Liberal democracy, welfare state and demographic politics are obstacles to the integration of refugees in Europe, say Shalini Randeria, Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the Graduate Institute, and Randall Hansen, Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, in the prestigious journal Science (vol. 353, no. 6303, September 2016). Prof. Randeria explains this seemingly paradoxical assertion.
You argue that liberal democracy and the welfare state pose obstacles to the integration of migrants and refugees in Europe. Why is that?
We argue in the piece that adherence to liberal principles and the dictates of democratic politics have pulled European polities in opposite directions. While liberalism would have meant respect for freedom of movement and international human rights obligations as well as the rule of law, electoral democracy has jeopardised commitment to these principles under threat from right-wing identity politics and the erection of fences fuelled by xenophobia. Anti-liberal and anti-elite propaganda by the populist parties, which have won between 20% and 45% of the popular vote in many European countries (often more in direct plebiscites or referenda), have produced deep divisions not only within the European Union (EU) but also within each European society. While social-democrats are unwilling to compromise on the achievements of the welfare state and allow for differential wages, making it harder to integrate migrants into the job market, the centre right or conservatives are ready to introduce these market reforms to liberalise the labour market but not to confer citizenship rights through easy naturalisation, which would be equally important for the successful integration of migrants. The policies favoured by the former are proving to be a problem for the labour market integration of migrants, whereas the latter oppose their quick political integration. As a result, migrants to Europe integrate too often into welfare, whereas those in North America integrate into work. Compounded by the economic downturn in Europe and anxiety over security of jobs and of borders, this ultimately results in migrants and refugees being scapegoated for the inequalities caused by neoliberal economic globalisation.
European countries need more migration to offset demographic trends. Yet a growing percentage of Europeans are afraid of refugees and are voting for populist leaders. How could one reverse public opinion?
Public perceptions rather than facts rule the day. Much political persuasion will be needed to overcome what Arjun Appadurai has aptly termed the “fear of small numbers”, which has grown together with rising ethno-nationalism. A cross-EU resettlement scheme for 160,000 refugees failed this year because of intransigence on the part of most member states, where “threatened majorities” could be mobilised in the name of preserving Christian civilisation and values against a supposed Islamic onslaught. Political parties panicked in the face of public perception that the nation-state and the EU had lost control over their borders. What is needed is a package of measures to integrate migrants and refugees more quickly and efficiently into host societies and economies. For instance, the adoption of a common standard for granting asylum and speedier labour market access would be important. But complex vocational training systems of the kind in place in many western European countries also pose a barrier to access to jobs for foreigners. Instead of a hypocritical stance of not needing migrant labour, politicians and industry need to change the public discourse by acknowledging the dependence of western European economies on migrant labour. Without highly skilled and unskilled labour provided by migrants in the low-paid care sector (e.g. nursing or domestic labour in middle-class homes, including care of the elderly) or agricultural work (e.g. asparagus or strawberry picking), but also in highly skilled sectors like banks, IT, medicine or engineering, our economies would not function. Moreover, given the low fertility rates in almost all European countries, pensions will be sustainable at anywhere near the promised levels only if a large number of migrants are integrated into the economies. Finally, the EU should agree to accept a certain number of refugees directly from civil-war-torn regions of the Middle East as that would cut out the profits of smugglers and reduce the dependence on brokers such as Erdogan, to whom the EU has de facto outsourced its international human rights treaty obligations. Let us not forget that most refugees remain in the region and in neighbouring countries and neither make it to Europe nor want to do so. Much more aid should be given where the refugees are currently located, for instance in the camps which are housing them, in order for children and adolescents to receive education, vocational training and employment opportunities.
A word on your experience of publishing in Science, a highly prestigious journal with a high-impact factor, but not one in which you would usually write as a social anthropologist.
Science asked me to contribute a policy piece on the subject and approved of the abstract I sent them to begin with. However, once my co-author and I submitted our text, a protracted process of negotiation with the editors in the light of reviewer comments began. I must admit that we had underestimated the difficulties of having to perform a double act of translation while publishing in Science. We not only needed to translate our text for readers with a natural-science background, who were apparently deemed to be unfamiliar with terms like “liberalism” or “welfare state”, but we had also overlooked the fact that key terms in our essay may not mean the same thing to Europeans as to US-Americans. So we were required to undertake several rounds of simplification of the argument in order to render it accessible to the readership of Science, simplifications that we felt had watered down our argument almost beyond recognition. The misunderstandings included a confusion between the EU and Europe being coterminous or a lack of awareness of the legal issue involved in (European) states not fulfilling their international human rights obligations. One reviewer was of the view that Europe had never been liberal while another felt that the uncoupling of liberalism and democracy could not be considered problematic. Then there were normative disagreements between us and the reviewers on the nature of the welfare state and whether it should pay benefits to refugees. I had to work hard to convince the editors to keep our central argument that the major problem in Europe in integrating refugees lies in the paradoxes that (a) liberal democracy and the welfare state, two of Europe’s proudest achievements, constitute a major obstacle to an integration of migrants as elected leaders fear losing elections to populist parties and the welfare state makes it expensive and cumbersome to provide financial support to incoming foreigners, and (b) despite Europe badly needing more migrants from a demographic and economic perspective, such a position is very hard to defend in the current political climate. Finally, being a natural-science journal, the editors insisted on “evidence” for our arguments, i.e. statistics as “proof” of hard facts, thus forcing us to revise the style of what we had submitted as a “think piece” for a policy rubric.
Illustration: Going South by Alexander Mueller. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.