Global Migration: Governance and Gaps

Introduction

Migration is one of the most visible manifestations of an increasingly globalised world. As people move for work and other reasons from one part of the world to the other, the phenomenon of migration creates social, economic, and legal implications that are responded to through political development of migration governance, which relates to framing law and policy on movement of people. Moreover, there are complex ways and reasons for which movement of people may happen in a transnational context, which may vary from human trafficking to legal migration, migration for work, or migration to escape persecution. Responses to these complexities are made globally through institutional cooperation; these responses may vary with respect to what form or method of migration is being addressed. For instance, for refugees, global institutional cooperation is created through the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Refugee Protocol. With respect to human trafficking as well, there are global or regional responses like the European Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings 2005 or the UN General Assembly adopted Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (Palermo Protocol). However, there is restricted institutional cooperation or global measures to other migrants, which may come within the domain of what can be termed as a top down and multilateral global migration governance. Therefore, there is a gap in governance with respect to migrants. Migrant networks play an important role in global migration and development because these networks act as small-scale forms of migration governance which fill the gaps that exist in the global migration governance system, which is fragmented.

It is appropriate to mention that the migrant network theory comes in the wake of other theories that have sought to explain migration. Proponents of this theory include Boyd, 1989; Fawcett, 1989; Wilpert and Gitmez, 1987; Tilly, 1978; and Light, 1972. Particularly significant in the earlier theories were the ‘push- pull’ theory or approach, which sought to explain migration as a process that was influenced by the rational individual and his decision to move from one country to the other based on the push from his home country and the pull from the destination country. However, the criticism against this theory was that it failed to explain why more people do not move in pursuit of higher wages or better welfare systems. The political economy model focussed on the political element for why people move from one country to the other, but which focussed on migration from a unidimensional north-south perspective, explaining why people from the agrarian south move to the industrialised north. However, this also failed to explain why majority of the migrants move within the south itself. The migrant network theory, which developed much later, explains the role of migrant networks in influencing migration through the relations between migrants and their friends or relatives at home. In this context, the migrant networks are like information networks building on social capital. The migrant network theory places the network, the family, and the household at the centre of the discussion on how and why people move from one country to the other.

The question arises whether migration networks are able to explain global governance and development related to migration. This essay argues that in the affirmative. The fragmented nature of the migrant networks is the understandable consequence of the phenomenon of migration which sees people move away from their homes or countries to other places. Against this background of fragmentation, migration networks play the crucial part of developing a nexus between the migrants and development through the migration governance structures. The migration governance structures help to develop migrants individually and also play a role in the development of home and destination countries. Therefore, migrant networks are crucially and critically interlinked to the individual and societal development through the migration governance structures, wherein the development of the individual migrants are a specific concern because it further strengthens the network, while the development of home and destination countries happens because migrants support future migrants as well as members of the community in the home country (the latter through remittances). At the same time, the destination country benefits from migrant development because of the provision of labour.

Migrant networks and global migration governance: meaning and significance of concepts

Migrant networks can be conceptualised as transnational network structures that are spread out in different parts of the world. It is a somewhat complex phenomenon to define because there are different actors in migrant networks. One author explains migrant network as those that “include those from the labor sending hometowns who are emphasized in migrant network studies, as well as a variety of other actors based in the militarized border zone and the labor-receiving regions.” This definition does more to include the actors involved in international migrant networks and less to explain what such networks really are; the significance of this is however that it identifies even those people who are not migrants, like prospective employers are part of migrant networks. Massey et al provide a definition of migrant networks, which they have described as connections that “constitute a form of social capital that people can draw upon to gain access to foreign employment.” This is more to the purpose as this definition explains that migrant networks are a form of social capital that help migrants to gain employment in foreign countries. It is relevant to use the term social capital to describe migrant networks because it does two things: first, it explains the actors that may be involved in the networks to go much beyond migrants and also include all other actors that are involved in the exchanges with migrants; second, it links to the critical factor of networks that are essential to those who are “living close to the economic margin and/or lacking access to the services often provided by formal institution.” At this time, there are no multilateral and global institutions that cover migration governance. Global governance in this context can be defined as “the norms, rules, principles, and decision making procedures that regulate the behaviour of states and other transnational actors.” In other words, global migration governance would relate to transnational measures and steps that are normative and lead to the establishment of globally acknowledged rules and principles related to migration governance. At this point, there are no such global structures on migration governance because global governance is constraining and constitutive of the actions and behaviour of states and transnational actors. However, states are creating multi-level governance institutions that are ad hoc in nature. This has led to the rise of a complex combination of national, regional, and bilateral institutions that states are initiating in partnership with other states to respond to the issue of global migration governance. There is also the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD), which was initiated after UN level talks. There are still two issues with respect to the conceptualisation of the global migration governance that are as yet not resolved: the first issue is analytical in nature, where the question is related to describing what global migration governance is; the second issue is normative and it relates to what a global migration governance framework would look like. At this point, it may be noted that there are a host of national, regional and bilateral measures that are a part of the fragmented global governance structures on migration; there are also a range of formal and informal institutions that involve states and actors. These institutions respond to a host of migration related issues, such as, skilled labour migration.

