The Not So Silent Revolution Postwar Migration to Western Europe

Abstract

In the 1990s scholars working within the subfield of immigration studies in Western Europe have advanced four major arguments. (1) In a liberal era of global economic markets the capacity of states to govern their territorial borders has significantly eroded. (2) The widespread diffusion of liberal norms has severely inhibited the ability of governments to execute a rational immigrant policy. (3) The experience of mass immigration has transformed the boundaries of national citizenship. And 4) postwar immigration has fostered the surge of radical right-wing populist movements. This article evaluates these arguments in light of the evidence presented in both the collected scholarship under review and other select works. It concludes by arguing the case for new scholarly initiatives to synthesize and unify the separate literatures represented by the volumes under review.