On International Migration and International Relations

Author(s): Myron Weiner

Source: Population and Development Review, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Sep., 1985), pp. 441-455
Published by: Population Council
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 On International
Migration and
International
Relations
Myron Weiner

The movement of populations across international borders

in recent years, especially from developing to developed countries and between
developing countries, is having a significant impact on international relations.
Almost daily there are reports in the press of conflicts between states involving
population movements: a Vietnamese offensive in Kampuchea results in a new
movement of refugees to the Thai border; Israelis, secretly working with the
Sudanese and others, transport Ethiopian Jews to Israel, soon followed by an
Ethiopian protest that their citizens have been abducted; Tamils from northern
Sri Lanka flee to India and Tamil secessionists call upon India to invade Sri
Lanka, likening their situation to that of Bangladesh in 1971; and relations
between Nigeria and Ghana are strained when the Nigerian government an-
nounces that 700,000 migrant workers must immediately leave. These items
are culled from recent newspaper reports, but one could easily add to this list
from reports of the past few years. It is clear that we are dealing with a growing
phenomenon, one that scholars have yet to incorporate into their understanding
of either international migration or international relations. Theories of inter-
national migration pay remarkably little attention to state interventions, while
the literature on international relations says relatively little about population
movements, except insofar as the refugee phenomenon is described as an
outcome of conflicts. How do state actions shape population movements, when
do such movements lead to conflicts and when to cooperation, and what do
governments do in their domestic policies to adjust to or influence population
flows are questions that have received far too little attention.
To initiate an analysis of these questions, I should like to suggest three
simple propositions, then amplify each of them.
The first proposition is that relations between states are often influenced
by the actions or inactions of states vis-'a-vis international migration. The effects

POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW I1, NO. 3 (SEPTEMBER 1985) 441

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442 On International Migration

are frequently a rise in conflict, but under some conditions the results may be
a growing pattern of consultation and cooperation between governments.
The second proposition is that states affect international migration by
the rules they create regarding exit and entry. A corollary of this proposition
is that these rules are affected by relations between states, for in determining
what policies they should pursue with regard to international population move-
ments countries take into account the actions of others.
The third proposition is that international migrants have often become
a political force in the country in which they reside. How they relate to the
politics of that country, and their political relationship to their country of origin
have become relevant factors in the policies both countries adopt affecting
international migration as well as in influencing relations between the sending
and receiving countries.
I shall initially deal with these issues by considering the concept of
sovereignty as it relates to neoclassical economic ideas. I do so for two simple
reasons. One is that the notion of sovereignty is central to understanding the
role of states in influencing international migration. The second is its opposite,
that sovereignty in matters of international migration, as in so many other
areas of state policies, has been eroding and we need to understand how and
why if we are to comprehend the relationship between international migration
and international relations.

Sovereignty and neoclassical

economic liberalism

However difficult it may be to define what constitutes a sovereign state, on

one point there is universal agreement: states claim the exclusive authority to
decide who shall enter and who shall be permitted to become a citizen. A
colony whose imperial rulers decide who can enter is not sovereign. The authors
of the American Declaration of Independence included as one of their charges
against the British Crown that it was "obstructing the Laws for Naturalization
of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and
raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. " Similarly, the Chinese
understood that they had lost sovereignty when European powers acquired
extraterritorial rights in port cities, permitting Europeans to control entry,
among other things. European control over Africa went a step further. The
imperial powers not only decided who could enter and whether there could be
permanent settlers, but also could import indentured labor and even forcibly
export manpower as slaves.
While neoclassical economic liberals advocate free trade and the free
flow of capital as providing for efficient resource allocation of benefit to all,
I know of no liberals advocating the free movement of peoples. Clearly the
reason is not that the free movement of peoples, like the movement of other
factors of production, would not result in a more efficient use of resources. A
world in which labor could freely move to wherever the demand was greatest,