Given the gaps in the area of global migration governance from an institutional standpoint, the relevant question than arises is whether migrant networks play a role in global migration governance, and if so, what is the role played by them. This is discussed at length in the following section of the essay.

Migrant issues central to migrant governance: culture and development

Migrants who travel to new countries often seek out those who are also from similar national, religious or linguistic background. This may lead to the formation of migration networks that are based on ethnicity and contrary to some arguments, cultural assimilation has not led to the diminishing of the ethnic networks. A case study related to this can be found in the growth of the ‘ethnoburbs’ in the United States with Chinese immigrants. Chinatowns, which were initially a part of the American central cities are also now found in American suburbs; these new Chinatowns in the suburbs are not only competing with the older downtown Chinatowns but are also challenging assumptions related to spatial and cultural assimilation of immigrants. It was assumed in literature related to immigrant culture that with time and due to the geographic and socioeconomic mobility of immigrants from the inner city into the suburbs, there would be greater cultural assimilation that would lead to the decline of immigrant ethnicity. As the emergence and growth of the suburban Chinatowns in America indicate, this has not happened and ethnic networks continue to be created as a part of the migrant networks. Lin and Robinson conducted their research in the Chinese ethnoburb of the San Gabriel Valley region of Greater Los Angeles, wherein they found that the ethnoburb demonstrated the continued use of Chinese language amongst the members of the community and other ethnic indicators that showed that instead of cultural assimilation leading to the decline of the ethnicity, the ethnic connections continued to be strong and flourish. Cultural assimilation remains one of the important issues in migrant governance discourse. This is because there is a well-documented concern of host countries regarding the protection of their own culture which is threatened by the immigrant culture. For instance in the United States, legal measures were taken to limit immigrants from China since the 18th century and to ensure that the Chinese culture stayed away from the mainstream culture; the Hart–Cellar Immigration Liberalisation Act 1965 sought to restrict immigration, Chinese immigrants were not allowed to become naturalised citizenships under the provisions of the Naturalisation Law o 1790, the Chinese Exclusion Act 1882 was used to restrict new arrivals in Chinatowns and stopped the development of fuller family-centred enclaves. All these steps were taken to restrict Chinese immigration and stop family centred enclaves from developing as these were considered to be a threat to American culture.

The issue of assimilation of immigrants is not unique to America as almost all western nations that have high immigration rates have used law and governance frameworks to address the issue of migrant assimilation. For instance, the development of the discourse on law and policy related to immigration in the UK has commonly seen the use of the themes such as diversity, race, civil liberties, language, diversity, bipartisan policy and assimilation of the immigrants. Assimilation of immigrants into the host country’s local culture is an important point in the discourse and does have an impact on the global migrant governance; it also has implications for migrant networks. In the European Union itself, the right to family and private life protected under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, has been interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights to include “the totality of social ties between migrants and the community in which they live.” This has clear indication to social networks and social ties of the immigrants in the host countries. Social ties may include both family ties as well as ties to the wider social network that migrants can draw on for support including relatives, friends, employers, and individuals from the same national background. However, the recent changes made in the UK law on immigration would restrict family immigration to a great extent. In 2012, the UK Parliament has introduced strict measures based on the premise that family settlement law “has often been dominated by an overriding concern with preventing abuse of the system and the entry of undesirable migrants or of those who might become a burden on welfare state”. The possibility of immigrants being a burden on the welfare state has led to the introduction of a minimum income threshold of £18,600 per annum if an individual is to be allowed entry into the UK. The question with respect to this issue is how migrant networks may play a role in the shaping of global migrant governance structures with relation to immigrants and culture and family.

