The role of political discourse in the communication of security issues is fundamental to the Copenhagen School’s framework of securitization. In their work, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (1998), the Copenhagen School set out to challenge traditional International Relations theory by questioning the primacy of state-centric approaches that narrowly focus on military aspects of security. Whilst broadening the areas of security to include economic, societal, political and environmental threats, they also proposed that threats are articulated through the “speech acts” of mainly political elites. By signaling threats discursively via “securitizing moves”, political elites inform the audience of the existence of security threats. However, the Copenhagen School fails to address the political partiality of such pronouncements. The focus of this analysis is to examine the persuasive discursive practices employed by political elites to encourage audience consent with a specific focus on political elite portrayals of inward migration in relation to security. In their work, “Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe” (1993), the Copenhagen School outlined a nexus between security and transnational migration within a Western context. Using content analysis and critical discourse analysis methods, this analysis will provide a comparative cross-national study of how migration is constituted as a security threat. By analysing political elite discourse as presented in speeches and as recontextualised in media portrayals in two major South East Asian receiving countries, Malaysia and Singapore, this thesis assesses the applicability of the Copenhagen School approach in alternative locations. Adopting a thematic approach, it examines how migrants are depicted via political discourse as threats to societal, economic and political security and how the feminization of migration in recent years has been depicted as a security challenge. A cross-national comparison of political discourse relating to the migrant/security nexus reveals not only how discursive formulations of security by political elites are constructed in order to legitimise policy and practices, but how similar issues may be addressed differently. Both Malaysia and Singapore have a long history of immigration, which is reflected in their diverse multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-cultural societies. Geographically co-located and with a shared historical legacy, both have become increasingly dependent on migrant labour to support economic growth and receive relatively large intakes of migrants from neighbouring countries. Yet, there are significant differences in how migrants are depicted in relation to security. Challenges are proposed to the framework that the Copenhagen School propounds. Moreover, I contend that the constructed nature of political discourse allows the potential for a more nuanced and normative discourse that could desecuritize migration and focus more positively on its benefits and upon alternative non-elite perspectives of security.

A bicultural approach to the politics of settler-indigenous relations, rapidly increasing ethnocultural diversity and its status as an ex-British settler society, make Auckland a fascinating and complex context in which to examine contemporary British migrants. However, despite Britain remaining one of the largest source countries for migrants in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the country's popularity as a destination among British emigrants, contemporary arrivals have attracted relatively little attention. This thesis draws on twelve-months of qualitative research, including in-depth interviews with forty-six participants, photo-elicitation with a smaller group, and participant observation, in order to develop a nuanced account of participants' narratives, everyday experiences and personal geographies of Auckland. This thesis adopts a lens attentive to the relationship between the past and the present in order to explore British migrants' imaginaries of sameness and difference, national belonging, place and ‘the good life' in Aotearoa New Zealand. First, through attention to the ‘colonial continuities' of participants' popular geographical and temporal imaginaries of Aotearoa New Zealand, and the lifestyles they associate with it, this thesis is part of growing attention to historical precedents of ‘the good life' in international lifestyle migration literature. Secondly, by examining participants' relations with Māori, other ethnicised groups, bi- and multiculturalism, I expand on whether these migrants' invest, or not, in ‘the settler imaginary' (Bell 2014). In doing so, I bring crucial nuance to understandings of ethnic and cultural difference, and settler-indigenous relations, in globalising white settler spaces. As neither fully ‘them' nor ‘us' (Wellings 2011), British migrants occupy an ambiguous position in ex-British settler societies. Finally, I examine participants' notions of shared ancestry and of cultural familiarity with Pākehā, and, in doing so, problematise the notion of Britishness as a natural legacy or passive inheritance in this context.