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 Myron Weiner 443

in which supply and demand of labor could be matched without regard to

international boundaries, might very well be an economically more efficient
world. But it would no longer be a world of sovereign states.
Thus, even the most ardent neoclassical economists recognize that with
respect to the movement of people there are other considerations than the
efficient use of resources. In the absence of state controls over immigration,
one country could peacefully invade another through colonization. If 35 million
hardworking Chinese were allowed to settle in Burma, the Burmese economy
might very well prosper, and the Burmese themselves might be economically
better off. But for the Burmese their country would no longer be Burma. The
Burmese would no longer be able to control the central cultural symbols of
their national life; and, of course, the Burmese would have lost political control
over their own state.
A concern by government policymakers and by their citizens for the
preservation of a particular national identity (or identities) and widely shared
values, and a concern for maintaining control over political institutions preclude
a policy of open entry. Countries often do offer open entry to those with whom
their population shares a close ethnic affinity. Thus, the People's Republic of
China was the primary haven for Vietnamese refugees of Chinese extraction;
India has readily accepted Hindus from Pakistan and Bangladesh; Israel admits
Jews from anywhere in the world under its Law of Return; France opened its
doors to the pieds-noirs from Algeria, including those who had never lived in
France; members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (consisting of the Arab
states on the western shore of the Persian Gulf) permit their citizens to move
freely trom one state to another; and in the 1920s Greece opened its doors to
all ethnic Greeks seeking to relocate from Turkey.
Countries have also selectively permitted entry by members from another
people with whom they have had historic ties or in cases in which a sense of
obligation or guilt exists. Hence, the United States admitted refugees from
Vietnam, the Dutch admitted people from Timor, the United Kingdom admitted
Indians from East Africa and, for a while, citizens of other Commonwealth
nations.
The decision of the European Economic Community to permit citizens
of member nations to move freely about represented a historic step toward the
elimination of full member state sovereignty; it also represented a major step
toward the redefinition and an enlargement of national identities to encompass
a European nationality.
The United States is among a small number of countries in which national
origins and ethnicity have been superseded by educational and occupational
considerations as determinants of entry. It is true, of course, that the countries
of Western Europe and of the Persian Gulf have made entry by foreigners into
the labor force easier, but unlike the United States they sharply distinguish
between the rules of entry for employment and the rules for becoming a citizen. 1
What these comments suggest is that entry rules are only marginally
shaped by economic considerations even for those countries that are relatively

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1 1}1 On International Migration

open to the flow of trade, capital, and technology. How a people define their
national identity and their receptivity to other peoples with different identities
shape the entry rules set by governments and condition the way governments
respond to changes in the demand for labor.

Rules of entry

States differ markedly on their rules of entry. In broad terms we can suggest
five types of rules.
(1) Unrestricted entry rules. Although no country freely permits entry
to everyone, some countries grant virtually unrestricted entry to citizens of
neighboring countries. A transborder ethnic group, for example, may be al-
lowed to move freely back and forth across the borders, as has historically
been the case for Pashtun-speaking tribals traversing the Afghanistan-Pakistan
borders. Similarly, West Germany freely admits anyone from East Germany,
and members of the European Common Market allow their citizens to move
freely from one member country to another.
(2) Promotional entry rules. Countries may actively promote entry in
an effort to increase their population (e.g., countries of the Western Hemi-
sphere, Australia, and New Zealand in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries) or to fill a temporary demand for labor. In the 1950s and 1960s
Western European countries actively sought migrant labor from Turkey,
Greece, North Africa, and Iberia. And in the 1970s and early 1980s the oil-
producing Persian Gulf states actively recruited labor from other Arab states
and from Asia. Israel, in fulfillment of its nationalist ideology to create a
homeland for Jews, promotes immigration of Jews irrespective of their country
of origin.
(3) Selective entry rules. Many governments selectively admit but do
not actively promote the entrance of migrants. They may permit family uni-
fication, selectively allow some to enter the labor force, or admit refugees,
although there may be limitations as to their characteristics and numbers.
(4) Unwanted entry rules. Some governments that legally restrict or
prohibit entry are unable or unwilling to prevent illegal entry. The result is an
illegal migrant population often unprotected or even harassed by legal
authorities.
(5) Prohibition entry rules. While all countries restrict immigration, a
few (Japan, for example) effectively ban virtually all long-term entries and
make it almost impossible for foreigners to become citizens.

Rules of exit

We can specify five sets of exit rules as well.

