While Africa’s rapid urbanisation is expected to transform many aspects of political, economic and social life, decades of Africanist research shows that urban migration rarely severs rural ties. Building on this tradition, we use original survey data from 472 residents of Nairobi, Kenya, to examine how multiple forms of rural connection vary with urban duration and urban (re)orientation. We conceptualise four analytically distinct linkages – direct personal contact, provision of material support, anticipation of a rural safety net and spiritual connection – and measure each within a single empirical framework. We find that rural linkages do not diminish over time among first-generation migrants, but do decline across generations, with spiritual ties being especially persistent. Strong rural linkages are generally associated with weaker integration into urban social and political life. By disaggregating rural–urban connections and situating them in the temporal dynamics of urban residence, this article clarifies when and how African urbanisation transforms social and political orientations and provides a framework for cross-city and cross-country comparison.

What explains the contested conditions for migrant worker citizenship under socialism? Migration scholarship often elides socialist contexts, tracing migrant deservingness to the neoliberal rise of labor-based conditionality for legal status across Western states in the late twentieth century. However, a broader historiography suggests that socialist states, despite their institutional differences, conditioned migrant inclusion on labor performance throughout the twentieth century. To explain how this form of civic conditionality operated under socialism, this paper draws on the case of migrant “limit” worker management in Moscow from the early 1960s to 1987. Using archival materials, I show that state-owned enterprises operated as migration intermediaries, establishing and enforcing a labor-based conditionality for local citizenship even as the state pursued additional civic aims. I find that civic campaigns initiated in the early 1960s provided an ideological framework and material base for enterprises to govern migrant workers at their dormitories. Managers and officials at the dormitory redirected resources intended for social activism and cultural tutelage toward ensuring baseline productivity and compliance. Enterprise managers and union officials additionally substituted the material conditions at the dormitory for the assessments of individual migrants’ moral and productive status. This paper extends the literature on migrant deservingness to a socialist context, showing how conditionality for civic inclusion develops beyond the neoliberal shifts in contemporary citizenship.

What is the relationship between Chinese migrants and China? Can modern Chinese migration be compared to colonization? This article examines how Chinese intellectuals in the first half of the twentieth century grappled with these questions through their writings in Dongfang zazhi (东方杂志, 1904–1948) and Nanyang yanjiu (南洋研究, 1928–1944). It shows that although these intellectuals acknowledged the territorial dimensions of Chinese migration—particularly in Southeast Asia—they defined colonization through the European model and stressed the fundamental differences between Chinese migration and Western or Japanese colonialism. Their perspectives also evolved over time, from initially advocating colonization and racial vitality in the early twentieth century, to proclaiming a different path after the Republican Revolution in 1911, and later to reimagining post-Second World War Chinese migration as not just a nationalist project but also a movement of decolonization and localization. The article highlights the case of Li Changfu, a pioneering scholar whose writings epitomized these evolving perspectives and illustrated the efforts among Chinese intellectuals to move beyond both the Western colonial framework and the China-centred national model in formulating a world-historical approach. Yet their attempts also revealed enduring tensions, including the tendency to essentialize Chinese identity even as they sought to break from colonial and national paradigms and construct new narratives. Their engagement with the ‘colonial question’ offers fresh insight into contemporary historiographical debates over the role of colonialism and empire-buiding in Chinese history.

We combine mathematical modeling, population growth data, archaeological survey data, and GIS analysis to project that tens of thousands of archaeological sites will be destroyed by development in Illinois by the year 2100. Climate-driven migration from less hospitable areas of the United States is likely to contribute to the growth and expansion of existing municipalities, converting millions of hectares of natural and agricultural land into urban land. A scenario of 1% annual growth over the next 80 years will impact about 55,000 sites in the state, most of which are undocumented. The damage is likely to be even more severe in other areas of the world as the global trends of population increase and urbanization accelerate the expansion of large urban areas in archaeologically rich regions.