In the context of development through migration networks, the use of remittance is one of the most relevant methods by which migrants help develop their home economy as well as improve the lives of their family or community in the home country. Therefore, remittances by migrants play important role in developing home countries. Remittance has an exchange motive, which sees the migrant sending money to members of community or family back home; these remittances may be aimed at paying for services rendered by members back home like taking care of housing properties or repayment of loans borrowed for immigration purposes. However, remittances do not stop at repayment of loans or payment for services rendered, as migrants send remittances in three waves usually: once the migrants had sent remittances for the purpose of payment of loans (first wave), they then sent money back home to younger relatives to finance their education until they are themselves ready to migrate (second wave) and then they also invest accumulated capital in the home country (third wave). Remittances are related to the foreign exchange or can be said to be one kind of foreign exchange. As part of foreign exchange, remittances can be useful in influencing economic development and growth of the home economy. Foreign exchange in general is considered to be a significant factor in development of a national economy but, at times there can be inadequacies in foreign exchange because of the complex factors like limited foreign aid, low borrowings in foreign exchange, and balance of trade as between countries. Given such conditions, remittances can sometimes act as substitute for shortcomings in other forms of foreign exchange. For this reason, modern migration economics conceptualises migration “as an exchange of abundant unskilled labour for scarce foreign exchange in the form of remittances, which may contribute to development and growth in their double capacity as foreign funds for the purchase of capital goods and as domestic income that raises savings”. In other words, seen from the perspective of foreign exchange and development economics, migration can be considered to be an exchange of labour for foreign exchange and in the context of migrants from poorer countries, migration can be considered to be a form of exchange of unskilled labour and foreign exchange that can make considerable difference to the economy of the home country. There are other advantages or benefits to the home country’s development that comes with increased remittances, some of which are social in nature. This is explained as follows:

“Structural transformation induced by remittances has both economic and social implications related to poverty, income distribution, and economic welfare that, in turn, affect consumption patterns and savings with further implications on development through changes in investment and trade. As one of the social implications, which may have further repercussions on development, remittances enable young migrants to set up households earlier, increase the independence of women in and out of the household, and, by reducing fertility, have an impact on demographic changes.”

Thus, remittances from abroad from migrants can impact the development of the home country and induce social changes in those living in the home countries in significant ways. One of the ways as mentioned above is the increased motivations for young people to do well, set up households earlier, and also increased mobility and independence of women. If case studies are used to explain this point, then empirical evidence from Mediterranean countries like Greece, indicates that there are specific advantages (economic and social) from the remittances that come from abroad. The evidence from the Mediterranean indicates that not all countries are able to maximise the benefits of the remittances in the economic sense in the same way. This is because there are no policies on how these remittances are channelised. Even if empirical data indicates that there are differences between the countries within the Mediterranean countries as to how far the remittances really benefit individual countries or societies, what this points at is the need for there to be some appropriate policies for channelling the remittances to productive use.

Remittances are not only economic or monetary in nature, and migrant communities also have social remittances that are derived from cultural diffusion, which is one of the consequences of migration. Social remittances are defined as the “ideas, behaviors, identities, and social capital that flow from receiving- to sending-country communities.” These suggest the development of social currency or capital as opposed to monetary and are manifested in the innovation of new ideas and behaviours that are resultant of cultural diffusion in migrant communities. The concept of social remittances can be related back to the discussion on immigration and culture and the growth of ethnoburbs. Research indicates that social resources developed by migrant communities are useful in promoting immigrant entrepreneurship, formation of community and family, and political integration. These ideas and behaviours are not necessarily contained in the host country but may be transmitted back to the home country through the migrant networks. When this transmission takes place, ideas and practices developed through cultural diffusion in the host countries are sent or remitted back to the home countries as well as received in a specific context in the home countries. Against this background, it may be understood that the impact of cultural diffusion through migrant networks can be felt in host countries as well as home countries. The premise for understanding the scope of migrant network’s role in governance can be related to the formation of ‘transnational migration circuits’. These are the networks that are developed when migrants remain connected to their home countries as well as develop connections in their host countries. Research indicates that people from specific ethnicities form networks that also play a role in influencing further migration and economic actions like employment. Migrant networks not only form social ties but are also involved in formation of organisational, composite, and interpersonal ties linking local labour markets transnationally where migrants from specific countries may get involved in certain labour occupations, influence further migration from their home countries and through their networks generate employment in the same occupations for the new migrants.