(1) Prohibition exit rules. While all sovereign states have rules of entry,
and all states recognize the right of other states to have such rules, governments
have quite dissimilar views on the relevance of the concept of sovereignty to
the rules of exit. Democratic states subscribe to the notion that citizenship

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 Myron Weiner 445

implies the right to leave. But totalitarian states do not grant their citizens this
right, since the mechanisms of political control that characterize totalitarian
states would be eroded were such a right granted. For this reason the Helsinki
Declaration and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights concerning
the rights of citizens to leave their country are de facto violated by totalitarian
regimes.
Communist states ordinarily prohibit citizens from leaving to seek em-
ployment abroad or to change their citizenship. From time to time, however,
they have relaxed the prohibition to selectively permit citizens to leave, most
recently when the East German government permitted some of its citizens to
migrate to West Germany, and earlier when the Soviet Union selectively
permitted Jews to leave for Israel.
(2) Selective exit rules. Governments may selectively allow citizens with
some characteristics to leave, but not others. They may restrict the emigration
of individuals possessing certain skills: at one time Egypt restricted the emi-
gration of physicians. Or they may give exit permits to some ethnic groups,
but not to others.
(3) Permissive exit rules. Some governments freely permit citizens to
leave as long as they have performed the obligations of citizens (i.e., they
have paid their taxes, have not broken the law, etc.). Western democracies
ordinarily treat the freedom to leave as a fundamental right of citizenship,
although in practice such rights can be circumscribed by currency regulations.
(4) Promotional exit rules. Governments may encourage citizens to seek
employment abroad in order to relieve unemployment or to increase remit-
tances. Some governments have developed educational programs to provide
citizens with skills that could enhance their opportunities for finding employ-
ment abroad. Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India all promote emigra-
tion to the Middle East. Earlier, the government of Turkey promoted emigration
to Germany, and the Algerian government promoted emigration to France.
(5) Expulsion exit rules. Governments may expel individual citizens;
they may also induce entire groups of people to leave by threatening their
safety and income if they remain. The group may be a dissident or threatening
social class (e.g., the middle class in Cuba after the Castro revolution) or it
may be an ethnic minority (Indians in East Africa, Chinese in Vietnam). Many
refugee movements widely seen as an unintended consequence of internal
political upheavals or unexpected famines are often quite deliberate conse-
quences of state policies, ways in which regimes choose to deal with class
enemies or dissident ethnic minorities.

Access rules and theories of

international migration

The rules of entry and of exit are important variables influenc

the composition, and the directionality of international migration. There are
four "clusters" of variables that shape international migration. One "cluster"

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 446 On International Migration

can be characterized as differential variables, such as wage differentials, dif-

ferences in employment rates, differences in land prices, and even differences
in degree days! A second group of variables are spatial, such as distance and
transportation costs. A third group can be characterized as affinity variables,
such as religion, culture, language, and kinship networks. And the fourth are
the access variables, the rules for exit and for entry. Differential and spatial
variables are usually the concern of economists; spatial variables are of par-
ticular interest to geographers; affinity variables attract the interest of sociol-
ogists and anthropologists; and access variables are the concern of political
scientists and students of international relations.
High on a list of priorities for future research should be the study of the
determinants of exit and entry rules. While the policies of some individual
countries have been studied, except for the recent work by Aristide Zolberg,
Astri Suhrke, and Michael Teitelbaum2 there is little systematic comparative
and theoretical work on such issues as how and why states make their access
rules, the interplay between domestic and international considerations, the
relationship between regime types and access rules, and how the rules are
affected by internal political transformations.
Regrettably, the theoretical literature on international migration tends to
treat the access variables as exogenous, as a kind of interference or noise in
a "process." The tendency, especially by economists, is to assume the primacy
of differential, distance, and affinity variables, leaving access variables outside
their analysis. In fact, the rules of access influence other variables affecting
migration, and in turn the other variables influence the rules of access. Where,
for example, differentials are high, affinities are close, and distances are small,
a country is usually faced with difficult decisions about its access rules (e.g.,
the United States in relation to Mexico, and India in relation to Bangladesh),
but where differentials and affinities are low, even though distances are small
neighboring countries often need not be concerned about their rules of entry
(e.g., France and Germany prior to World War II).
Individual decisions by migrants are obviously influenced by the rules
of entry. What is less obvious is that migrants also consider the exit rules of
countries to which they contemplate migration. Migrants are usually reluctant
to seek entry into countries that have restricted exit rules. Countries that restrict
exit are less attractive than countries with similar economic opportunities that
freely permit exit. Similarly, migrants may consider whether their decision
leaves open or precludes subsequent migration. Jewish emigrants from the
Soviet Union, for example, considering whether to migrate to either the United
States or Israel, may choose the United States, knowing that the option of
moving to Israel remains open, while the alternative decision may preclude
further migration.
The access rules adopted by a government are also likely to have sig-
nificant consequences both for the movement of capital and for the adoption
of technology. Governments are generally better able to control the exit and
entry of people than they are of the flow of capital. By restricting the entry

