Cavoti's BLack Box: Migratory Policy Part III; Constructive Political Theory

Alexander Wendt

Today  we are concentrate on the theoretical backbone of most of my international views, especially on migratory policy, I’ll lean heavily on constructivism and to a certain extent on I barrow some ideas from realism. Now I’m going to start off with some initial concepts from the German political scientist Alexander Wendt, in 1994 in his article “Constructing International Politics” he explains that States are socially constructed and that its identity has two fundamental aspects. There is a corporate identity and a social identity, these two concepts and their derivatives have a great impact on which option a state will take into consideration when it’s formulating its foreign policy. The first concerns "the constitutive and organizational capacity of an individual actor" (Wendt 1994; p. 385). According to the author, corporate identity is created by the contribution of the satisfaction of four basic interests: the search for ontological security, physical security, recognition as an actor in the system and "that the State is the repository of the aspirations of its citizens in search for a better life at the collective level" (Wendt 1994; p. 385).

 The first aspect of the corporate identity; that I’m going to explain is physical security of the State. There is great debate on how migrants can affect from criminal activity in a country, all the way to they can potentially threatening   its national security. We can include not only migrant’s spark these kinds fears but all any kind of transitory movement like tourist. Actually there is great confusion amongst most people over this distinction between tourist and migrants they are two totally different things. Back tracking a bit to the potential treat of migrants we can find that this issue is a real hot topic in places like United States, Europe and Russia, just to name a few countries that receive large amounts of immigrants. In the case of Argentina from where I’m writing from and it’s my field of work, this primary issue isn’t violated, migrants are not a major security risk for the country at the moment. I must add that they are not perceived as a threat either, foreigners in general are not considered dangerous by the majority of Argentineans. The dangerous “other” is a social construct (it doesn’t limit itself to migrants, the concept can be applied on any other group of people), it can be real or not, but it’s a very effective political tool, and migrants make perfect scapegoats this is especially common to see more and more in the US and in Europe.  In any society, simple perception of a threat (real or not) generates persecutive   tension in the population, undergoing varying degrees of rejection to foreigners; this can go from mistrust, all the way to the open persecution of any particular group.

 On the other hand, Argentina as a country does not consider immigration as a security issue and law does not criminalize the immigrants in general, especially the ones that enter legally to the country but over stay, makes them subjects of law with the possibility to settle and grow in the recipient country, these people have rights and obligations. Argentina avoids the temptation of calling these people illegal immigrants, or illegal’s, this term has a strong negative cognition. An illegal person actually sounds quit dangerous, how come you can call a immigrant this and serial killer gets off Scott free from this derogatory term, as you can see it has a strong political significance.     

This doesn't mean all immigrants are saints; there are always a small proportion of them that will commit crimes or   unlawful acts of terrorism, it’s naïve to think otherwise. But in Argentina’s case today there are no groups of foreigners who pursue to perpetrate acts against it population at widespread level or threaten its nation security ^[2] , there may be minor criminal organizations exploiting migrants and trafficking them, but if un checked it can get much  worse. 
 The second interest to satisfy is the ontological security, we’ll define it as the form of security that is provided by order, continuity and stability in the lives of the citizen of a country, and this approximately summarizes the concept developed by Anthony Giddens (1979). In the case of the Argentina migrants are not seen as people that alter the social order and do not break the internal social balance in general. For example the in countries of the European Union, over the years there’s a growing influx of migrants that has produced a major backlash against these people from the local population. But one must observe the fact that most of the migrants are coming from countries that are ethnically and/or religiously different, this fact causes rejection from the receiving society, because these migrants do not fit within the framework of European identity or the construction of it; so they are seen as disrupters of the social order. (Checkel and Katzenstein, 2008). .

Peter Katzenstein

In other words any group of migrants that does not assimilate themselves into local population, are visibly different and have very different customs, they don’t have to vandalize, liter, be drunk on the streets, pan handle … (just to use a few examples), if the local population does not except them for whatever reason, they’ll view them as people that alter the ontological order.    

Please comment it would be great to see other points of views and I'm very sorry I have dyslexia so my writing can be tad sloppy and confusing, it sucks but I try my best enjoy.

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Cavoti's Black Box: Migratory Policy Part One

Hello my name is Matias Cavoti; I would like to welcome you to my blog where I’m going to write about my views about international politics, currents events, book reviews and other cultural phenomena. For my first series of blogs I’d like start off taking about migratory policy which has become during the last ten years a major international issue, especial during 2015 with the refugee crises in Europe and  immigration  has been a recurring issue during the Republican debate in the US during the past year. Befor we dive in here is a link to a video that I made on the subjet that we are going to work on Magratory Policy part I video, Now lets get back to business what we can say right off the bat we can say that Migratory Policy (MP) is an important political instrument and as I said before it a hot topic for many countries, especially for nations  that are the destination for large masses of immigrants, these recipient nations are in great need for tools to act and control migratory flows that are directed at them and thought a proper MP thatState can help a capitalize on it situation and also gain relative power. The objective for a migratory policy is to find a way to manage this flow of people and how can it serve best the needs/interests of the host country. Any action taken by a country in this matter will inevitably have an impact on the relationship between the nations where the migratory flow starts, transits and ends. 
 
The Migratory policy of a State can have a significant impact on the relationships between the actors in the international system, for example between the country that adopts the measure, and the State or States which expel migrants. The position taken by a country on this subject can strengthen bonds between the parties involved, such as investing in infrastructure that optimizes free movement of border transit with neighbor countries or on the contrary it produces conflicts, for example the expulsion or deportation of anyone who belongs to a certain nationality in a systematic manner without satisfactory reason or explanation. 


The overall objective of a migratory policy is to act on the influx of migrants that are trying to enter a country or the flow of people that are trying to leave. The argentine author Lelio Marmora classifies these policies in 4 categories: "retention, promotion, regulation, recover/ incorporation” (Marmora; 2004; p. 99), you have to keep in mind these policies are not exclusive or exclude any other political options. For a country to take one of these positions, it must define its migratory policy based on its interests and needs, but it is very important to take into account is how each State sees itself, how it establishes its identity, because this will influence its view of the world and how to act on transnational phenomenon like immigration, and finally this  will condition its decisions. In other words, needs and interests are conditioned by how a State defines its identity and its role in the international system; this is valid for any state and its view of any international situation. In the case immigrants are perceived differently by each actor; and because of this every State defines migrants differently to serve them best.

Something you must to add to the mix, is time, it’s another factor that affects perception on migrants, or on any international issue. An actors position on any question my change over time do to its experience. United States of America views immigrants very differently at the beginning of the 1900’s, than how they perceive them now. And finally the last ingredient is the location of a State its fundamental, migrants chose some states over others; do to means of transport to get there, climate, geo-economics reasons… etc. So we can conclude that time, space and identity, determines need and interest of a State, and in this case how to manage migrants. So because of this we can observe a very dynamic world in constant change where in many instances policy and/or laws tends to fall behind the true necessities of a state and here’s where the problems starts. Something very important you can infer from this is nothing last forever, everything end sooner or later or transformers in to something else, this is true with any international subject like immigration.


Guys check out my Video in the Subject on you tube  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxwjH4TF7NE

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