This thesis deals with the historical evolution, social networks, and – above all – the political participation of Italian citizens who are resident in London. The value of my research stems from an increasing interest – evident in the literature – in migrant transnational identities and in the political participation of migrant groups both in their home and host countries. Also relevant is the growing importance of London as a destination for Italian migrants. The study adopts a theoretical framework based on political opportunity structure and on the construction of social and community identity. It deploys a mix of methods that involve a questionnaire, ethnographic methods such as open and semi-structured interviews and participant observation, and some elements of discourse analysis, in order to analyse the social and political activity of three components of the Italian communities who are resident in London: the “old” migrants who arrived in the UK between the end of World War Two and the late 1970s; their descendants, the British-born Italians; and the “new” migrants, who have moved to London since the mid-1980s. Comparison across these three waves produces important insights into the development of Italian identity in London over more than half a century. In the three main empirical chapters the thesis examines (1) what characterises the Italian presence, in terms of socio-economic characteristics and identification; (2) how an Italian institutional and associational network, active in London, influences the building of a collective identity in the Italian communities and helps mobilise them; and (3) to what degree and how London Italians think they may contribute to political, social, and cultural change in their home and host countries. The primary data that I present show that belonging to one of the three generational groups outlined above has a great impact on the ties with both the UK and Italy and, in particular, with the Italian institutional and associational network in London; that this network plays an important role in the emergence of a new discourse on “Italianness” among recently arrived Italian migrants; that different forms of Italian identity are constructed and performed by Italians from the three different groups in their interaction with the social and political opportunity structure they experience in London; and finally that all this affects local and transnational political loyalties and behaviour.

Immigration has become an increasingly salient issue across Europe in recent years. However, much of the existing economics literature focuses on the impact of immigration on labour markets. In order to gain a more complete understanding of the impact of immigration on a host country, it is important to take a broader perspective. In this thesis we investigate some of the wider effects of immigration on host countries and their native citizens. The thesis contains three self-contained chapters, each of which tries to establish the causal effects of immigration on a separate socio-economic aspect of the host country. Chapter 2 investigates the causal link between migration and trade flows. We exploit the large, exogenous increase in migrants to the UK as a result of the 2004 EU enlargement. In contrast to the standard gravity model approach, we use a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, which enables us to compare changes in UK trade flows with accession countries to changes in UK trade flows with other central and eastern European countries. At the product level, separating goods according to their informational content using the classification put forward by Rauch (1999), we find evidence that UK imports from accession countries increased, and that this was driven by differentiated goods. In Chapter 3 we investigate whether the proportion of migrants in a local area affects the success of an anti-immigration political party. Using Swedish municipality-level data, we focus on the impact of large inflows of migrants, many of whom were refugees, from non-OECD countries in the 1980s and 1990s. In order to address concerns over the endogeneity of migrant location, we exploit a refugee placement policy which aimed to disperse refugees across the country. Initial OLS estimates suggest that a one percentage point increase in the migrant share is associated with a 0.28 percentage point increase in the New Democracy vote share. However, we do not find evidence of a positive relationship between the arrival of refugees and the New Democracy vote share in our 2SLS estimation. Further analysis suggests that our OLS results are driven by municipalities surrounding the three major urban areas of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo. In addition, we find no evidence that natives responded to an influx of migrants by relocating to another area. In Chapter 4 we examine the relationship between immigration and house prices. Focusing on the case of England and Wales, we exploit variation in migrant inflows across local authority districts to identify the effects of migration on changes in house prices. We build on existing papers by conducting the analysis at the local authority district level which enables us to better account for unobserved local level characteristics. In addition, we then exploit data on the postcode of each individual housing transaction in an attempt to better control for housing quality. In our OLS specifications we find no conclusive evidence of any relationship between migrant inflows and changes in house prices. We then address endogeneity concerns by using an instrument based on historical settlement patterns. Although our 2SLS estimates suggest that a 1% increase in the migrant share is associated with a 2.4% fall in house prices, we show that this effect is driven by local authorities in London, and that our instrument based on historical migrant settlement patterns is weak and fails to fulfil the relevance requirement for local authorities outside of London. These findings cast doubt over the suitability of the shift-share instrument for addressing endogeneity concerns in this setting.

