Democratic Citizenship and Labour Migration in East Asia Mapping Fields of Enquiry

Abstract

AbstractThe contribution explores the implications of international migration on the research of democratisation processes. It focuses on the notion of democratic citizenship as a set of rights. Democratisation processes are thus conceptualised as processes in which rights are acquired, institutionalised and expanded. Expansion has two aspects: one is the inclusion of new groups of persons into the community of those entitled to rights, the other is the inclusion of new types of rights such as liberal, political, social, economic or cultural rights. Citizenship, which links the entitlement of rights to national belonging, must be rethought in the light of international migration.The repercussions of migration on citizenship rights and citizenship concepts have been explored in the context of labour immigrant incorporation within Western liberal democracies. For East Asia, however, these issues are largely unexplored. Labour migration in East Asia differs in several aspects from the Western template: labour-receiving countries in East Asia include authoritarian regimes as well as democracies in different states of consolidation. Furthermore, labour migration is predominantly temporary. Drawing on the theoretical insights of 'Western' debates, the article identifies the legitimate democratic representation as well as the conditions, the characteristics and the effects of struggles for migrants' rights as important fields of research on the nexus between labour migration and democratisation in East Asia.