Abdul-Ghaffar Mughal

Bio: Abdul-Ghaffar Mughal is an academic researcher from Northeastern University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Population & Emigration. The author has an hindex of 3, co-authored 5 publications receiving 12 citations. Previous affiliations of Abdul-Ghaffar Mughal include Qatar University.

Brain Circulation and the Role of the Diaspora in the Balkans - Albania, Kosova and Macedonia

Abstract: Countries of the Western Balkans constitute an important part of the contemporary system of migration. Three important factors shape the current migration flows in the region: the socialist legacy, existing migrant networks, and migration policies, mainly of the receiving countries. This study focuses on three countries of the Western Balkans: Albania, Macedonia, and Kosovo. Unlike nationals of Albania, whence exit was near impossible, citizens of Macedonia and Kosovo, being constituent parts of the former Yugoslavia, enjoyed relative freedom of movement across Europe and they have traditionally been source countries of labor migration. The collapse of the socio-economic and political order that attended upon the breakup of the former Yugoslavia was accompanied by ethnic conflicts of the 1990s, high unemployment, and general impoverishment of large sections of the population. These factors, coupled with the onset of transition to a market economy, further strengthened the networks of labor migration throughout Europe that were created by nationals of the Western Balkan. The refugee regimes and immigration policies of major destination countries of the OECD played a significant role in this process. Today, many of these countries contain the bulk of the diaspora from the Western Balkans, including the three countries under study.1. 2 Objectives and Scope of the Study The overall objective of this research is to offer interested readers and policymakers an insight into the dynamics of skill migration and brain circulation within the Western Balkans-OCED corridor. The study focuses on three countries of the Western Balkans: Albania, Macedonia, and Kosovo. To achieve the overall objective, we begin by offering a synopsis of the size, nature, and characteristics of the skilled diaspora from the three countries drawing upon all available information. The study then focuses upon two important subsets of the skilled population of each country: students and skilled returnees. Specifically, we target pre-final and final year students at the tertiary level as they are expected to be highly outwardly mobile and thus ideally suited to study the phenomenon of skill migration, and, a fortiori, as the number of students studying outside the countries of their origin has been increasing rapidly over the last quarter of a century -- from less than half a million in the mid-1980s to almost three million by 2011 (Rizvi, 2011). Consequently, international student mobility is increasingly recognized to be the most important vehicle of brain circulation between the developing south and the developed north. Similarly, given the interest of policy-makers in brain gain, the study targets the skilled subset of return migrants. Thus, the study seeks to answer two important research questions: 1. What motivates tertiary level students to migrate from the country of origin and what is the potential of migration from the selected countries of the Western Balkans? 2. Why do some highly skilled members of the Diasporas return home, and what obstacles and opportunities await them upon return? The study tackles the above questions utilizing all available information, and, more importantly, by collecting primary data using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The study further seeks to contribute to our cumulative knowledge in the field of brain drain/gain/circulation by identifying common patterns among the Albanian, the Macedonian, and the Kosovar skilled returnees and would-be student migrants. Finally, the study aims to discuss the policy implications of the observed patterns of emigration and return migration for leveraging the skilled diaspora for development.

Muslim Population of the Republic of Macedonia: A Demographic and Socio-economic Profile

Abstract: This paper challenges the thesis of Muslim demographic exceptionalism by providing a detailed case study of the Republic of Macedonia. Given the heterogeneity of Muslim populations in different countries, country level investigation of the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of Muslim population is important to devulgarize the level of discussion about this subject, which has been receiving increasing attention in both academic/policy and popular circles in the aftermath of 9/11. The Republic of Macedonia had a population of 2.1 million as of 2009. Ethnicity and religious affiliation are almost identical for the main ethnicities with the exception of a tiny fraction, almost all ethnic Macedonians are Christian Orthodox, and almost all Albanians, Turks, and Bosnians are Muslim. Ninety two percent of Romas are also Muslims. In 2009, about 35% population of Macedonia was estimated to be Muslim. Muslim population of the Republic of Macedonia will continue to grow over the next twenty years, with its the share of projected to increase to 40 percent by 2029 under a medium fertility scenario. Given the decreasing rate of growth, Muslims are expected to remain a minority for the foreseeable future. Thus, Muslims are expected to follow the demographic trajectory of other groups albeit with a delayed effect because of the population momentum. This finding is consistent with the conclusions from recent studies 1 The author is thankful to the State Statistical Office (SSO) of the Republic of Macedonia for making available all relevant data for this report. Thanks are due to Jane Krsteski for her research assistance. The author is thankful to the Pew Foundation, Washington, for funding the research. The author is thankful to an anonymous referee for valuable suggestions to improve the first version. Abdul GAFFFAR MUGHAL 88 Balkan Social Science Review, Vol. 5, June 2015, 87-129 on the demographics of Muslims, and casts serious doubts on the thesis of Muslim exceptionalism.

Migration, Remittances, and the Standards of Living in the Republic of Macedonia

Abstract: There are two particular contributions that we seek to make to the scholarship on migration and remittances in Republic of Macedonia. First, we examine patterns of migration and remittances (including in-kind and other informal transfers) based on a household survey that is representative of the whole country as well as of different regions of the country. Second, the report compares the patterns of migration and remittances between two main ethnic groups, i.e., Albanians and Macedonians. The analysis is expected to have significant policy implications.

