Anarchy, Self-Help, and Migrants

Abstract

Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma: Russia, Europe and the United States. By Mikhail A. Alexseev Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 294 pp., $70.00 (ISBN: 0-521-84988-8). Ever since Herbert Butterfield (1951) and John Herz (1951) published their foundational works on the “security dilemma,” the concept has come to define what Nicholas Wheeler and Ken Booth (1992:29) have called the “quintessential” dilemma—penetrating “right to the heart of the theory and practice of international relations.” During the Cold War, the security dilemma concept appeared to frame accurately the arms competition between the United States and the Soviet Union (see, for example, Jervis 2001). During the 1990s, despite the end of the superpower confrontation, the security dilemma remained as perhaps the dominant explanation for the outbreak of ethnic conflicts, especially in Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa (see, for example, Posen 1993; Kaufman 1996; Snyder and Jervis 1999). For Mikheil Alexseev, the concept is equally valuable as an explanatory tool with regard to migration. In Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma , Alexseev suggests that the security dilemma serves to exaggerate fears about migrants such that they are seen as potential threats to national identities and economic interests. In making this point, Alexseev is not alone. In the 1993 Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda , Ole Waever et al. (1993) argued that the emerging security agenda in Europe was not so …