Climate Change, Migration and the Cosmopolitan Dilemma
| Date | 01 May 2016 |
| Author | David Held |
| Published date | 01 May 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12309 |
Climate Change, Migration and the
Cosmopolitan Dilemma
David Held
Durham University
Abstract
At its simplest, migration refers to the movement of people and their temporary or permanent geographical relocation. People
have always been on the move and they have moved over great distances. In this article I set out a brief historical under-
standing of migration, and then focus on Europe and, finally, current dilemmas of European migration policy. In an era of cli-
mate change, war and uneven development, the pressures of migration have grown and could soon create an ever greater
avalanche of movement. States act in a paradoxical way. On the one hand, they recognise the nature of the migration crisis
and the necessity to broaden the definition of those who need urgent assistance. On the other hand, most host countries act
on increasingly narrow definitions of those who warrant assistance and perhaps resettlement. This dilemma is examined and
tentative steps are set down to show how it might be resolved.
In this article I sketch something of the history of people on
the move. I set out an historical understanding of migration,
and then focus on Europe and, finally, current dilemmas of
European migration policy. These dilemmas are acute: liberal
and democratic states entrench the rights and duties of their
citizens, while policing their borders to ensure these privi-
leges are rarely available to others. In this lies their dual role
as champions of the universal and the particular, creating a
tension, if not contradiction, at the heart of their structure
and policies –which constantly pushes and pulls them in dif-
ferent directions.
Core trends
One form of globalisation is more ubiquitous than any other
–human migration (see Held et al., 1999). At its simplest,
migration refers to the movement of people and their tem-
porary or permanent geographical relocation. People have
always been on the move and they have moved over great
distances. There are many impulses behind these move-
ments: victorious armies and empires have swept across and
implanted themselves into new territories; the defeated and
dispossessed have fled to defensible land and safer havens;
the enslaved have been torn from their homes and relo-
cated in the lands of the enslaver; convicts and prisoners
have been forcefully relocated; the unemployed and the
underemployed have searched for work; the persecuted
have sought asylum; and the curious and adventurous have
always been travelling, drifting and exploring.
William McNeill argued that two distinctions, one geo-
graphical, one social, characterise most forms of migration
in human history: central and peripheral migration and elite
and mass migrations (McNeill 1976; 1978). Most often, elite
migrations have taken the form of military-led conquests on
the periphery of states and empires, followed by the
settlement of border regions and marches by an aristocracy
and their subalterns. This kind of settlement could be
accompanied by elite migrations of missionaries, merchants
and bureaucrats as well as by the mass migration of settling
nomads and peasant agrarians moving on to new, less pop-
ulated lands. Migrations to the periphery must be distin-
guished from flows to the centre: local elites migrate to the
centres of political power and economic activity in cities
and royal courts, while the rural poor and skilled head to
the city in search of work. McNeill’s model is well suited to
the greater part of human history in which centre and
periphery, urban and rural, provide a more accurate repre-
sentation of political space than one demarcated by fixed
political borders. Indeed, it can be argued that it was out-
ward migrations that helped define and extend the outer
limits of political control of a state or empire rather than the
crossing of immutable political boundaries.
The large-scale movement of people and peoples has an
enormously long history (Fagan, 1990; Emmer, 1993; Bacci,
2012). Since the emergence of the first rudimentary states
over 6,000 years ago, human migrations have crossed fragile
boundaries as well as extended and reshaped them.
Nomads have crossed continents and carved out new
empires. Some older polities have acquired an internal dyna-
mism that allowed them to push outwards from the centre.
Religion and economics have propelled missionaries and
merchants across continents. Here I outline some of the
main lines of migration history as they have been shaped
by Europe and, in turn, shape Europe.
Most migrations were, more accurately, regional rather
than global in extent (though Islam’s African, European
and South East Asian outposts do indicate processes of
global migration). From the late 16th century, however, a
case can be made that levels of migration significantly
increased as a result of Europe’s changing economic and
Global Policy (2016) 7:2 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12309 ©2016 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 7 . Issue 2 . May 2016 237
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