Monday, October 13, 2008

Migration Dictionary

Asylum Seeker: A person who is seeking refugee status in a country that is not his/her own due to a well founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail him/herself of the protection of his/her country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.

Age-related dependency: the increased rate of dependency on the provisions of the welfare state due to age.

Birth Rate: the number of childbirths per 1000 persons per year.

Brain Drain: the emigration of trained and talented individuals for other nations or jurisdictions, due to conflict or lack of opportunity or health hazards where they are living.

Bretton Woods System: the system of international economic management which established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the major industrial state, signed in July 1944.

Citizenship: membership in a political community.

Death Rate: the total annual number of deaths per 1000 people.

Demographic Time Bomb: with an ageing population this is the fear that there will not be enough people working to support the increased number of retired people.

Destination Country: a country which migrants wish to get to.

Displaced Persons: people who have been forced to leave their habitual residence spontaneously in order to flee an armed conflict, situations of widespread violence or systematic huma rights violations, or to escape natural or man-made disasters or their effects..

Economic Migrant: a person moving out of his habitual place of residence to another place in order to improve his/her quality of life.

Emigration: the action of leaving ones native country for another country.

Family Reunification: the right of a person to reunite with members of his/her family living in a different country - the degree of closeness required varies from country to country, however, generally it is only available to spouses and children under 18 or other dependents.

Feminisation of the labour force: the phenomenon of more and more women joining the labour force.

Feminisation of Migration: the phenomenon of more and more women migrating indepepently of their families, often to seek work abroad as principal breadwinners.

Fertility rate: the average number of child births per woman.

Forced migration: synonymous with diplsplaced persons.

Free Movement of Workers: every citizen of the EU has the right to work and live in another Member State without being discriminated against on grounds of nationality.

Funded Pension System: contributions are paid into a fund during an individual's working life, this fund is invested in assets and grows in line with the return on these assets.

Guest Workers: a person who lives and works in a foreign country for a limited period of time, doing low paid and usually unskilled work

Greying Population: the phenomenon of an increasing amount of elderly people in a society.

Gross Migration: the sum of the entries of immigrants into a country and the number of exits of emigrants.

Labour Migrant: a person who takes up residence and engages in a renumerated activity in a country of which he/she is not a national, excluding asylum seekers and refugees.

Immigrant: someone who intends to reside permanently, and not a casual visitor or traveler, in another country or region.

Immigration: the act of moving to or settling in another country or region, temporarily or permanently.

Irregular Migration: the movement of a person to a new place of residence or transit without valid documentation.

Internal Migration: migration within the borders of a country.

Migrant: a person who moves from one geographical unit to another across an administrative or political border, wishing to settle definitely or temporarily in a place other than their place of origin.

Nationality: a legal relationship existing between a person and a state in which the person becomes subject to the state's jurisdiction, even while not on the state's territory; in exchange the subject becomes entitled to the state's protection, and to other rights as well.

Orderly Migration: the movement of a person from his/her country of residence to another with valid documentation and in keeping with the laws of the state.

People Smuggling: the procurement, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person into a state of which he/she is not a national or a permanent resident.

People Trafficking: the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or reciept of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion and exploitation.

Refoulement: the forced return of a person to a country where he or she faces persecution.

Refugee: a person, who owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationalilty, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside of his/her country of nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country.

Remittances: money sent home by migrants to their home communities.

Replacement Migration: the international migration that a country needs to offset population decline and population ageing resulting from low fertility and mortality rates.

Residence permit: authorisation which allows nationals of other countries to stay legally in a country’s territory.

Return Migration: the movment of a person returning to his/her country of origin or of habitual residence after spending at least one year abroad.

Rotation System: the action of a migrant coming to a country as a guest worker and then returning to his/her original country once his/her work visa has expired.

Sending Countries: countries that migrants originate from.

Snake heads: a term that denotes people traffickers.

Temporary Migrants (also known as Seasonal Migration): a migrant worker whose work depends on seasonal conditions and is performed only during part of the year.

Third Country Nationals: people from outside of the European union and the European Economic Area.

Unfixed Migrant: a migrant that does not take up residence in a particular place for a long term but tends to move from place to place frequently.

Work Permit: authorisation which allows a non-national to work legally on the territory of another country.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

The Clash of Civilisations

It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future - Samuel Huntington



Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Exam Questions

Submission Date: 19 November 2008

Length 1500-2000 words

Please bring a hard copy of the essay to class for submission. All essays must be typed and referenced correctly according to UCD Guidelines. The essay is worth 40% of your final grade thus late copies will result in reduced grades.

  1. With declining birth rates and an ageing population the EU needs to dismantle Fortress Europe and open the gates to mass in-migration. Discuss

  1. Multiculturalism and Assimilation have both failed. It is time for EU countries to rethink their integration strategies and to forge a new path towards integrating immigrants. Discuss

  1. Compare and contrast the different integration strategies employed in France and the United Kingdom. In your answer please evaluate which strategy you think has been more successful.

  1. The world in engaged in an ideological battle between two competing civilisations, Islam and the West. Discuss. Please support your answer with examples of events that have proven to be pivotal in this battle.

  1. The 20th Century saw dramatic demographic changes in Europe. European societies have been irreversibly altered by these changes. Explain some of the key challenges that this changing demographic has brought about.

  1. Ireland has in recent times transformed form a country of emigration to immigration. What do you think are some of the key challenges and opportunities for Irish society as a result of this change?

Friday, October 3, 2008

Integration of Immigrants in the EU

This class looked at the various policies and practices for integrating third country nationals in the EU. Primarily the focus was on the Multiculturalism versus Assimilation debate. The lesson started by trying to define what Citizenship means. The discussion of this notion took us from the legal definition to what it actually means to be a citizen in today's world. The notion of citizenship has changed dramatically in recent decades. Globalisation has changed the value that the rights and privileges our citizenship affords us. Indeed the concept of citizenship is continuously evolving. This can be illustrated by the concept of EU citizenship which emerged from the Maastricht treaty in 1993. Class discussion centred around the future role of EU citizenship and whether or not it will usurp national citizenship. The general consensus was that national citizenship is too intertwined with identity to ever have its importance reduced by a supranational concept of citizenship.

From the discussion of citizenship the lesson progressed to exploring the main integration strategies of Multiculturalism and Assimilation. The pros and cons of each strategy was examined. Attention was paid to the different policies in the UK and France as two paragons of each strategy. While exploring the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of assimilation policies in France the main topic of discussion, unsurprisingly, was the ban on displays of religious insignia in public schools. The French approach was evaluated and proved to be as divisive in class as it has been in global discussions on the issue. France's unshakable insistence on secularism was compared with the Irish approach and discussion centred around the possibility of a ban in Irish schools.

Next weeks class will look at the supposed 'Clash of Civilisations'. Please have a look at the Huntington Article and the Fox article as well. Class discussion will focus on the Media's role is propagating the notion of this clash.