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 Myron Weiner 447

of people when the demand for labor has risen, a government may thereby
have unintentionally adopted a policy that induces an outflow of capital. Thus,
the Japanese government policy of prohibiting Japanese firms from recruiting
labor abroad (a decision made for cultural and political, not economic reasons)
was a factor in the decision of some Japanese firms to relocate plants abroad.
In contrast, the decision of the French and German governments to import
Algerian and Turkish workers may have slowed the relocation of industrial
plants abroad. Similarly, a decision to employ or not to employ imported labor
has an impact on the pace of technological innovation; firms that can cut costs
by using low-wage immigrants are less likely to adopt labor-saving technol-
ogies. An important area for future research is precisely how a change in the
access rules affects the other factors of production.

International migration and

international relations

Understanding access rules is important from another perspective. They affect

not only international migration, but also international relations. The congru-
ence or incongruence of rules between states will influence the patterns of
international conflict and cooperation. A brief consideration of emigration/
immigration intersections may suggest some of these patterns:

Where one state promotes entry and another state promotes exit-where,
for example, one country wants to import labor from a country that is
willing to export labor-the two countries have compatible objectives
that enable them to negotiate such matters as wages, conditions of em-
ployment, rules for expatriation, arrangements for remittances, and so
on. The French-Algerian arrangements are an example.3 Bilateral ar-
rangements become possible; and where several countries are involved
in the exchange, multilateral arrangements are also possible, as is the
case among the Persian Gulf states. One country may also want to
promote the exodus of an ethnic minority, while another country in which
the concerned ethnic group is the majority may want to promote its entry.
There may be a formal agreement (as took place among several countries
in the Balkans in the 1920s) or there may be a tacit understanding.
- Where one state permits, promotes, or compels emigration to a state that
prohibits entry, the situation carries a high potential for conflict.4 Mi-
gration from Bangladesh to northeastern India has been a source of
conflict between the two countries; so has the migration of refugees from
Afghanistan to Pakistan. Illegal migrations from Mexico to the United
States have been an issue between the two countries, although thus far
it has not been as conflictual as have been the unwanted population
movements in South Asia.

- Where one country restricts emigration that another country seeks to

promote, migration policies may become a "bargaining chip" in a large

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448 On International Migration

negotiation package. Both the United States and Israel promote the entry
of Jews from the Soviet Union, while the Soviet Union no longer permits
the exit of significant numbers of Jews; the result has been a concerted
effort, particularly by the United States, to influence Soviet migration
policies.
Countries with strained relations may effectively seal their borders to
population movements in order to avoid further conflicts. The People's
Republic of China, for example, prohibits exit and the Soviet Union
prohibits entry, with the result that the border between these two coun-
tries, the longest border in the world, is one in which population move-
ments do not take place in spite of the very substantial income and
employment differentials between the two countries.
- Expulsions need not be a source of international conflict if another coun-
try is concerned with the promotion of inmigration; hence the forcible
exit of Jews from North Africa to Israel in the 1950s was not a source
of international tension. In contrast, of course, the forcible exit of many
Arabs from Israel in 1948 has been followed by an interminable conflict
between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

These are merely examples of the interplay of various combinations of

entry and exit rules. Precise operational definition of the rules would be useful,
while a filling in of a matrix of exit and entry combinations would be suggestive
of different configurations of international relations.

International relations and the rules

of access

It is not simply that the rules of access and entry affect international migration
and international relations. In examining the second proposition, it becomes
clear that the rules themselves are often shaped by relations between states.
The rules may be a matter of international negotiations, as is the case of the
EEC rules concerning population movements within the Common Market.
There are also conventions established by the International Labour Organisa-
tion, although their effect on the rules set by governments seems to be neg-
ligible. Often the entry rules set by one country are shaped by the exit rules
set by another. Thus, West Germany permits free access to individuals coming
from East Germany, a rule set in the context of an East German policy that
restricts people from exiting. (East Germany permits citizens over age 65 to
exit if they forgo state-provided social security benefits.) But now that the East
Germans permit Turks, Sri Lankans, and Pakistanis to enter and to freely exit
through Berlin, the West German government is concerned with the growing
number of non-German migrants seeking status as political refugees.
Similarly, the Austrian government permits refugees to enter from the
Soviet bloc, but it does so because of the willingness of third countries to