In 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to allow over a million asylum seekers to cross the border into Germany. One key concern was that her decision would signal an open‐door policy to aspiring migrants worldwide – thus further increasing migration to Germany and making the country permanently more attractive to irregular and humanitarian migrants. This ‘pull‐effect’ hypothesis has been a mainstay of policy discussions ever since. With the continued global rise in forced displacement, not appearing welcoming to migrants has become a guiding principle for the asylum policy of many large receiving countries. In this article, we exploit the unique case study that Merkel's 2015 decision provides for answering the fundamental question of whether welcoming migration policies have sustained effects on migration towards destination countries. We analyze an extensive range of data on migration inflows, migration aspirations and online search interest between 2000 and 2020. The results reject the ‘pull effect’ hypothesis while reaffirming states’ capacity to adapt to changing contexts and regulate migration.

What preferences do people have for cross‐country cooperation on irregular migration and refugee protection? Existing research improves our understanding of how voters react to large‐scale inflows of asylum seekers, like those experienced by European countries in 2015–2016, and the type of asylum seekers and policies preferred by European citizens. We know less, however, about people's views concerning a particular European Union (EU) response to the so‐called ‘refugee crisis’, namely the cooperation with Turkey in March 2016 to stem inflows of asylum seekers and other migrants. To study such views, we build on several strands of the international relations literature exploring key determinants of public preferences for international cooperation on cross‐national issues, namely (a) sociotropic concerns, (b) humanitarian considerations, and (c) perceptions of fairness and reciprocity. Our research design leverages conjoint experiments conducted simultaneously in Germany, Greece and Turkey. We find that the three factors indeed play a role in explaining preferences in the three countries. Moreover, while respondents are favourable to several core features of the current EU–Turkey migration deal (regarding the return of irregular migrants, financial aid to refugees, and border controls), we also find evidence of public support for increased cooperation on resettlement and EU support to Greece to deal with migration, which goes beyond the status quo. In certain aspects of cooperation, public preferences seem to respond to interactions between policy dimensions that capture reciprocity. These findings have important implications for research on public preferences for asylum and migration policies and public support for international cooperation more generally.

The free movement of people is a fundamental principle of the European Union (EU) that has led to an increase in EU‐internal migration. This study investigates the impact of increased immigration to Germany resulting from the 2004 and 2007 eastern enlargement of the EU on concerns about immigration within the German population. By merging 20 years of annual migration statistics with panel data on individual attitudes and exploiting exogenous variation in the gradual enlargement of the free movement policy, we examine the causal effects of EU‐internal migration on immigration concerns. Our findings suggest that the influx of immigrants from new member states did not have a clear average effect on concerns about immigration, but increased concerns among German natives with materialist‐survival values. The study provides insights into the societal division caused by opposition to immigration as part of the European integration process.

Contributing to the emerging debate on non-resident citizens’ electoral preferences, this article addresses how migratory contexts affect their propensity to vote for populists. Employing two original datasets with information of external voting results from Latin America and Southern Europe, this study suggests that while external voters are on average slightly less likely to vote for populists than domestic voters, this varies meaningfully from country to country. It depends on the type of populism, populists’ incumbency, and the ideological preferences in the country of residence.

Based on 44 qualitative interviews with transnationally mobile people engaged in 28 different associations in Switzerland, this article tries to understand the motives behind the choice to volunteer, i.e. to actively and regularly engage in associations. These interviews reveal the great importance of associations in fostering inclusion in both the new living place and the place of origin. They further reveal that mobile people, no matter where they come from or why they are on the move, turn to associations for similar motives. In order of importance, they turn to associations to secure material advantages, to find ways of defining their identity in a manner that is both coherent and compatible with the host society and to socialize with people who are thought of as trustworthy.

In this paper, we address the role of civil society organisations (CSOs) in Italy with regard to the integration of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees (MRAs) in the labour market. The paper analyses the role played by CSOs in practice, looking at the dynamics of demand and offer of services through the perspective of both the CSOs and MRAs. To achieve this, we combine qualitative data from semi-structured interviews to CSO representatives as well as MRAs. Our findings point out that the fragmentation of the policy framework in terms of employment and integration, and an unfavourable legislation (above all, migration law) shape the kind of prevalent activities of CSOs and negatively impact the potential for integration of MRAs in the labour market. In general, much is left to the single CSO to fill in the needs of MRAs beyond minimal provisions established by law, with just asylum seekers and refugees having better opportunities and support. Furthermore, we can also observe how economic migrants generally tend to be less supported.

