ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the social, ethnic and political consequences of international and transnational migration from a comparative perspective, with a focus on Europe, North America and Australasia. The recipient countries in Western Europe have a long, but varied, history of both emigration and immigration, which reflects their historical and geopolitical involvement with the sending countries. Even though the cases show that migration is part of a long historical pattern, the major inflows of people occurred throughout the reconstruction period after 1945. A number of Western European countries experienced severe labour shortages following the war and began to look beyond their borders for potential recruits. Immigration policy is one of the most pertinent issues facing nation states, as evidenced most recently in the American debate on Mexican migration. Citizenship is a key institution for contemporary societies in that it sets out the formal rules of inclusion and lies at the very core of national identity.
