Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

世界経済・社会統計 = World development indicators

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.2307%2F3343168.pdf

Development as Freedom

The End of History and the Last Man

In this innovative approach to the practice of social science, Charles Ragin explores the use of fuzzy sets to bridge the divide between quantitative and qualitative methods. Paradoxically, the fuzzy set is a powerful tool because it replaces an unwieldy, "fuzzy" instrument—the variable, which establishes only the positions of cases relative to each other, with a precise one—degree of membership in a well-defined set. Ragin argues that fuzzy sets allow a far richer dialogue between ideas and evidence in social research than previously possible. They let quantitative researchers abandon "homogenizing assumptions" about cases and causes, they extend diversity-oriented research strategies, and they provide a powerful connection between theory and data analysis. Most important, fuzzy sets can be carefully tailored to fit evolving theoretical concepts, sharpening quantitative tools with in-depth knowledge gained through qualitative, case-oriented inquiry. This book will revolutionize research methods not only in sociology, political science, and anthropology but in any field of inquiry dealing with complex patterns of causation.

Fuzzy-Set Social Science

This article elaborates a conceptual framework for assessing the character and effectiveness of immigration policies It argues that, to a considerable extent, the public and academic controversy concerning this issue is spurious because of fuzzy definitions of policy effectiveness, stemming from confusion between (1) policy discourses, (2) policies on paper, (3) policy implementation, and (4) policy impacts The article distinguishes three policy gaps: the discrepancy between public discourses and policies on paper (discursive gap); the disparity between policies on paper and implemented policies (implementation gap); and the extent to which implemented policies affect migration (efficacy gap) Although implemented policies seem to be the correct yardstick to assess policy effectiveness, in practice the (generally more pronounced) discourses are often used as a benchmark This can lead to an overestimation of policy failure Existing empirical studies suggest that policies significantly affect the targeted migration flows, but they crucially fail to assess the relative importance of policies in comparison to other migration determinants, including non-migration policies, as well as the hypothetical occurrence of unintended categorical, spatial, inter-temporal, and reverse flow “substitution” effects Evidence on such effects is still scarce, showing the need for more empirically informed insights about the short- and long-term effects of migration policies

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2013.00613.x

The Effectiveness of Immigration Policies

Although it is commonly believed that the volume, diversity, geographical scope, and overall complexity of international migration have increased as part of globalization processes, this idea has remained largely untested. This article analyzes shifts in global migration patterns between 1960 and 2000 using indices that simultaneously capture changes in the spread, distance, and intensity of migration. While the results challenge the idea that there has been a global increase in volume, diversity, and geographical scope of migration, main migratory shifts have been directional. Migration has globalized from a destination country perspective but hardly from an origin country perspective, with migrants from an increasingly diverse array of non-European-origin countries concentrating in a shrinking pool of prime destination countries. The global migration map has thus become more skewed. Rather than refuting the globalization of migration hypothesis, this seems to reflect the asymmetric nature of globalization processes in general.

The Globalization of Migration: Has the World Become More Migratory?

Based on longitudinal information from two waves of the Indonesian Family and LifeSurvey (IFLS) in 2000 and 2007, we find evidence that migrants are self-selectedalong higher individual aspirations acquired (or, inherited) beforemigration. About 70 per cent of aspiration differentials can be explained by factorssuch as young age, good education, or superior socio-economic background, while theresidual seems to be linked to an individual pre-disposition for higher aspirations.However, despite the fact that migration is economically beneficial for mostmigrants, the migration experience itself seems to further increase economicaspirations, hereby trapping migrants on a ‘hedonic treadmill’. JEL classification: D03; J61; R23

/pdf/migration-and-aspirations-are-migrants-trapped-on-a-hedonic-3f3ausahku.pdf

Migration and aspirations – are migrants trapped on a hedonic treadmill?

The purpose of this article is to identify the determinants of displacement behavior based on various push and pull factors at the village level. The study concentrates on changes in village population during three years of civil conflict (1999–2002) in Aceh, Indonesia. The empirical analysis is based on a unique dataset from two census rounds of the Indonesian Village Potential Census (PODES). It uses data on around 5,200 Acehnese villages and relates village-level population change to conflict variables, geographic patterns, and traditional socio-economic determinants of migration. By applying quantile regressions, the push (outflow) factors and the pull (inflow) determinants of migration can also be distinguished. The authors identify the following factors as the main determinants of the Aceh migration pattern in this period. First, conflict clashes induced large rearrangements of the population between villages in highly affected districts, as well as strong village emigration from the geographically remote regions in Central Aceh towards the less conflict-affected coastal industrial areas. Besides conflict factors, an (ongoing) rural–urban migration process, driven by socio-economic factors, has taken place during the conflict period. Second, there is also evidence that security considerations, such as the presence of police in a village or neighborhood, were either emigration-reducing or immigration-inducing. Third, although the presence of ethnic Javanese has not been a primary cause of conflict incidence, their intimidation by the rebel movement has led to a significant outflow, primarily from conflict-affected villages in Central Aceh. These results reveal that, beside a conflict-induced fear of violence, population movements in Aceh have also been an outcome of traditional migration determinants.

/pdf/civil-conflict-and-displacement-village-level-determinants-2ni9f3e8dy.pdf

Civil conflict and displacement – Village-level determinants of forced migration in Aceh

What have been the main trends and drivers of international migration over the last century, and to what extent have migration policies been effective in shaping the volume, direction, timing, and selection of immigration and emigration? This paper reviews the insights on migration trends, determinants and policy effects gained through the DEMIG (Determinants of International Migration) project. Questioning popular perceptions of accelerating international migration, the increase in global migration has remained proportional to the increase in world population. The main migratory shifts in the second half of the twentieth century have been directional, particularly through the decline of Europe as an area of origin and the emergence of Europe and the Gulf as new global destinations. This shift in migration movements towards Europe has been associated by an overall liberalisation of migration policies, which have increasingly focused on the selecting of migrants rather than controlling numbers per se. Most rules around legal entry, stay and exit of migrants have been relaxed, but a combination of visa and border control policies have served to prevent the entry of asylum seekers and other ‘unwanted’ migrants. Our analysis shows that it would therefore be excessive to conclude that borders are ‘beyond control’ (cf. Bhagwati 2003), and that migration policies are generally effective. Yet several ‘substitution effects’ limit or undermine the effectiveness of migration controls by (1) redirecting migration through other geographical routes and destinations (spatial substitution), (2) diverting migration through other legal and unauthorized channels (categorical substitution), (3) “now or never” migration surges in anticipation of restrictions (intertemporal substitution) and (4) discouraging return and interrupting circulation (reverse flow substitution). These expose fundamental policy dilemmas as well as the importance to look beyond migration policies. Our results show the importance of accounting for the complex and often counterintuitive ways in which structural social, economic, and political factors affect migration in mostly indirect, but powerful ways that largely lie beyond the reach of migration policies.

/pdf/international-migration-trends-determinants-and-policy-3dhu87tksy.pdf

Mathias Czaika

Papers

The Effectiveness of Immigration Policies

The Globalization of Migration: Has the World Become More Migratory?

Migration and aspirations – are migrants trapped on a hedonic treadmill?

Civil conflict and displacement – Village-level determinants of forced migration in Aceh

International Migration: Trends, Determinants, and Policy Effects