Literature in the field of employability and the third sector has focused upon the impact of marketisation on third sector providers, elaborating how commissioning processes have led to a contraction of (smaller) third sector organisations (TSOs) and an expansion of larger private sector bodies. Extant research does not however explore the role of third sector organisations in the employability of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Therefore, our paper explores this gap by adopting a qualitative approach via a total of 36 interviews involving migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and managers of third sector organisations, alongside a categorisation of TSOs. Our findings reveal that TSOs are the primary (and for asylum seekers perhaps the only) providers of integration support services and training or education services. We found that only a limited number of organisations provide formal employability services or skills development services which seem to be only residual in terms of the range of activities that TSOs can organise. Thus, perhaps the main function that TSOs perform that enables integration into the UK labour market is providing a safe and trusted environment that people can use to increase their confidence, improve their well-being, broaden their social circle, learn the language or increase their work experience.

The article examines the meaning of migrants’ (dis)enfranchisement within democratic polities, focusing on ideas of political authority and agency derived from democratic theory. Building on the notion that democratic voting represents a mutual and second-personal exercise of authority, the article argues that the disenfranchisement of migrants signifies their exclusion from agential authoritative relationships in politics, and ultimately, from a quintessential democratic mode of political agency. We recall some of the principles for expanding voting rights and acknowledge that there may be reasons in favor of exclusion. However, we highlight how any such exclusion (re)shapes the political relationships instantiated in the practice of voting. While we rebut the challenge of “voting fetishism,” we conclude by discussing how alternative forms of political participation for migrants, though important, cannot compensate for the unique impoverishment of political authority and agency that disenfranchisement specifically incurs.

The variation among countries when it comes to the admittance of forced migrants – refugees and asylum seekers – is substantial. This article explains part of this variation by developing and testing an institutional explanation to the admission of forced migrants; more precisely, it investigates the impact of domestic welfare state institutions on admission. Building on comparative welfare state research, it is hypothesised that comprehensive welfare state institutions will have a positive effect on the admission of forced migrants to a country. There are three features of comprehensive welfare state institutions that could steer policies towards forced migrants in a more open direction. First, these institutions have been shown to impact on the boundaries of social solidarity. Second, they enhance generalised trust. And third, they can impact on the citizens’ view of what the state should and can do in terms of protecting individuals. The argument is tested using a broad comparative dataset of patterns of forced migration, covering 17 OECD countries between 1980 and 2003. This analysis shows that comprehensive welfare state institutions have a significant positive effect on the admission of forced migrants, under control for a number of factors often highlighted in migration research.

New divisions have emerged within the European Union over the handling of the recent migration crisis. While both frontline and favoured destination countries are called upon to deal with the number of migrants looking for international protection and better living conditions, no consensus has been reached yet on the quota‐based mechanisms for the relocation of refugees and financial help to exposed countries proposed by the EU. Such mechanisms pose a trade‐off for member states: the EU's response to the crisis offers help to countries under pressure, but it inevitably requires burden‐sharing among all EU members and a limitation of their national sovereignty. Within this scenario, the article compares how public opinion and political elites in ten different EU countries view a common EU migration policy grounded on solidarity and burden‐sharing. By tracing both within‐ and cross‐national patterns of convergence (and divergence), the article shows that contextual factors influence policy preferences, with support for solidarity measures being stronger in countries with higher shares of illegal migrants and asylum seekers. While individuals’ predispositions, identity and ideological orientations account for both masses’ and elites’ attitudes towards burden‐sharing measures, subjective evaluations and beliefs concerning the severity of the crisis provide additional and alternative explanations when looking at the public's preferences. In particular, it is found that concern about the flow of migrants to Europe consolidates the impact of contextual factors, whereas the overestimation of the immigrant population fosters hostility against solidarity measures, with both effects more pronounced as the country's exposure to the crisis increases. In the light of these results, the main implication of this study is that EU institutions have to primarily address entrenched beliefs and misperceptions about immigrants to enhance public support for a joint approach to migration.