The general problem of the morality of borders is to determine what kind of borders liberal democracies ought to have. This in turn raises two particular problems. First to determine the nature of states entitlement to control the administration of political and territorial borders and second, to determine what constitutes to exercise this entitlement in fair terms. This thesis is devoted to the first particular problem. I distinguish two kinds of approaches to legitimate border control: justice-based accounts and legitimacy oriented accounts. I argue that justice-based accounts are inappropriate to frame and address the legitimacy problem of borders because they typically merely assume that a set of institutions apply to those over whom coercion is exercised. But these accounts never provide an explanation about why we (and not others) have legitimate rights over territorial borders. This standard objection shows that these views fail to reach the boundary problem, but it does not say why. In this thesis I advance an explanation. I say that justice-based accounts are unfit to address problems of borders. The idea is that justice-based is a simplified account tailored to the problem of public justification, but this simplification has removed the traits relevant to reach the boundary problem. In contrast I introduced legitimacy-oriented accounts of borders. When legitimacy is not about justice and the problem of public justification of coercion, it is about integrity and the assessment of political power from the point of view of distinct political virtues such as fairness, democratic participation, due process, and justice. Legitimacy as integrity performs a division of labour between distinct conceptions of legitimacy in order to justify political power as a whole including the kind of power that borders exercise. But integrity of international basic institutions like borders point out to porous borders as the appropriate case for liberal democracies.

This thesis examines discussions within the British government held about immigration from the Commonwealth in the period between 1948 and 1964 and clarifies the role the government actors played. The introduction of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962 is an important event in British postwar history so that the political developments leading to the Act have been well researched. However, previous works on this topic have emphasised the role played by Parliament, political parties and politicians in the policy process, while they have neglected the role of non-political actors. Recognising this bias in research, this thesis clarifies the important and indispensable role played by civil servants in the policy process on Commonwealth immigration during this period. Through intensive archival research, in particular on British government documents deposited in the Public Record Office at Kew, this thesis chronologically analyses the policy process on Commonwealth immigration and the role major actors played there. Departmental files which have not been intensively studied so far are surveyed in depth to disclose the discussions among civil servants and their impact on policy development. In the policy process from 1948 to 1964 a small circle of policy experts was formed within the government, consisting of civil servants, in particular from the Home Office, the Colonial Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Ministry of Labour. This policy community worked to exclude political pressure exercised from outside of the government on the one hand and to delineate the government view of, and policy options for, Commonwealth immigration on the other hand. As a result, the social consequences of immigration were much emphasised and restrictive policy measures were consistently sought. This thesis shows that civil servants, whose positions within the government were assured by the existence of such a closed policy community, played a substantial part in the policy process on Commonwealth immigration.

This thesis examines grassroots mobilisations in France and England in support of children and families with no right to remain on the territory. It aims to provide a better understanding of the influence of 'childhood' as a social concept and 'the child' as a social actor on social mobilisations in support of 'non-status' children. It also intends to analyse the impact of national contexts on mobilisations. The study is comparative in scope and relies on the analysis of 1,272 claims made in newspapers and 65 interviews with grassroots campaigners. The thesis first maps the field of contention as it applies to 'non-status' children. It then goes on to investigate actors' pathways into campaigning and their reasons for getting involved and sustaining involvement. It finally considers actors' conscious work to attract and mobilise bystanders. This thesis shows that the presence of children considerably affected campaigning activities. First, children played an important role as key recruiting agents and influential collective actors. Second, childhood as a concept constituted a powerful mobilising factor, and campaigners strategically used the image of the child as innocent and vulnerable when making claims. Overall, mobilisations in support of 'non-status' children and families in France and England presented many similarities, including their strong emotional component and the central role of schools. However, national contexts also played a role in enabling or constraining mobilisations. I identify both structural and discursive differences between the French and English contexts which considerably affected campaigns. In particular, structural differences in the implementation of migration policies had a noticeable effect on campaigners' perceived ability to exert change. Furthermore, mobilisations in France grew into a national network able and willing to make political claims. By contrast, mobilisations in England remained isolated and rarely adopted a political stance, focusing instead on the individual child or family.

