ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the anti-immigration politics in Europe and beyond by relating them to class/social processes, racialisation and insecurity to examine how this impacts on the content of democracy. It explores the relation between anti-immigrant and xenophobic populism as a reaction to globalisation tendencies undermining social and welfare rights, accentuating socioeconomic inequalities and producing socio-cultural transformations. The chapter explains how the ‘new’ anti-immigration politics is both the result of and an agent accentuating de-democratisation in Europe and the globe. Edward Said captures the picture of movements and migrations; in particular he captures the targeting of the subaltern in general, an important broader category than the ‘illegal immigrant’–the subaltern is a disparate category of the multitude. The surge of the anti-democratic forces which have strong anti-immigration elements in their ideologies and program content is one of the most challenges of our times.