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 Myron Weiner 449

permit permanent entry; its rules of entry are thus conditional upon the entry
rules of others.
Once again it should be emphasized that access rules are not merely the
political expression of economic forces, however important these may be.
Global economic changes may induce governments to change their access rules:
the oil price rise led to a labor shortage in oil-producing countries while inducing
other countries to export labor so as to improve their balance of payments
through remittances. Moreover, particular agricultural and industrial policies
may lead to an increase in the demand for labor, or to a large surplus, putting
pressure on a government to ease its entry or its exit rules. But it would be a
mistake to think that the choices governments make are necessarily dictated
by economic considerations.5 Indeed, governments often choose entry and exit
rules that economists would regard as inefficient, because the government seeks
to maximize values other than economic efficiency. A productive minority
may be expelled in order to improve the status of a politically dominant ethnic
group. Or a government may fear the political consequences of an unwanted
immigration even as it recognizes that the migrants might contribute to national
wealth.
Access rules should be understood as more than the formally prescribed
legal norms and the procedures and mechanisms for enforcement of these
norms. Rules include administrative capacity and the willingness of states to
enforce legal norms; they also include the expectations states have of one
another, their reputations for behaving in a particular manner.6 Consider, for
example, the reputation of states toward expulsions. Any country can expel
illegals, but such expulsion is obviously politically easier for authoritarian
countries than for democracies. It is also easier for a government to expel a
minority group with which the dominant ethnic group has no affinity than to
expel one where the affinities are close. It was not difficult for Uganda to expel
its Indian population, and it would not be difficult for the Persian Gulf mon-
archies to expel their Asian migrants, but it is politically more difficult for
India to expel illegal Bangladeshi migrants, for the United States to expel
illegal Mexican migrants, or for the Gulf states to expel Arab migrants. Com-
munist regimes have a reputation for expelling dissident social classes, or for
creating conditions that induce large numbers of people to flee: large numbers
of Cubans after the Castro revolution; the Chinese from Vietnam; refugees
from Kampuchea and Laos; Tibetans after the Chinese communist occupation;
Hungarians and Czechs after their government crackdown on dissidents; and
Afghans after the communist coup and in even larger numbers after the Soviet
invasion. A communist revolution or takeover is likely to result in a substantial
unwanted population exodus to neighboring countries. For this reason, a gov-
ernment may be alarmed by the prospects of a communist takeover in a neigh-
boring state because it expects such a change of regime to provoke a large
population flight. More broadly, it should be noted that other kinds of regime
changes may also affect the rules of exit in ways that shape the security of a
neighboring country.7

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 450 On International Migration

The foregoing analysis suggests that an important subject for future

research is precisely how states make their access and entry rules, how states
influence one another in shaping these rules, and how these rules in turn affect
relations between states. We need some rigorous case studies. Focusing on
particular regions would be useful since considerations of proximity are often
crucial in setting entry and exit rules.8
One might, for example, take a closer look at South Asia, where inter-
national migrations between the countries of the region are largely unwanted
by receiving countries. In this region there are unwanted movements from
Bangladesh to India, Afghanistan to Pakistan, India to Nepal, Sri Lanka to
India, Nepal to Bhutan, and a proposed (and unwanted) migration from Ban-
gladesh to Pakistan. The result is that conflicts over population movements
tend to be great, and a "high" politics over population movements emerges
involving heads of state and high officials. The region has had one war resulting
from unwanted migration-India's decision to invade Pakistan in large part
because of the massive influx of refugees from East Pakistan. India's present
involvement in Sri Lanka is partly guided by India's concern over the possibility
of a large-scale refugee movement of Tamils from Sri Lanka. A number of
the actions pursued by states in the region (Pakistan toward Afghanistan and
toward the Soviet Union, and India toward both Bangladesh and Sri Lanka)
can in part be understood in the context of the efforts of these states to prevent
unwanted population movements or to mitigate their effects.
Another but quite different example would be interregional movements
in the Middle East, where the population flows have, in the main, been approved
by both sending and receiving countries. Negotiations between states on mi-
gration matters have, therefore, been of a "low" politics, involving bureaucrats
in the ministries of the respective countries, and it has also been possible to
deal with migration issues at a multilateral level through the Gulf Regional
Council. In this context governments have attempted to adjust their manpower
policies on the basis of assumptions concerning future population movements.
And there have been discussions between states in the region about integrating
some of their development policies, taking into account the relationship of
these policies to migration.
One goal of such regional case studies would be to increase our under-
standing of the factors that shape wanted and unwanted migrations and to better
understand the ways in which conflicts can be reduced and cooperation in-
creased in the management of international population movements.

