Beyond the Economics/Culture Divide in Migration Policy

• In Event: Immigration & Democracy: Neoliberalism in Europe

Abstract

Previous scholarship on migration policy assumed that economics and culture were different “axes” and considerations, pushing policy in opposite directions (Zolberg 1999). In a neoliberal order, the economics/culture distinction becomes moot. Based on a transactional understanding of social membership, economic criteria become predominant across selection criteria, and also in the domain of integration and citizenship. This strongly relativizes and weakens individual rights on the part of migrants, which had been the mark of “liberal” migration policy. By contrast, neoliberal migration policy economizes everything. I examine this trend in family and asylum migration, which previously had been considered as-of-right migration. Looking at examples from Europe and North America, I show that both migrations are increasingly subject to economic and merit criteria.

Author

• Christian Georg Joppke