After the Second World War, the international migration regime in Europe took a course different from the global migration regime and the migration regimes in other regions of the world. Cumbersome and arbitrary administrative practices prevailed in the late 1940s in most parts of Europe. The gradual implementation of regulations for the free movement of people within the European Community, European citizenship, and the internal and external dimensions of the Schengen agreements profoundly transformed the European migration regime. These instruments produced a regional regime in Europe with an unparalleled degree of intraregional openness and an unparalleled degree of closure towards migrants from outside Europe. This book relies on national and international archives to explain how German strategies during the Cold War shaped the openness of that original regime. This migration regime helped Germany to create a stable international order in Western Europe after the war, conducive to German Reunification and supported German economic expansion. The book embraces the whole period of development of this regime, from 1947 through 1992. It deals with all types of migrants between and towards European countries: unskilled labourers, skilled professionals, self-employed workers, and migrant workers' family members, examining both their access to economic activity and their social and political rights.

About the Author

Emmanuel Comte is a Senior Research Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) in Athens, Greece.

Reviews

"The History of the European Migration Regime is a systematic and thorough account of the emergence of a unique free migration space within Europe. ... Comte's meticulous analysis of the national and European sources in the period 1947-1992 shows that the gradual extension of the freedom to move within the European Community was the outcome of constant negotiations between member states, but foremost between Germany and France." - Leo Lucassen, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam

"In this illuminating and timely book, ... Emmanuel Comte details the nearly half-century history of how Europe's regime of internal open borders came into existence. ... This book is a significant achievement. It adds a much-needed "European" dimension to a historiography that has mostly told national stories. ... This book will be read with great profit by migration historians and scholars of European integration." - Christopher A. Molnar, University of Michigan-Flint, American Historical Review

"The French historian, who has taught and worked since his doctorate at Berkeley, the EUI in Florence and most recently at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, shows what intensive and protracted political efforts it took to establish a European Union without internal borders. ... Comte's book is ground-breaking in a very relevant field of European integration, and most recently, disintegration." - Philipp Ther, University of Vienna, Journal of European Integration History

"The book provides a solid foundation in the history of immigration policy in Europe during a crucial period, and is recommended for those studying this region and the historical antecedents of today's policy environment." - Christopher L. Atkinson, University of West Florida

"The historical survey remains remarkably succinct and balances its attention between national and international policymaking. Appropriately, the primary sources reflect deep archival research at both levels, and Comte must be commended for collating sources from across multiple languages. Particularly for social scientists that often synthesise the primary research of others, this book offers a rich body of information and analysis uniting national politics and economics within a dynamic framework that traces the emergence of European governance of migration." - Alexander Caviedes, State University of New York

"The book is an important intervention in its move beyond the national level." - Jennifer Miller, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

"Comte succeeds in the daunting task of delivering a clear argument based on more than 40 years of history without getting lost in pluri-annual archival research, undertaken in multiple languages. His book represents an important contribution to the existing literature as an easy-to-read text fit for a wide audience of both academic scholars and policymakers interested in how and to what extent the current European migration regime was shaped by German influence and which other underlying national interests it came to represent over time." - Maria Chiara Vinciguerra, University of Cambridge

"This book offers a well-researched and rich political history of how the open migration regime within Europe formed." - Melissa Schnyder, American Public University

Book Information
ISBN 9781138060524
Author Emmanuel Comte
Format Hardback
Page Count 234
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 453g