International migrants as links

The third and last proposition is that international migrants are becoming
important political actors influencing both the political process of the country
in which they reside and the relationship between their country of residence
and their country of origin. I shall briefly suggest some of the dimensions of
this complex and increasingly important phenomenon.

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 Myron Weiner 451

Migrants, or their descendants, have sought to influence migration pol-

icies in their country of residence; they have sometimes promoted policies
intended to benefit the economic or foreign policy interests of their country of
origin; and alternatively they have been critics of their country of origin and
pressured their host government to influence the domestic politics of their
country of origin. In short, migrants may attempt to promote many types of
political interventions. Just to refer to a few groups that have been politically
active is to demonstrate these variations: Sikh secessionists in the United
Kingdom; immigrant Filipino opponents of President Marcos in the United
States; anti-Turkish Armenian terrorists in the United States and in Western
Europe; Turkish fundamentalists in West Germany; Polish immigrants and
their descendants in Chicago; Cuban refugees in Florida; Nicaraguan refugees
in the United States; immigrants from Timor in Holland; Yemenites in Saudi
Arabia.
Diasporas are not necessarily politically good news for the government
of a sending country; nor are they necessarily good news for the home ministry
or the foreign affairs ministry of the government of the country in which they
reside. They have become a political factor that governments of both sending
and receiving countries need to take into account.9
Migrants invariably seek to recreate their own religious, social, and
cultural institutions. Where permitted they often develop their own media,
schools for their children, religious institutions, and political organizations.
The initial concern of migrants is often to preserve their cultural heritage (and
to transmit that heritage to their children), and to protect the interests of the
community. Community members may turn to their country of origin to assist
them in both objectives; and in turn, they may attempt to influence the policies
of their host country toward their country of origin.
The precise linkage sought by the migrant community is a complicated
one. It depends in part on why migrants left their country of origin, and how
their political attitudes toward both host and home country have developed.
The migrant community itself may be divided in its attitude toward the gov-
ernment of the home country, as were Iranians during the Islamic revolution,
overseas Indians during the Emergency, and overseas Chinese since the Chinese
communist revolution. Ethnic divisions within the migrant community may
also shape the relationship of particular nationals with their home country: the
attitudes of Tamils from Sri Lanka, Sikhs from India, and Chinese from Ma-
laysia may differ from attitudes of other nationals from these countries. Finally,
one should note that, other things being equal, migrants from a country that
permits its citizens to travel abroad to visit relatives are more likely to be
friendly (or at least not hostile) to their country of origin than when the count
restricts its citizens from traveling. Compare, for example, the attitude toward
their home country of Hungarians in the United States (Hungary has relatively
liberal rules of travel) with that of Russian emigrants to the United States.
If sections of the migrant community are opposed to the government of
their country of origin, strains may be created between the sending and re-

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452 On International Migration

ceiving countries. The position taken by Third World governments toward their
migrant populations is also a complicated and changing one. They may view
cultural and religious linkages with satisfaction (as is the attitude of the Indian
government toward institutions promoting Indian culture among overseas In-
dians) or with concern (as is the attitude of the Turkish government toward
the growth of Islamic fundamentalism among Turkish migrants in Germany.)
Third World countries initially concerned primarily with the flow of remittances
have become increasingly interested in the role that migrant businessmen and
professionals play in investment and in the transfer of technology. The gov-
ernments of China and India, for example, now actively work with their
overseas communities to promote investment and technology transfers. It
should be noted that the links that develop between migrants and their country
of origin may not only shape relations between migrants and their homeland,
but may also influence the patterns of cultural pluralism within the countries
in which the migrants have settled.10
The environment for political participation in the host country will affect
the role migrants can play. In the labor-importing countries of the Middle East,
Arab and Asian migrants have quite different linkages to indigenous forces;
and in Western Europe migrant workers have political rights not accorded to
migrant workers in the Middle East. The opportunities for coalition-building
between migrants and groups within the host society also vary greatly.
The changing role or status of transborder peoples is still another im-
portant development. Porous borders enable members of an ethnic group di-
vided by an international boundary to move freely back and forth and to
maintain their social cohesion; yet one or both governments may regard this
free movement as threatening to their security, to their capacity to control
trade, and especially to what they regard as measures for achieving national
integration. Thus, population movements across international boundaries once
regarded as benign are increasingly regarded as a problem.11
These are merely illustrations of some of the new domestic and foreign
policy issues that have arisen as a consequence of the emergence of new
diasporas and the transformation of old ones. What needs to be emphasized
is how these diasporas link internal and international politics. A government
that is host to a migrant population must now anticipate the political reactions
among its migrants to changes in foreign policy. The foreign minister of the
Federal Republic of Germany must consider the reaction of Germany's Turkish
population to changes in policies toward either Turkey or Greece; the British
Broadcasting Corporation must now consider how Indo-British relations would
be affected by giving television time to Sikh secessionist migrants; the Pakistan
government must consider the reactions of its Pashtun-speaking population,
and its many Pashtun refugees, to a decision to close the borders to further
refugees, or to prevent armed Pashtuns from returning to Afghanistan; and just
as American politicians earlier had to consider the effects of US policies toward
Europe on European immigrants, now consideration must be given to the effects
of US policies toward many developing countries on Asian and Latin American
immigrants.

