Political motivations for intra-European migration.

Susanne Bygnes,Aurore Flipo

doi:10.1177/0001699316659909

Abstract

Motivations for migrating within the European Union have mainly been attributed to economic, career and lifestyle choices. This article suggests that political dissatisfaction is also an important motivator of recent intra-European migration. In our analysis of in-depth interviews with Romanian migrants in Spain and with Spanish migrants in Norway, we found a common emphasis on the political dimensions of their decision to migrate. In the interviews, the economic component of migration was often related to bad governance and negative perceptions of the state. The similarities of Spanish and Romanian migration narratives are especially striking because Spain and Romania represent substantially different migratory, political and economic contexts. However, migration is more obviously intertwined with conventional acts of political protest in the Spanish case. We suggest that differences in democratic contexts are pivotal in people’s reactions to and framing of their deep dissatisfaction with domestic politics, as found in many European countries today.

Highlights

This article draws on cases from two of the most important intra-European mobility patterns in modern Europe, namely east–west and south–north migration
Our analysis showed that intra-European migrants’ decisions to leave and unwillingness to return to their home countries had a political component that was frequently raised and heavily emphasized in the material at hand
These tendencies are in line with recent research suggesting that political motivations seem to be part of current intra-European migration

Summary

Introduction

This article draws on cases from two of the most important intra-European mobility patterns in modern Europe, namely east–west and south–north migration. We analyse migration motivations and pay particular attention to the ways in which intra-European migrants from Romania and Spain articulate political dissatisfaction in their narratives. Political dissatisfaction has long been studied in relation to emigration in autocratic contexts (e.g. see Colomer, 2000; Fleck and Hanssen, 2013), the importance of political discontent as a potential driver of emigration in democratic contexts has rarely been considered (for exceptions, see Hiskey et al, 2014; Lapshyna, 2014; Meardi, 2012; Triandafyllidou and Gropas, 2014). Post-crisis Spain has fostered social movements and widespread popular protest, while in Romania such reactions have until recently remained rare

Objectives

Findings

Conclusion