Shari‘ah Law and Capitulations Governing the Non-Muslim Foreign Merchants in the Ottoman Empire

Abstract: Muslim-non-Muslim relations have a long and checkered history. The concept of Siyar (Muslim code governing international-interfaith relations) developed by early Muslim jurists, provided the legal basis for coexistence with ‘foreignness’ and ‘foreigners. Yet, the classical norms of Siyar were seldom strictly implemented by Muslim rulers. Thus, Capitulations, governing the presence and movement of foreign merchants and diplomats in the Ottoman empire, increasingly broke with the classical norms of Siyar in their successive incarnations. However, there have been few investigations of how the religious establishment’s stance vis-a-vis Capitulations evolved over time. The present study is a modest attempt to fill this gap. The paper departs from essentialist conceptions of Shariah Law, and examines how successive Ottoman jurists interpreted Siyar and accommodated it to the changing political and economic realities. Our investigation bears out the non-essentialist position that Islamic laws have been anchored in empirical realities, pre-Islamic norms, and legalistic traditions.

Ethnicity and Subjective Well-being in the Republic of North Macedonia

Abstract: This paper examines the nature of inter-ethnic relations in North Macedonia drawing on the 2008 European Quality of Life Survey. Ceteris paribus, the self-declared level of subjective well-being is...

Gross domestic product.

Abstract: This news article reports on the events occurring and the views taken at the 1995 UN Conference on Women held in Beijing China and the Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) Forum. The setting in China for this decennially occurring conference was appropriate for the discussion of womens rights. Despite the selective coverage of the conference by Chinese official reports word would trickle out in whispers to Chinese women about some new ideas. Chinese visa restrictions on participants of the NGO Forum forced many women to devise ingenious ways of gaining entrance to the meetings. The alliance between the Holy See and Islam disciples threatened to undermine basic goals of conference to open up access to contraception and to change property rights. The conference chair diplomatically found justification for praise of unpopular views despite the disputes among a majority of delegates. The aim of the conference was to obtain a common understanding of some basic rights and not 100% agreement. Womens economic contributions have not been recognized in gross domestic product calculations. The World Bank has reported that about $13 billion is unaccounted for income and unwaged income of which about $8.5 billion is due to womens productivity. Women expressed the desire for recognition of their economic contribution. Since the last womens conference held in Nairobi in 1985 there has been an increase in world poverty. Uganda expends more on servicing its debt than on health and education. There was general agreement that gender equity was a goal but there was less consensus on how to achieve it.

Free Trade Today

Abstract: None of the usual jokes about economists apply to Jagdish Bhagwati. The Columbia University professor is as personable, charming, and provocative in print as he is in person, and all those attributes shine through in his new book, Free Trade Today. Bhagwati’s latest book is based on three lectures he delivered recently at the Stockholm School of Economics. That is the same venue where he gave another series of lectures on trade in the late 1980s that became the book Protectionism, a minor classic in the bibliography of free trade. This new book, Bhagwati tells us in the preface, is “a sequel to Protectionism, an equally short, accessible, wide-ranging work that brings the case for free trade to the skeptics and the critics today.” In the first section of the book, Bhagwati explains why free trade is still the first best policy despite two centuries of theoretical challenges. Economists have known since the 1840s that a nation can improve its welfare, in theory at least, by deviating from free trade. If a nation has enough weight in international markets, it can (in theory) force down global prices with a tariff, extracting more producer and revenue gain from the rest of the world than it gives up in lost efficiency or consumer welfare. Or it can (again, in theory) nurture “infant industries” behind a tariff wall to reap greater productivity gains later. In more recent years, we discovered “strategic trade policy,” the idea that a country could (once again, in theory) benefit by protecting a strategic industry that could then bring home monopoly profits in the global marketplace. Most of the justifications for deviating from free trade fit under the banner of “market failure.” Free trade would be fine in an ideal world of perfectly competitive markets, the theorists concede, but we all know that markets are hardly ever perfect, and thus free trade is hardly ever the best policy. Bhagwati spends most of this short but pithy book demonstrating that even in this messy, imperfect world, free trade remains, almost always and everywhere, the best policy.

The Ottoman Gulf: The Creation of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, 1870-1914

Abstract: Book synopsis: What caused the decline of the Ottoman empire in the Persian Gulf? Why has history credited only London, not Istanbul, with bringing about the birth of the modern Gulf States? Using the Ottoman imperial archives, as well as European and Arab sources, Anscombe explains how the combination of poor communication, scarce resources, and misplaced security concerns undermined Istanbul's control and ultimately drove the Gulf shaikhs to seek independence with ties to the British.

The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

Abstract: The authorities should expand existing training initiatives on racist and homotransphobic violence for members of law enforcement agencies and the judiciary. Possible bias motivations should consistently be included in police reports and investigations, as well as in any further judicial proceedings. In order to address the problem of underreporting the authorities should implement confidence-building measures to enhance the relationship between the police and vulnerable groups, in particular the LGBT community.