Role of migrant networks in global migration governance and development

The discussion in the preceding section identified two core issues related to migrant networks, these being cultural assimilation or persistence as seen in the case study involving Chinatowns or ethnoburbs in the United States, and the use of remittances. This section of the essay discusses the global migration governance and development in the context of migrant networks. Global governance on migrants has been slow till the 1990s after which it picked up steam in the international discourse on migrants. Throughout the 1990s, there was little attention given to international migration other than refugee flows and although a treaty on the rights of migrant workers was passed by the General Assembly in 1990, it failed to take effect as even the 20 ratifications that it needed were not achieved. Even the International Labour Organisation had not adopted any significant measures with respect to the rights of migrant workers. The only significant international institution for migrant governance was the International Organization for Migration. After 1999, migration has become a major issue and has come to garner more attention. There have been some steps taken by the United Nations as well as measures taken outside the United Nations; however, for the greater part global governance on migration remains fragmented, in some part because states are unwilling to agree to a top down supra national approach to migration governance.

Migrant networks are able to fill some of the gaps that are commonly found in the global migration governance system. Those who form part of the migration networks have certain common migration governance objectives; these are the areas that migrants as well as those who engage with them, have an interest in. These common objectives include the need to create responses to issues created by criminal networks, reduce tensions between migrants and host communities, and improve norms related to safety and dignity of migrants. Migrants as well as other actors who engage with them, including states, are interested in responding to these issues related to migration governance. Indeed, migrants have also formed global alliances like the International Migrants’ Alliance (IMA) and the Global Coalition on Migration (GCM). These alliances now have an agenda and a global voice, which would make it difficult and undesirable for states to develop global migration governance structures without taking into consideration the migrants’ issues raised by these alliances. The IMA is an alliance that organises the critics of the current global migration governance. This alliance has views about what is wrong with the way the states have responded to migration governance. On the other hand, the GCM is an alliance that combines multi-stakeholder and ‘inside-outside’ strategy; it brings together regional networks from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, as well as international trade unions and other organisations. GCM has put forth demands that relate to the regulation of the migrant labour recruitment industry and development of international mechanisms for protection of migrants’ rights. It has been argued that a development of a multi-layered perspective on global migration governance would require inclusion of such demands and issues related to migrant governance that are raised by migrant alliances. Two of the concerns that are noted in the discussion preceding this section are related to the cultural persistence of migrants as depicted in the case of American ethnoburbs, and the other is related to the role of the migrants in developing their home countries through remittances as indicated by the case study on Mediterranean countries. These concerns are at the forefront because of the role played by the migrants themselves as well as because of the significance of these issues to the development of the wider immigrant governance discourse.

Migrant networks may play a role in foreign direct investment as reported by one research study that studied the correlation between American FDI and migrants from the countries in which investment was being made. The research found that the existence of ethnic networks may positively affect FDI because ethnic networks promote information flows from one country to the other; in the United States, evidence of FDI indicates that there is a link between the presence of migrants from specific home countries and the FDI by America in those countries. An important connection made by the research is explained as that of information deficit about the other country’s markets, cultures, and consumer preferences, which can be blamed at a lack of communication, which is what migrant networks of people from the same ethnicities can help with. As noted by the authors of the study:

“Their [migrants] language skills and familiarity with a foreign country can significantly lower communication costs. They possess valuable information about the market structure, consumer preferences, business ethics and commercial codes in both economies. They decrease the costs of negotiating and enforcing a contract through their social links, networking skills and knowledge of the local legal regime.”