Integrativeness (Gardner, 2001) and acculturation (Schumann, 1986) have been influential concepts in the field of second language acquisition (SLA), which propose that second language (L2) learners’ social-psychological identification with the target language (TL) community is essential for successful SLA. The present study ventures to incorporate theories from two separate fields: SLA which has expanded its research scope from cognitive dimensions to social dimensions since the 1990s, and intercultural communication which provides abundant insights into the social integration and identity formation of newcomers in intercultural settings. I explored and co-constructed the hermeneutical meanings which two Japanese women in Britain attached to integration and identity formation, and how such meanings changed over two years. Semi-structured interviews, participant observations, participant diaries, and other supplementary methods (research diaries, e-mails and recordings) were used to collect qualitative data. I played an active role in co-constructing their hermeneutical meanings of interacting with other people in the UK which is presented as a narrative case study. Positioned in a holistic sociocultural perspective, the current research poses questions on fragmentarily defined cognitive constructs, integrativeness and acculturation, and proposes that identification is nurtured and developed through interaction in which one can identify commonalities with one’s interlocutors as individuals, but not solely because of their cultural, ethnic or linguistic affiliations. The participants’ cultural-ethnic identity was often ‘betwixt and between’ in that they felt different from both British and Japanese people who lacked intercultural experience. Such vulnerability of their cultural-ethnic identity was offset by developing a sense of belonging through other social identities (e.g. family, religion) in which mutual acceptance with other members of a community was established. Participants’ cultural-ethnic identity seemed dormant when it was unharmed, but it emerged in the forefront and became the core identity when it was threatened. The participants’ experience of alienation or foreignness triggered them to seek empathetic relationships with other people. This study confirms the importance of the networks formed among foreign nationals who speak English as a lingua franca (ELF), since their sense of comradeship is underpinned by empathy as ‘co-foreigners’ which provided emotional, social and practical support in their daily lives. This study seeks to benefit people who have crossed linguistic, cultural or ethnic boundaries, or people engaged in sending or accepting newcomers who have crossed such boundaries.

This thesis brings together three independent empirical essays which focus on the determinants of individual attitudes towards immigration and the determinants of migrant flows from developing countries to developed countries. The first essay looks at what happens to migrant flows from poor countries as they experience economic development. It examines the relationship between economic development in poor migrant-sending countries and migrant flows from those countries to developed countries, using the UK as a case study. The analysis in this essay relies on UK immigration data from 1973-2005 for 48 developing countries in Africa, Asia and Central and South America. The conclusion from this essay is that there is an inverse If-shape relationship between economic development and the migrant flows from developing countries to the UK, though this relationship is sensitive to aggregation of countries The second essay undertakes a comparative empirical analysis of the relative importance of the impact of economic and cultural concerns on individual attitudes towards immigration. Using data from the fourth round of the European Social Survey the study shows that there is no robust evidence to support the widely held view that economic concerns are more important than cultural concerns in shaping individual attitudes towards immigration. In the third essay a series of analyses are undertaken: first, to examine the extent to which attitudes towards immigration are determined by individual concerns about how immigration affects the welfare state; and second, to evaluate the individual characteristics that shape their subjective views regarding the effects of immigrants on the welfare state. With evidence based on the European Social Survey, the study finds that welfare state concerns are positive and robust determinants of individual attitudes towards predominantly unskilled immigration. It also finds that, older retired individuals are more likely than young or middle-aged individuals to have pessimistic views regarding the effects of immigrants on the welfare state. Hence they are also more likely to oppose immigration. By contrast, skilled individuals are more likely to have optimistic views and hence more likely to have pro-immigration attitudes than unskilled individuals.

