Towards a Systemic Theory of Irregular Migration by Gabriel Echeverría

Author:Gabriel Echeverría
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9783030409036
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

4.3 Irregular Migration as a Structural Phenomenon of World Society

4.3.1 Migration in World Society

In the conception of modern society offered by social systems theory, international migration, intended as the movement of people (migration) across state borders (international), appears as an inevitable, expected, structural phenomenon (Bommes, 2012c). Two elements concur to explain this fact. On the one hand, the rise of functional differentiation as the main type of social differentiation has determined the globalization of societal communications and the development of a unified world society. This has implied an increasing pressure on individuals to follow the inclusion opportunities offered by the different social systems (economy, education, family, science, religion, etc.) wherever they emerge. On the other hand, the particular form of differentiation adopted by the political system, i.e. the segmentation into territorial clusters, and the rise of states as the main form of political organization, have determined the enclosure of such societal opportunities within the sealed borders that divide each territory (Bommes & Sciortino, 2011a, p. 214). This has determined that, in order to access such opportunities, individuals need to cross political borders.

The particular configuration of modern society shows, then, a structural contradiction: while function systems are all-inclusive and foster human mobility across the world, the characteristics of the political system, namely states’ territorial borders and exclusive membership, limit such mobility. In this sense, while international migration appears as an inevitable feature of world society, its existence is, nevertheless, problematic. As pointed out by Bommes:…migration is, on the one hand, probable as an attempt to take advantage of opportunities for inclusion. In terms of the economy, the law, education or health, and of modern organizations, migration is something individuals can be expected to do to adjust to the forms of inclusion they offer to them. Migration is therefore part of the normal, i.e. socially expected mobility in modern society, which has historically been implemented, for example, with the institutionalization of labour markets. The case of internal migrations within states’ territories makes this clear. They are part of normal events that hardly mobilize social attention. Migration is, on the other hand, manifestly treated as improbable and as a problem, particularly in those countries with fully developed nation states and welfare states, when migration crossing state boundaries is involved (Bommes, 2012c, p. 27).

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