Research cluster A1 International migration and its regulations
The main focus of cluster A1 is international migration as such. It does not deal with the causes and consequences of migration. Nor does it address the different dimensions of the integration process and the legal inclusion or exclusion of migrants. The process of migration, its conceptual delineation and the statistical recognition are in the centre of the A1-interests: How can we define and measure international migration and mobility in Europe? What are the most important modes of regulation? Which new forms and patterns of migration have evolved in response to regulation? These are the basic questions of the ongoing research in Cluster A1.
As a result of several cluster meetings and discussions the Members of Cluster A1 developed three different research agendas corresponding to the three main and principal questions:
A first group of cluster members concentrates on the concepts and measurements of stocks and flows used in 13 European countries. The contributors to this task do not only collect and analyse stock and flow data but mainly look at the way these are produced also with a view to assessing the usefulness of these statistics. Their results show that the individual states have their own traditions of measuring foreigners, migrants, resettlers or guest workers and that there is as yet no common and strictly comparable way of representing migration flows in statistics.
Migration flows are highly regulated and by no means freely and only steered by economic disparities between the countries of origin and destination. Cluster members working in a second task aim to provide a systematic overview of instruments of regulation and to summarise these in a typology of modes of regulation. In addition, their work will discuss the efficiency of different systems of steering and managing international migration.
Finally, a third group of cluster members addresses the irregular migration processes in Europe. This task was closely linked to the modes of regulation. Irregular migration is – to some extent – “produced” by migration policies. This does not mean that policies force people to migrate irregularly but that the official definition of regular migration automatically determines all other forms to be irregular.
The cluster members aim to work towards one or possibly several publications and one or several research proposals.
