Losing Control? by Sassen Saskia

Author:Sassen, Saskia.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: POL010000, Political Science/History and Theory, POL011000, Political Science/International Relations/General
Publisher: Perseus Books, LLC
Published: 1996-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

Beyond the Individual:

Economic Internationalization and Geopolitical Links

Each country is unique, and each migration is produced by specific conditions of time and place. But to theorize about the impact of economic internationalization we must step back from these particulars to examine more general tendencies in economic dominance and the formation of transnational spaces for economic activity. The goal is to grasp the impact of the internationalization of economies on, first, the mechanisms connecting emigration and immigration countries and, second, the organization of labor markets in both types of countries.

These two in turn have an impact on the formation and direction of migration flows. They produce conditions under which poverty, unemployment, or lack of opportunities for advancement can become activated as migration push factors. For example, the development of commercial agriculture and export-oriented standardized manufacturing have dislocated traditional economies and eliminated small producers. They also contribute to the conditions under which immigrants can enter the labor markets of receiving countries. For example, increased competitive pressures from the internationalization of production cause businesses to favor low-wage workers at the expense of unions, in order to remain competitive with cheap third-world imports.

The mechanisms binding immigration countries to emigration countries can assume many forms. But two appear to be dominant. One is past colonial and current neo- or quasi-colonial bonds, which can generate the types of military actions the United States has taken in El Salvador or the Philippines. The other mechanism is the economic links brought about by internationalization, ranging from the off-shoring of production, to the implantation of export-oriented agriculture by means of foreign investment, to the power of multinationals in the consumer markets of sending countries.

A third type of link, characterized by greater specificity and a variety of mechanisms, is the organized recruitment of workers, either directly by a government (within the framework of government-supported employer initiatives) or through kinship and family networks. Ethnic links established between communities of origin and destination, typically by transnational households or broader kinship structures, are crucial after a flow has begun, and ensure its persistence. These recruitment and ethnic links tend to operate within the broader transnational spaces created by neocolonial processes and / or economic internationalization.

It is a little-known fact that, during the 1800s as well as today, some form of organized recruitment by employers or governments often stimulated immigrant flows. But eventually most migration flows become independent of organized recruitment. Although organized recruitment, and with it the constitution of certain countries as labor-exporting, is radically different from the migrations engendered by former colonial bonds, similarities also exist.

The mass migrations of the 1800s formed part of a trans-atlantic economic system binding several nations by economic transactions and wars. These mass migrations were highly important to U.S. development. Massive flows of capital, goods, workers, and specific structures produced the American economic system. Earlier movements of labor across the Atlantic had largely been forced, notably through slavery, and mostly from colonized African and Asian territories. Similarly, the migrations to England of the 1950s originated in what had been British territories.

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