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 Myron Weiner 453

The emerging policy process

We return, then, to the venerable notion of sovereignty and how it is being

transformed under the new international realities. It is, of course, an old story
that states are becoming interdependent, that there are more and more inter-
national constraints on domestic policies, that global trends in transportation,
in technologies, in weapons, and in the very structure of the world economy
have eroded earlier notions of sovereignty. What is unique about international
migration, however, is that it changes the very composition of one's population
and therefore potentially one's domestic policies; it brings the outside in, as
it were, and it involves sending a piece of one's nation into another society.
The result is not merely an impersonal interaction involving monetary systems,
trade flows, or acid rain, but the deeper, affective interactions involving human
beings.
As international migration has become more salient among policymakers,
and as policymakers have become more aware of the international-relations
aspects of decisions involving migrants, new bureaucratic agencies become
involved in the decisionmaking process. If the issue of migration becomes a
matter for bilateral or regional negotiations, then a shift in power will take
place from ministries and departments concerned with labor and home affairs
to those concerned with external affairs and defense. The bilateralization of
migration may also become linked to other bilateral issues-trade, investment,
aid, water resources, and environment-involving therefore a variety of bu-
reaucratic agencies hitherto not involved in considerations of migration. Any
examination of the internationalization of migration issues must entail a close
study of the changing intra-bureaucratic relationships within both sending and
receiving countries.
Moreover, the issues now raised by international migration are no longer
matters for the national government alone, as any state official in Assam or
Texas will affirm. Indeed, as one looks at both sending and receiving countries,
it is striking to see how many actors have entered into the political struggles
over migration. Perhaps we should end, then, with a fourth proposition, that
the internationalization of migration issues is changing intra-bureaucratic re-
lationships, and introducing new and often conflicting interests into consid-
erations of policies affecting migration in both sending and receiving countries.
Here, then, is another area of research, for if scholars are to have any
useful input into policy they must be cognizant of the policymaking process
within which decisions are made, the actors who participate in that process,
and the political constraints on policies.

Notes

This paper was initially prepared for a seminar I am also grateful to the members of the Har-
convened by the Population Council and vard-MIT Research Seminar on Migration and
funded by the Ford Foundation. I am grateful Development, to Oded Stark, co-chairman of
to Charles Keely, organizer of the seminar, the seminar, to my colleagues Hayward Alker,
and to seminar participants for their comments. Gene Skolnikoff, and Nazli Choucri, to Peter

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 454 On International Migration

