Exploring the Dynamic Intersections of Migration, Globalization, and the State

Abstract

Human migration has long been a feature of the global system. In the era of European colonialism, the voluntary migration of Europeans to Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas would export the Westphalian state system on a global level. Through the mid-19th century, the forced migration of approximately 15 million slaves from the African continent to the Americas enabled the development of global empires and a global economic market, and reshaped the racial composition of the Americas (Ahern, this volume; Castles and Miller, 2009, pp. 80–82). Prior to World War I, economic opportunities in the Americas prompted a wave of European immigration to the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay that would facilitate nation-building and expansion, and further change the racial and ethnic composition of those countries (Solimano, 2010). Whether the causes of migration have been rooted in economic, political, religious, or cultural factors, migrants have played an instrumental role in shaping their destination societies and, indeed, the course of global politics.