Towards a new politics of migration?

This paper reconsiders Stephen Castle’s classic paper Why Migration Policies Fail. Beginning with the so-called migration crisis of 2015 it considers the role of numbers is assessing success or failure. It argues that in the UK public debates about immigration changed with European Union (EU) Enlargement in 2004, when the emphasis shifted from concerns about asylum to concerns about EU mobility. Concerns were exacerbated by the government’s failure to meet its promise to reduce net migration. This policy is hampered by the general problem of definition of “migrant” and the gap between statistical measures and popular usage in which “migration” signifies problematic mobility. In fact, concern about migration has become a placeholder for concerns about globalization and democratic accountability. A new politics of migration must make connections between migrants and citizens, but also between migration and other global processes, particularly outsourcing and the exploitation of labour and resources in the global south.     

Notes on Costeño cultural politics

The article fundamentally endorses Schroeder’s findings that Augusto Sandino failed to develop a significant base among the peoples of the Atlantic Coast. This article also places Schroeder’s argument in a comparative perspective, as it discusses the early 1930s rural mobilization in El Salvador, outlining how the Salvadoran left’s social egalitarian appeals compensated for a degree of cultural insensitivity and lack of knowledge regarding the indigenous peoples of the western part of the country. The article also questions the placement of the mining area as outside of the Atlantic Coast region. It suggests the historical connections of Miskitu Indians and the mining communities and in so doing modifies, to a degree, Schroeder’s argument about the desencuentro between Sandino and the indigenous people.     

What counts as racist immigration policy?

Culling the Masses is a rich, methodologically ambitious book, which sheds much needed light on the factors that influence the adoption and repeal of racist immigration policies across the Americas. Contrary to previous accounts that suggest that the end of racial selection in immigration policy began as a domestic issue in the United States and Australia and then spread elsewhere, FitzGerald and Cook-Martín “find that geopolitical factors were the main drivers of the demise of racial selection.” The sustained attention to the international forces that shape domestic immigration policy—and the means through which they do so—is an invaluable contribution of this excellent book. Culling the Masses also demonstrates that democracy and racist immigration laws not only co-existed comfortably with each other, they have also been causally connected. Somewhat less convincing, however, is the assertion that liberal democracies essentially abandoned racist immigration laws at the end of the 1960s.     

Ethnicity and factionalism in Zimbabwe nationalist politics 1957–79

Four explanations of xenophobia and racism will be reviewed by confronting them with the results of empirical studies. I try to show that xenophobic and racist views of the social world are not instrumental to a fight for scarce jobs or housing. Neither is it appropriate to interpret them as a result of a culture clash that is caused by migratory movements across countries and continents. They are not mere radicalizations of the discourse of exclusion and devaluation which political and administrative elites generate and institutionalize, for example, in immigration policies. Starting from the insights of this critical review, I shall develop the hypothesis that xenophobia and racism should be seen as appeals to the pact of solidarity into which state and society have entered in modern nation‐states and which in times of intensified social conflicts seems fragile in the eyes of downwardly mobile groups. The xenophobic discourse serves not only to reassure identity when nationalistic self‐images run into crisis but is an element of a political struggle about who has the right to be cared for by the state and society: a fight for the collective goods of the modern state.     

In whose interest? Policy and politics in assisted reproduction

This paper interprets the British legislative process that initiated the first comprehensive national regulation of embryo research and fertility services and examines subsequent efforts to restrain the assisted reproduction industry. After describing and evaluating British regulatory measures, I consider successive failures to control the assisted reproduction industry in the US. I discuss disparities between UK and US regulatory initiatives and their bearing on regulation in other countries. Then I turn to the political and social structures in which the assisted reproduction industry is embedded. I argue that regulatory bodies are seldom neutral arbiters. They tend to respond most readily to special interests and neglect strategies that could more effectively meet the health needs of the people they represent. Neither national nor international bodies have aggressively pursued policies to harness the industry, reduce infertility rates, or meet the needs of people whose fertility is threatened by substandard healthcare and environmental neglect. In conclusion, I consider recent initiatives by activist groups to mount an alternative response to the industry's current practices and build a transnational reproductive justice movement.     