Katzenstein and Sharon Russell, and to the ceiving countries. For an analysis of Mexico-
graduate students in my seminar on the polit- US migration using this latter perspective see
ical economy of international migration for Alejandro Portes, "Illegal immigration and the
criticisms and suggestions. international system: Lessons from recent
Mexican immigration to the United States,"
1 The relationship between migration and
Social Problems 26, no. 44 (April 1979). See
citizenship in the Middle East is analyzed by
also W. R. Bohning, "Elements of a theory
George Dib, "Migration and naturalization
of international economic migration to indus-
laws in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait
trial nation states," in Global Trends in Mi-
and the United Arab Emirates, Part II: Natu-
gration, cited in note 2.
ralization laws," Population Bulletin, No. 16
(June 1979).
6 For a discussion of the ways in which
2 Aristide Zolberg and Astri Suhrke, "So- reputations of states affect their relations with
cial conflict and refugees in the Third World: one another see Robert 0. Keohane, Beyond
The cases of Ethiopia and Afghanistan," paper Hegemony (Cambridge: Harvard University
presented at the annual meeting of the Amer- Press, 1984).
ican Political Science Association, Washing-
ton, D.C., 1984. See also Aristide Zolberg, 7 The policy of inducing certain categories
"International migrations in political perspec- of unwanted people to leave is not, of course,
tive," in Mary M. Kritz, Charles B. Keely, confined to communist regimes, nor is it a
and Silvano M. Tomasi (eds.), Global Trends recent development. In the nineteenth century
in Migration: Theory and Research on Inter- the British pursued a policy of inducing indi-
national Population Movements (New York: gents to emigrate in order to relieve the state
Center for Migration Studies, 1981); and Mi- of the costs of having to provide for the poor.
chael S. Teitelbaum, "Immigration, refugees, See H. J. M. Jonston, British Emigration Pol-
and foreign policy," International Organiza- icy 1815-1830, Shovelling Out Paupers (Ox-
tion 38, no. 3 (1984): 429-450. ford: Clarendon Press, 1972). The British also
had a policy of "shovelling out" prisoners.
3 For an examination of how migration
The crowding of jails in Britain in the 1770s
affected French-Algerian relations see Mark
and 1780s led the Crown to send convicts to
Miller, "Reluctant partnership: Foreign work-
Australia. Cuba followed a similar policy when
ers in Franco-Algerian relations, 1962-
it sent some of its prison population on boats
1979," Journal of International Affairs 33,
to the United States in 1980 from the port of
no. 2 (1979): 219-237; and Stephen Adler,
Mariel. For a discussion of induced or forced
International Migration and Dependence
emigration from Third World countries based
(Hampshire, England: Cower Publishing Com-
pany, 1979).
on internal political factors or as a means of
exerting political pressure on neighboring
4 For an account of forced migration as an
states, see Myron Weiner, "International em-
instrument of both domestic and foreign pol-
igration: A political and economic assess-
icy, see Michael S. Teitelbaum, "Forced mi-
ment," paper presented to the Conference on
gration: The tragedy of mass expulsions," in
Population Interactions Between Poor and
Nathan Glazer (ed.), Clamor at the Gates: The
Rich Countries, sponsored by the Harvard
New American Migration (San Francisco: ICS
University Center for Population Studies and
Press, 1985); on the law of asylum see Michael
the Draeger Foundation, Cambridge, Massa-
S. Teitelbaum, "Political asylum in theory and
chusetts, 6-7 October 1983, pp. 39ff.
practice," in The Public Interest, No. 76
(Summer 1984): 74-86. See also Guy S.
8 For a comparative review of European
Goodwin-Gill, International Law and the
policies on entry and exit see W. R. Bohning,
Movement of Persons Between States (Oxford:
"Immigration policies of Western European
Clarendon Press, 1978).
countries," International Migration Review 8,
5 Neoclassical economists and Marxists no. 2 (1979): 155-164; and Ray C. Rist, "The
share a tendency to explain international mi- European Economic Community and man-
gration primarily in terms of changes in the power migrations: Policies and prospects,"
global economy or by particular patterns of Journal of International Affairs 33, no. 2
capitalist development in both sending and re- (1979): 201-218.

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 Myron Weiner 455

9 For a study of the role played by dias- Prospects of Pluralism (New York: Praeger,
poras in international relations see Gabi Shef- 1978).
fer (ed.), Diasporas (London: Croom Helm, 11 See Myron Weiner, "Transborder peo-
forthcoming, 1985). ples," in Walker Connor (ed.), Mexican
Americans in Comparative Perspective (Wash-
10 On pluralism in Europe as it is being ington, D.C.: The Urban Institute, forthcom-
shaped by the presence of migrant workers, ing, 1985). See also Frederik Barth (ed.),
see Gary P. Freeman, Immigrant Labor and Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (Boston: Little,
Racial Conflict in Industrial Societies: The Brown, 1969). "Boundaries" is a term used
French and British Experience, 1945-1975 by Barth in the dual sense of a community's
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979); self-definition in relation to others, as well as
and Ray Rist, Guestworkers in Germany: The in the juridical/geographic sense.

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