Search

The 1990s has been a turbulent decade for inter-national migration in the UNECE region. While recorded movements have declined in recent years in Western Europe, major questions surround the frequency of unrecorded and irregular migrations which many believe are steadily increasing in number, though the evidence is problematic. Central and Eastern Europe is characterised by short-term, short-distance, cross-border movement, most of which is foreconomic purposes and takes advantage of the openness of the informal sector. In North America the main thrust of immigration has long been towards permanent settlement, whereas in Europe most migration has, initially at any rate, been temporary, albeit frequently leading to settled immigrant communities. In the 1990s immigration debates in Canada and the US seem to have increasing echoes of those across the Atlantic. Especially in the US the 'immigrationethos' is increasingly questioned. This paper elaborates on these issues by attempting to identify what is actually happening. How important is migration? What are the patterns and trends? How significant are new and unrecordedtypes of flows? What dilemmas are presented to the managers of the UNECEmigration systems? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1960s the relationship of Western European countries with Turkey has been intertwined with the high profile of migration. In the 1980s and 1990s it has been dominated by transit migration and asylum issues, and continues to develop as a hot debate on what should be done about them. With this back-ground, the present article investigates transit migration and refugee flows in Turkey, evaluates its wider context of the formation of migration, asylum and refugee regimes between Turkey and Europe, and relates the issue of transit migration to the ongoing dynamics of globalisation. It explores the ways in which transit migration flows are associated with the politics of international migration. It does so by taking a careful look at the politics of inter-national migratory regimes (IMRs), interpreting the word 'regime' very loosely to mean a regulatory system which operates in certain interests and distributes powers and advantages or disadvantages. It argues that the globalisation of human mobility has helped to extend inter-national migratory movements in a form of international regulatory system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]