Migration is certainly not a new phenomenon. Yet measured in absolute numbers more people than ever before seem to be willing and able to move. The proliferation of migration movements poses a challenge to governments of liberal democracies. Their attitude towards international population mobility is ambivalent. On the one hand we see a firm belief that free mobility of people, information, capital and goods is an asset for the further development of economies and societies. On the other hand immigration from the third world and the former communist countries is seen as a threat to the European welfare states.

In this situation governments are under a strong pressure to show that they can manage international migration processes. New migration laws and regulations have been issued to regulate migration, but it seems to be very difficult to put these policy measures into practice.

This book offers an analytical framework which makes it understandable why it is for democratic governments so difficult to intervene successfully in migration processes. It presents this theoretical approach in the context of concrete case studies of the European situation. This makes it possible to, assess realistically in the final chapter the possibilities for migration regulation by democratic states in a globalized world...

Hans van Amersfoort is professor of population geography at the University of Amsterdam and a staff member of the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES). Jeroen Doomernik is Senior Research Fellow at the IMES.