In recent time efforts are observed in re-evaluating the linkage between economic development and international migration. The thesis can be considered as an attempt to add something to those efforts. In this thesis we mainly analyse the effects of competition among the countries in international labour market and effects of migration on the research activities of firms. As appeared, these two issues so far have not received much attention of economic literature. We analyse the above mentioned two issues in chapters 4, 5 and 6 of the thesis. Before conducting the main analysis of the thesis, we have explored available data and literature on international migration in chapter 2 and 3. The two chapters were designed to give a global overview of international migration. In chapter 2 we have discussed about international migration using available statistics obtained from secondary sources. The data shows a steady but relatively slow growth rate of world migration since the World War Two. It has however been observed that migration of educated people has increased in recent times. We also have observed that remittances as a percentage of GDP and export are very high in many countries which confirm the importance of remittances. The data also shows that proximity of a wealthy country is an important determinant of international migration destination. In chapter 3 we have reviewed some issues of international migration. The discussion has covered the issues like the determinants of international migration, performance of migrants and consequences of migration in host country, ‘Brain Drain’ or ‘Brain Gain’, migration, remittances and economic development, initiatives of international bodies in international migration. Temporary migration has received special attention in the discussion. Many insights of the research conducted in the thesis have come directly from the reviews conducted in chapter 3. Chapter 4 and 5 set up models where two countries are engaged in competition with each other in sending people aboard. The competition in international labour market is immensely important in many developing countries. Many countries are highly dependent on the remittances thus competing with other countries in sending people to work abroad. These competitions play an active role in intergovernmental negotiations as the countries require to balance between ‘promotion’ of overseas employment and ‘protection’ of migrants. Within economic literature we have not seen efforts to model this competition of labour exporting countries. Chapter 4 has modelled a situation where two exporting countries send labour to a third country. This chapter assumes unskilled migration as such labour migration is entirely controlled by the respective governments. The governments want to send labour to get remittances in return thus engage in a Cournot-type competition with the other labour exporting country. The importing country on the other hand acts as a Stackelberg leader as it sets up its immigration tax policies by moving first. We have observed that the labour importer uses discriminatory tax policies for the different labour exporting countries to fulfil its national objective. The tax rate is higher for the country with higher labour endowment. Chapter 5 has adopted a similar model as chapter 4. However the assumption of unskilled migration has been replaced by the assumption of skilled migration. It is thus assumed that migrants do not need governments’ assistance to migrate or governments are not in a position to control migration. Thus they use taxes to control migration and maximise national income. In this regard the exporting countries engage in Bertrand type competition with each other in setting emigration tax rate. We have found that skilled migrants should be taxed by the exporting countries to maximise national income. The importing country again resorts to the discriminatory tax policy as obtained in chapter 4. The tax rate is as before higher for the country with higher labour endowment The analysis of chapter 6 can be linked with the recent literature of ‘Brain Drain’. We have assumed a model where two countries are engaged in strategic trade with each other. We have then analysed effects of labour market openness and migration on research and development of countries. It is assumed that the wage rates of one country is higher than the other country’s which gives the rationale for migration. With the opening up of labour market and threat of possible migration, wage rates of both skilled people who conduct research and unskilled people who conduct production fall. We have analysed mainly three cases – (1) only labour-importing country conducts R&D, (2) only labour exporting country conducts R&D and (3) both countries conduct R&D simultaneously. The analysis shows that the possibility of migration of only skilled people always increases R&D. It also increases welfare by reducing the price of output. However the migration of unskilled people may not always increase welfare. We expect that the analysis done in the thesis will be able to provide some guidelines in migration policy making. Firstly we observe no strong coalition among the labour sending countries to manage and control international migration, though labour importing countries are to some extent managing migration jointly. This thesis along with any possible future work may provide guidance in joint management of international migration by the exporting countries. Secondly, many exporting countries are subsidising skilled migration by providing training and other supports. The thesis is suggesting that labour exporting countries should tax the skilled migrants. In this regard the issue of skilled migration may need re-evaluation. Thirdly, the thesis is pointing towards some possible gains from skilled migration through increased research and development. This position is to some extent at a par with the literature of ‘Brain Drain’ that pointed towards the beneficial effects of skilled migration. In summary it appears that we have obtained some interesting results in the analysis done in the thesis. We hope that they will be proved useful in migration policies and will contribute in future progress of both developed and developing countries.