Political Dynamics of International Migration: A Neglected Dimension

• In Event: 4151 - International Migration Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 min): Table 13: Comparative Migration Studies

Abstract

Scholars argue that migration needs to be studied as part of broader social transformations reminding us that mechanisms underlying international human mobility are complex. Although the importance of the political dimension of international migration as a multilayered social phenomenon is widely acknowledged on a theoretical level, there are very few studies that explore it empirically. Part of the problem, I argue, is that the conceptualization of politics is too narrow and too formalistic. To overcome this limitation, I explore the manifest and latent aspects of political processes as they pertain to international migration processes. While manifest aspects represent formal notions such as political rights, civil liberties, rule of law, and human rights; latent aspects represent the indirect consequences of political transformations on lifestyle choices, mental health, public education systems, patronage-driven recruitment processes, and economic turbulences linked to illiberal political practices. I pay particular attention to the shift from democracy toward authoritarianism, i.e. discrimination on the basis of political identities and attendant threats of political persecution as forms of political repression. Furthermore, my reconceptualization of politics challenges the artificial division between forced and voluntary migration and related narrow conceptualizations of political violence. I also incorporate a political economy perspective to demonstrate that economic causes of migration may not necessarily be purely economic, but instead are often intertwined with political processes. During the last decade, several countries have openly displayed authoritarian trends, while formally adhering to (some) democratic principles. They are perfect laborites to explore the political dimensions of international migration. In this context, I use the Turkish case, an illiberal democracy with increasing political repression, to understand how structural political transformations permeate individual lives in a way that informs migration flows.
Keywords: Migration, political migration, authoritarianism, political transformation

Author

• Duygu Alpan, Stony Brook University