Divergence or disorder?: the politics of naming intersex

The conditions once known under the umbrella terms intersex and hermaphroditism are now generally being called disorders of sex development in medical settings. The terms might seem synonymous, but in fact there are significant differences with controversial consequences. Hermaphroditism, an older term that can still be found in many medical writings, is vague, demeaning, and sensationalistic, conjuring mythic images of monsters and freaks. In the 1990s, activists advocated intersex to describe discordance between the multiple components of sex anatomy, but that word alienated many parents of affected children, as it suggests a self-conscious alternative gender identity and sexuality. Disorders of sex development also refers to intersex, but it deemphasizes the identity politics and sexual connotations associated with intersex, avoids the degradation associated with hermaphrodite, and instead highlights the underlying genetic or endocrine factors that cause prenatal sex development to take an unusual path. I argue that using disorder is problematic, because it implies medical conditions in need of repair, when some intersex anatomies, though atypical, do not necessarily need surgical or hormonal correction. I advocate a less pathologizing new term, divergence of sex development, that might reduce some of the conflict over nomenclature and satisfy intersex people, their parents, and their doctors.     

Is biofuel policy harming biodiversity in Europe?

We assessed the potential impacts of land-use changes resulting from a change in the current biofuel policy on biodiversity in Europe. We evaluated the possible impact of both arable and woody biofuel crops on changes in distribution of 313 species pertaining to different taxonomic groups. Using species-specific information on habitat suitability as well as land use simulations for three different biofuel policy options, we downscaled available species distribution data from the original resolution of 50 to 1 km. The downscaled maps were then applied to analyse potential changes in habitat size and species composition at different spatial levels. Our results indicate that more species might suffer from habitat losses rather than benefit from a doubled biofuel target, while abolishing the biofuel target would mainly have positive effects. However, the possible impacts vary spatially and depend on the biofuel crop choice, with woody crops being less detrimental than arable crops. Our results give an indication for policy and decision makers of what might happen to biodiversity under a changed biofuel policy in the European Union. The presented approach is considered to be innovative as to date no comparable policy impact assessment has been applied to such a large set of key species at the European scale.     

Justice or respect? A comparative perspective on politics in Cyprus

This article argues that the anonymity of modern politics - usually seen as a requirement for good democracy - may in fact undermine cooperative politics in small-scale societies. For very many people in the world, this essay argues, it is not the pre-social, monadic individual of Western liberalism but an immanently social person who is or should be the possessor of the rights, responsibilities and freedoms of the polity. As a result, the principle of 'universal' equality is always already delimited by the nation conceived as ethnos. This essay takes the case of Cyprus to show that in this divided island democracy has been imagined as a freedom defined ethnically - as freedom for a particular group. Moreover, various historical contingencies brought those imaginings of a true and just democratic ethnos into conflict. The themes of "justice" and "respect" employed here represent those aspirations and their seemingly inevitable conflict.     

Ethnicizatlon and racialization of welfare‐state politics in Germany and the USA

Welfare‐state retrenchment, transnational migration and the integration of immigrants have been accompanied by a growing ethnicization and racialization of welfare‐state politics in the United States and Germany. Although ethnicization and racialization may have other, deeper causes, immigration and its effects on social policies and provisions has become one of the main targets of dissent in the politics of West European and North American welfare states. While in the United States these developments have reinforced race‐class cleavages that have existed since the emergence of her welfare state, German welfare‐state politics has evolved from being primarily class‐based to class‐ethnicity divides in recent years. These cleavages have disadvan‐taged social democratic positions that tried to bridge protection of native workers and humanitarian obligations towards refugees but have supported nationalist‐populist trends. Cosmopolitan‐liberal positions face the formidable task of developing institutional mechanisms for handling conflicts in ethnically pluralist'welfare states.     

Beyond ‘transnationalism’: Mexican hometown politics at an American labour union

The controversial notion of “transnationalism” has generated new insights into international migrants’ on-going ties with their communities of origin, but its problematic conceptualization and vague usage in empirical studies needlessly inhibit the transnational perspective’s utility. Understanding the political and economic incorporation of migrants in both their communities of origin and destination is facilitated by disaggregating the types of political borders, types of nationalism, and levels of identification that have been conflated in the framework of “transnationalism”. I demonstrate the analytic value of these distinctions by using them to interpret evidence from a six-month ethnographic case study of an immigrant labour union in Southern California. A theoretically coherent typology applicable to both the case study and other migration settings provides a framework for explaining how institutions assimilate migrants into U.S. and local politics while simultaneously promoting cross-border ties.     

Laboratory software validation — from corporate policy to bench top systems

This tutorial presents a practical approach to implementing computer validation across a whole laboratory organization. It discusses the types of policies and practices which need to exist in order to meet both business and regulatory needs in the multi-system, multi-department laboratory workplace. It advocates the use of international standards (IEEE, ISO) and global regulations (GLP, GCP, GMP, CANDA) for validation activities and documentation. Experience has shown the approach to be useful in many companies and in many countries.