What the above indicates is that migrants help in development not only through the remittances that they send from abroad to their home country but also through the use of the cultural capital that they possess by helping in getting their home country more FDI from their host country. Migrant networks may also have a link to the improvement of governance at home countries as they move to countries with better governance and through networks of family and friends as well as new migrants from home countries, information about better governance models reaches people back home. This can push governments of home countries to adopt better governance models as one of the diaspora effects of migration networks. This can be related back to the concept of social remittances discussed earlier where cultural diffusion can lead to development of new ideas or behaviour patterns that can be transmitted back to the home country through social remittances. This has been explained well by Batista and Vicente who note that migrants do create strong diaspora effects that influence political change in both home as well as host countries. This finding was based on the case study of Cape Verde in West Africa, where overall positive impact was linked to migration as returnees and diaspora led to more demand for improved political accountability.

Conclusion

Migrant networks are significant in the context of global governance for three reasons. First, migrant networks are also generally concerned about the same issues like criminal activities related to migration, and rights of migrants, that are now increasingly significant to countries as well as international organisations. This means that as far as governance issues are concerned, same issues remain significant. Second, migrant networks are strong social networks that include migrants as well as everyone else that is engaged with them, including employers. This may mean that migrant networks may be able to identify issues that are particularly significant to the migrant social and economic experience from different perspectives. This may help inform governance structures at the national, regional and global level. Third, migrant networks are significant role players in culture and development. While cultural assimilation remains a concern for countries, some evidence does suggest that cultural persistence may be strong in larger migrant networks, such as the case of ethnoburb Chinatowns in suburban America. This indicates that language and cultural dimensions remain strong within the migrant community and this can be an advantage to both the host as well as the home state because it can reduce lack of communication and increase trade ties. Evidence does point to the increase in FDI from host country to home country of immigrants because of improved understanding about the migrants’ country of origin markets, culture and consumer behaviour. Secondly, migrants add to the society and economy of the home country through remittances, both monetary and social. This has implications for improved governance. As migrant social networks remain strong due to cultural persistence, there may also be an impact on the way migrants continue to connect with their home country and bring it culturally closer to the host country as seen in the case of Chinatowns in America.

Bibliography

Betts A, ‘Introduction: Global migration governance’ in Alexander Betts (ed.), Global migration governance (Oxford University Press 2011).

Clayton G, Textbook on Immigration and Asylum Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2016).

Rouse R, ‘Making Sense of Settlement: Class Transformation, Cultural Struggle, and Transnationalism among Mexican Migrants in the U.S’ in N. Glick-Schiller, L. Basch, and C. Blanc-Stanton (eds.), Toward a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity and Nationalism Reconsidered (New York: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1992).

Tilly C, ‘Migration in Modern European History’ in William H. McNeill and Ruth S. Adams (eds.), Human Migration (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1978).

Batista C and Vicente PC, ‘Do migrants improve governance at home? Evidence from a voting experiment’ (2011) 25 (1) The World Bank Economic Review 77.

Boyd M, ‘Family and Personal Networks in International Migration: Recent Developments and New Agendas’ (1989) 23 International Migration Review 638.

Fawcett JT, ‘Networks, Linkages, and Migration Systems’ (1989) 23 International Migration Review 671.

Glytsos NP, ‘The Role of Migrant Remittances in Development: Evidence from Mediterranean Countries’ 2002 40 (1) International Migration 5.

Javorcik BS, Çağlar Özden, Mariana Spatareanu, and Cristina Neagu, ‘Migrant networks and foreign direct investment’ (2011) 94 (2) Journal of development economics 231.

Krissman F, ‘Sin coyote ni patron: why the “migrant network” fails to explain international migration’ (2005) 39 (1) International migration review 4.

Newland K, ‘Governance of International Migration: Mechanisms, Processes, and Institutions’ (2010) 16 Global Governance 331.

Poros MV, ‘The role of migrant networks in linking local labour markets: the case of Asian Indian migration to New York and London’ (2001) 1 (3) Global networks 243.

Rother S, ‘Global migration governance without migrants? The nation-state bias in the emerging policies and literature on global migration governance’ (2013) Migration Studies 363.

Taylor RS, ‘The role of migrant networks in global migration governance and development’ (2016) 5(3) Migration and Development 351.

Wilpert C and Gitmez A, ‘Revue Euroneennes des Migrations Internationales’ (1987) 3, 175.