Migration in a Post-global Era

Abstract

Globalization has not, of course, ceased, but it is increasingly being opposed by powerful counteracting forces making for a localization of economic and political processes—notably (i) the slowdown or reverse of economic globalization; and (ii) the rise of aggressive forms of ethnic nationalism. It is reasonable to expect that these developments will (through, for example, the hardening of national borders and a lower tolerance of ethnic diversity) have a downward impact on cross-border migration flows. Two further fundamental changes, however, seem likely to add to this downward pressure on international migration: (i) the probable transfer to the international sphere of the widely experienced falling rates of internal migration; and (ii) the shift in global wealth and power from west to east, that is, from societies that have histories and cultures rooted in high mobility (settler societies like the United States) to those rooted in low mobility (settled societies like China). These four arguments together form a firm basis for anticipating that ‘the age of migration’ is already now, or is likely to be in the near future, a ‘thing of the past’.