One of the most important challenges concerning the future of the European Union is the demographic reproduction of the European population. Decreasing birth-rates and the retirement of the baby boomers will dramatically reduce the labour force in the EU, which will entail not only a lack of manpower but also lower contributions to European social systems. It seems clear that the EU will have to counterbalance this population decrease by immigration in the coming years. Migration Between the Middle East, North Africa and Europe takes this challenge as a point of departure for analysing the MENA region, in particular Morocco, Egypt and Turkey, as a possible source of future migration to the European Union. At the same time, it illustrates the uncertainties implied in such calculations, especially at a time of radical political changes, such as those brought about by the Arab Uprising.

'In this outstanding contribution to scholarship on the politics of migration, Tsourapas shows how migration policies in the Global South are shaped by power and interests. Based on rich historical research, Migration diplomacy unveils the range of strategies used by Middle Eastern and North African states to link human mobility to broader political goals.' Alexander Betts, Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs, University of Oxford 'Tsourapas provides us with a fascinating analytical framework and argues that the politics of migratory movements can be better understood when looked at through the lens of migration diplomacy.' Ahmet Içduygu, Professor of International Relations and Sociology, Koç University 'Tsourapas has produced a deeply-researched, beautifully written and thought-provoking addition to the burgeoning literature on migration diplomacy. His book is a must-read text for anyone interested in the study of migration, diasporic mobilization and the politics of the MENA region.' Kelly M. Greenhill, Research Fellow, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University How does migration feature in states’ diplomatic agendas across the Middle East? Migration diplomacy provides the first systematic examination of the foreign policy importance of migrants, refugees and diasporas in the Global South. Tsourapas examines how emigration-related processes become embedded in governmental practices of establishing and maintaining power; how states engage with migrant and diasporic communities residing in the West; how oil-rich Arab monarchies have extended their support for a number of sending states’ ruling regimes via cooperation on labour migration; and, finally, how labour and forced migrants may serve as instruments of political leverage. Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork and data collection and employing a range of case-studies across the Middle East and North Africa, Tsourapas identifies how the management of cross-border mobility in the Middle East is not primarily dictated by legal, moral, or human rights considerations but driven by states’ actors key concern – political power.

Seeking to understand why host states treat migrants and refugees inclusively, exclusively, or without any direct engagement, Kelsey P. Norman offers this original, comparative analysis of the politics of asylum seeking and migration in the Middle East and North Africa. While current classifications of migrant and refugee engagement in the Global South mistake the absence of formal policy and law for neglect, Reluctant Reception proposes the concept of 'strategic indifference', where states proclaim to be indifferent toward migrants and refugees, thereby inviting international organizations and local NGOs to step in and provide services on the state's behalf. Using the cases of Egypt, Morocco and Turkey to develop her theory of 'strategic indifference', Norman demonstrates how, by allowing migrants and refugees to integrate locally into large informal economies, and by allowing organizations to provide basic services, host countries receive international credibility while only exerting minimal state resources.

The countries of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean (SEM) and those in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are crucial to the development of the world economy. Highly skilled migration to and from these regions is key to the recent socio-political transformations that have occurred across the world. Despite this, in the states concerned, skilled migration remains an underlying 'issue of concern', rather than at the top of political agendas, leading to a spectrum of unclear and uncoordinated legal and policy frameworks. Containing a series of thematic and country-specific overviews, this book highlights the specificity of each region, and identifies and analyses key demographic, economic, legal and political data - allowing for policy prescription. Skilled Migration, the 'brain drain', and its impact is an extensively debated phenomenon and this will be an essential companion for social scientists, policy-makers and development scholars.

The countries of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean (SEM) and those in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are crucial to the development of the world economy. Highly skilled migration to and from these regions is key to the recent socio-political transformations that have occurred across the world. Despite this, in the states concerned, skilled migration remains an underlying 'issue of concern', rather than at the top of political agendas, leading to a spectrum of unclear and uncoordinated legal and policy frameworks. Containing a series of thematic and country-specific overviews, this book highlights the specificity of each region, and identifies and analyses key demographic, economic, legal and political data - allowing for policy prescription. Skilled Migration, the 'brain drain', and its impact is an extensively debated phenomenon and this will be an essential companion for social scientists, policy-makers and development scholars--Bloomsbury Publishing.

This ground-breaking book is one of the first to analyse the important phenomenon of South-South educational migration for refugees. It focuses particularly on South-South scholarship programmes in Cuba and Libya, which have granted free education to children, adolescents and young adults from two of the world’s most protracted refugee situations: Sahrawis and Palestinians. Through in-depth multi-sited fieldwork conducted with and about Sahrawi and Palestinian refugee students in Cuba and Libya, and following their return to the desert-based Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria and the urban Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, this highly pertinent study brings refugees’ views and voices to the forefront and sheds a unique light on their understandings of self-sufficiency, humanitarianism and hospitality. It critically assesses the impact of diverse policies designed to maximise self-sufficiency and to reduce both brain drain and ongoing dependency upon Northern aid providers, exploring the extent to which South-South scholarship systems have challenged the power imbalances that typically characterise North to South development models. Finally, this very timely study discusses the impact of the Arab Spring on Libya’s support mechanisms for Sahrawi and Palestinian refugees, and considers the changing nature of Cuba’s educational model in light of major ongoing political, ideological and economic shifts in the island state, asking whether there is a future for such alternative programmes and initiatives. This book will be a valuable resource for students, researchers and practitioners in the areas of migration studies, refugee studies, comparative education, development and humanitarian studies, international relations, and regional studies (Latin America, Middle East, and North Africa).

Although contemporary migration in and from Africa can be understood as a continuation of earlier forms of interregional and international migration, current processes of migration seem to have taken on a new quality. This volume argues that one of the main reasons for this is the fact that local worlds are increasingly measured against a set of possibilities whose referents are global, not local. Due to this globalization of the personal and societal horizons of possibilities in Africa and elsewhere, in many contexts migration gains an almost inevitable attraction while, at the same time, actual migration becomes increasingly restricted.Based on detailed ethnographic accounts, the contributors to this volume focus on the imaginations, expectations, and motivations that propel the pursuit of migration. Decentering the focus of much of migration studies on the receiving societies, the volume foregrounds the subjective aspect of migration and explores the impact which the imagination and practice of migration have on the sociocultural conditions of the various local settings concerned.