ABSTRACT
In the past it could be said that population functioned as a rather quiet background factor to the human geography of the Mediterranean. Whilst this statement can certainly be challenged – in fact, it will be elaborated upon and modified in the next few pages of this chapter – it does contain an element of truth when compared to the present situation. Since the 1980s it has been increasingly realised that demography lies at the heart of Mediterranean destiny. Population growth, in particular, is connected to a whole series of processes which are shaping the future of the region: economic development (or the lack of it), unemployment, urbanisation, international migration and geopolitics. The Mediterranean is now a demographic frontier between two entirely different population systems. This demographic fault-line is also a divide between two very different economic and politico-religious regimes. The relationships between population, economics and geopolitics are of course very complicated and no clear lines of simple causation can be established: all are related to each other – and to the wider dimensions of ethics and human rights – in a complex and multivariate setting.
