The Berlin Wall falls as thousands of East Germans move to the West; after the Iron Curtain lifts, West Europeans brace for mass migrations from Eastern Europe; millions of refugees flee Iraq, Bosnia, Haiti, Rwanda, and other strife-torn nations. The shifting tides of international migration have had a profound effect on our world, from the transformation of nationality laws and European cooperation on border control to NATO intervention in Kosovo.
In Migrants and Citizens, Rey Koslowski examines the impact of migration on international politics. He focuses on two related avenues of inquiry: the immediate political problems faced by the European Union, and the general issues that confront us as we try to understand the modern international system.
Migration has become politically salient so quickly, Koslowski argues, because the nation-state and the political institutions associated with it developed in the centuries during which Western Europe was a net exporter of people. With the reversal of that trend less than a generation ago, many of these institutions have been ill-suited to deal with the political and policy demands brought on by the arrival of large numbers of foreigners.
Koslowski discusses how restrictive citizenship laws exclude migrants and their children from political participation in some West European states, leading observers to question the legitimacy of those states as democracies. Yet when these states try to increase immigrant participation with local voting rights, European Union citizenship, and dual nationality, the principle of a singular nationality underlying the nation-state is challenged. In this way, the practical policy responses to migration gradually transform the political institutions of states as well as the international system they collectively constitute.
Reviews
"Rey Koslowski is provocative...underscoring how the context of low fertility rates and increasing migration polarizes European domestic politics and challenges the stability of democracies."--Foreign Affairs. November/December 2000
"Koslowski has written a solid book on the role of demographic change in influencing world politics...This book is recommended for libraries keen to maintain a strong focus on demographic and international relations issues within their social science collections."--Choice, March 2001
"In a pathbreaking new book, Rutgers University political scientist Rey Koslowski identifies the role of migration in transforming politics in Europe, with important implications for our underastanding of the relationship between citizens and nation-states throughout the international system...[F]or those of us looking for materials to engage our students and to inspire our own scholarship, Migrants and Citizens is required reading."--Christine Ingebritsen, University of Washington, Seattle. Political Science Quarterly, Spring 2001
"Rey Koslowski's book is a useful contribution to the understanding of migration and the influence of demographic change on international politics...It has both a clear argument and structure and a good bibliography...in addition, experts in migration and citizenship as well as scholars of European intergration will find a useful and interesting approach to the analysis of the current dilemmas of the European polity."--Franzisca Hagedorn, London School of Economics and Political Sciecne. Millenium, Vol. 30, No. 1
"In Migrants and Citizens, Rey Koslowski has given us a masterful treatment of the impact of migration on international relations. His work challenges many of our most cherished assumptions about the sanctity of the the nation-state and the viability of the institutions of sovereignty and citizenship. Whether one agrees or disagrees with his conclusions, Koslowski's argument cannot be easily dismissed. Migrants and Citizens will quickly become a classic and a must-read for every student of world politics."--James Hollifield, Southern Methodist University
"Rey Koslowski brilliantly synthesizes several decades of criticism to refute and debunk the mainstream approach to understanding international relations. The study of world politics or international relations will never be the same after publication of this enlightening and accomplished book."--Mark J. Miller, University of Delaware
"In revealing the pivotal role of migrations in the making and unmaking of the modern state system, Rey Koslowski puts his finger on the much-repressed truth that 'demography is destiny.' He raises hard-hitting questions for uniting Europe, whose migration-induced return to the earlier norm of polyethnicity is at odds with institutions geared to monoethnicity, and whose restrictive immigration policies sit uneasily with a dramatic decline of domestic fertility rates. I found here one of the most judicious and well-balanced discussions of the potentials of European Union citizenship and of the dilemmas posed by the increasing toleration of dual nationality in Europe. A must-read for anyone interested or working in the field of immigration and citizenship."--Christian Joppke, European University Institute, Florence
