contradictory outcomes for EU free movers. This

example illustrates one of the authors’ key claims:

even in an area where supranational policy-

making dominates, we cannot write ‘member

states off the equation’.The broader picture painted in this book,

however, inevitably neglects the highly differential

relationships between the EU and different

member-states, regions, and even municipalities.

Other research has shown that the dynamics of

mobility and migration policy in a multilevel

setting vary considerably not just according to

migration type*the authors’ key independent

variable*but also to receiving and sending coun-

try, their specific historical (for example colonial)

relationships, the locality in which a foreign

resident is to be integrated, and the economic

sector in which s/he is employed.The authors further diagnose a ‘steady devel-

opment of EU mobility and migration structures’

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2013

Vol. 39, No. 6, 1037�1039, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2013.772789

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as a general tendency, explicable mainly through

the development of the Common Market and theperceived need to ‘compensate’ for internal secur-

ity measures by ‘rebundling authority at EU level’.

But are these explanations really common to allmember-states? The authors rightly indicate that

policies in Southern and Eastern Europe havebeen shaped much more strongly by the EU

framework than have those in older member-states. Regrettably, they do not pursue this thread

towards a more critical analysis of the geopolitics

and political economy of EU integration.Also missing from the discussion is an ac-

knowledgement of the far-reaching, and uneven,implications for migrants themselves of the multi-

tiered distribution of policy-making in Europe.

Why does it matter that EU policies apparentlyneatly distinguish between types of migrants? Why

should we care whether the EU and member-stateshave more or less to say in the policy process?

Contextualising the authors’ astute findings withinreflections on the state of migrants’ rights, social

justice and democracy in Europe could have

demonstrated much more effectively why, indeed,we should care and continue to analyse policy

developments vigilantly.These modest criticisms aside, Migration and

mobility in the European Union will strongly

influence scholars of migration and Europeanintegration alike. Its timely assemblage of extre-

mely rich empirical material in a robust andappropriately nuanced analytical framework will

enable readers, including post-graduate students,to start making sense of a highly complex terrain

of policy-making.

Regine Paul

University of BathEmail: [email protected]

# 2013, Regine Paul

Aleksandra Maatsch, Ethnic Citizenship Regimes:

Europeanization, Post-War Migration andRedressing Past Wrongs. Basingstoke: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2011, 224 pp., £58.00 hb. (ISBN 978-

0-230-28424-1)

After many decades in which national citizenshipwas conceived as an exclusive feature of states and

nations, limited by territorial boundaries, therecent increase of migration flows as well as EU

transnational developments are shifting the focus.

Along the road, two main challenges have becomevisible: the emergence of a European citizenship

and the sensitivity of national citizenship regula-

tions to migration. Aleksandra Maatsch compre-

hensively approaches the latter topic in her book

Ethnic Citizenship Regimes: Europeanization, Post-

War Migration and Redressing Past Wrongs. Her

analysis seeks to understand how and why the

legislation of both receiving (Germany) and send-

ing (Hungary and Poland) states changed over two

decades (1985�2007). The book accurately maps

the legislative changes in each country and pro-

vides empirical evidence revealing that divergent

national citizenship legislation is shaped not by

concepts of nationhood but by the desire of the

states to redress past wrongs, their postwar

migration experience, and horizontal (rather than

vertical) Europeanisation.Unlike most citizenship studies using the

exclusive lenses of legal provisions, Maatsch’s

analytical endeavour is complex in its attempt to

explain the paths followed by legislation on

national citizenship. Building extensively on

institutionalist theories, this book combines docu-

ment analysis with qualitative and quantitative

analysis of the discourse of parliamentary debates

in each country. One merit of the study is the

emphasis placed on the legislation-making pro-

cess; the author acknowledges and analyses legis-

lators’ discursive rhetoric, which is ignored by

most studies on citizenship but likely to shape

final legal provisions. Consequently, the explana-

tions here are deeper, and more persuasively and

thoroughly argued. Such analysis is particularly

relevant when the book addresses themes related

to citizenship*migration, historical legacies and

Europeanisation*in countries characterised by

geographical (East vs West), political and cultural

differences. The book makes a relevant contribu-

tion to the current debate regarding the liberal

convergence of national citizenship legislation

within the EU. The citizenship legislation of

post-Communist countries complies with Western

European standards, but this trend is not triggered

by liberal convergence. Instead, a mixture of

domestic and exogenous factors (i.e. horizontal

norm diffusion) best explains legislative change.Two details overlooked by the author raise

methodological questions and have further em-

pirical consequences. Firstly, the author’s

structured and straightforward analysis of parlia-

mentary debates in Germany, Hungary and Poland

could have greatly benefited from a more com-

prehensive theoretical account of the legislatures

as institutions. While the legislative and represen-

tative functions of parliaments are explicitly

emphasised, their transformative roles are

neglected. Accordingly, only one side of the coin

is presented: that parliaments are arenas offering

1038 Reviews

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