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At least since mercantilism, population has been seen as an area of public life that should be controlled for the good of wider society: Are there enough people? Is the population growing quickly enough? Is it healthy enough? Is it educated enough? Does it have an acceptable (ethnic, linguistic, racial, religious) composition? Even today, for instance, the relatively low fertility rates prevalent in the developed world outside of the United States are regularly cited to demonstrate the corruption of non-Americans. Steven Denbeste described Europe as
(Incidentally, it's curious how this echoes some rhetoric of the 1930s. Avishai Margalit and Ian Buruma have noted in the New York Review of Books how Oswald Spengler was of the view that
I've more than enough faith in the United States that the 1930s won't parallel our current decade too closely. The echoes are unfortunate, though, to put it mildly. But enougb of this.)
Migration--particularly emigration--is a sensitive area of population policies. If people want to come to a country, that's all well and good, proof of their intended destination's inherent attractiveness. If people want to leave a country, though, whether because they want to enjoy a better standard of living abroad ("pull" migration) or because they want to escape suffering at home ("push" migration) or because of a combination of the two factors, this can be seen as speaking volumes about a country's long-term sustainability. For instance, the large volume of Canadian emigration to the United States after Confederation--most visibly French Canadians but including Canadians of all ethnolinguistic backgrounds (PDF format)--was often used by Americans to justify Canada's extinction. ("Pull" migration seems to have been the dominant factor in this Canadian emigration: Canada might have been among the richest countries in the world, but the United States was richer still, with an economy having many more openings for factory workers at the turn of the century than Canada. Newfoundland's was a different situation.)
In the First and Second Worlds, emigration has arguably had the most spectacular impact on the former Soviet Union. The demand for Jewish emigration rights from the Soviet Union bedevilled Cold War relations and, when granted, signified the success of Gorbachev's liberalization. The political disintegration of the Soviet Union, long-suppressed ethnic tensions, and the uneven collapses and recoveries of different post-Soviet national economies has made migration in the Soviet era an important issue, whether we are talking of Ukrainian emigration to points worldwide, continuing Jewish emigration from the former Soviet Union, or mass migration to Russia.
One issue with serious ramifications on the viability of some post-Soviet states is the mass emigration from the independent states of the South Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia. This past January, I'd made a brief note about demographic trends in the Armenian diaspora. The most spectacular of these trends is the mass emigration from post-Soviet Armenia, as at least one million Armenians have left the Caucasus ahead of war and economic collapse. Armenia and Armenians, however, are far from being unique in what looks like a veritable depopulation of the region.
( Read more... )
This emigration is important because of the impact it will have on receiving countries, of which Russia is far and away the most important: If large Georgian and Azerbaijani diasporas are able to maintain strong group identities in Russia, this could conceivably impact Russian domestic trends and foreign policies. Putin, after all, is trying to become a patron of Armenians.
More important than the impact of South Caucasian mass emigration on receiving nations, however, is the impact on the sending nations. This mass emigration, having as it does a disproportionately large impact on the South Caucasus' working-age population, and on the South Caucasus' educated population, can seriously impact the economic viability of the South Caucasus in the world economy. The future growth of the Italian economy--currently sixth-largest in the developed world--could be limited by a low fertility rate alone. (The balance of Italian migration, perhaps fortunately, is entirely positive; the emigration that characterized Italy until the 1970s has stopped.) Massive emigration, coupled with low birth rates, could easily help beggar the small and exposed economies of the South Caucasus. A depopulated and impoverished South Caucasus could definitely be a destabilizing factor in the region as a whole--failed states have a tendency to do that.
And the pity of this whole situation is that there's no reassuring answer ahead. The countries of the South Caucasus have a long way to go and quite a lot to do before they regain their Soviet-era standards of living, never mind take part in the convergence with the First World enjoyed in the EU's soon-to-be member-states in central Europe. In the meantime, larger and wealthier economies--like Russia, like western and central Europe, like North America--will continue to attract emigrants from the South Caucasus who want a better life. Blocking legal mechanisms for this migration can't be justified on either humanitarian or practical grounds, since this would only push it further into the shadowy realms of illegal migration. Perhaps things can change for the better, but it wouldn't be sound to bet on this.
1. decadent: characterized by decadence, overrefinement, or overindulgence
2. weak: lacking or having lost the strength or ability to get things done
3. barren: no longer able to reproduce
(Incidentally, it's curious how this echoes some rhetoric of the 1930s. Avishai Margalit and Ian Buruma have noted in the New York Review of Books how Oswald Spengler was of the view that
the ruling white races (Herrenvölker) were losing their position in Europe. Soon, he said, true Frenchmen would no longer rule France, which was already awash with black soldiers, Polish businessmen, and Spanish farmers. The West, he concluded, would go under because white people had become soft, decadent, addicted to safety and comfort. As he put it: "Jazz music and nigger dances are the death march of a great civilization."
I've more than enough faith in the United States that the 1930s won't parallel our current decade too closely. The echoes are unfortunate, though, to put it mildly. But enougb of this.)
Migration--particularly emigration--is a sensitive area of population policies. If people want to come to a country, that's all well and good, proof of their intended destination's inherent attractiveness. If people want to leave a country, though, whether because they want to enjoy a better standard of living abroad ("pull" migration) or because they want to escape suffering at home ("push" migration) or because of a combination of the two factors, this can be seen as speaking volumes about a country's long-term sustainability. For instance, the large volume of Canadian emigration to the United States after Confederation--most visibly French Canadians but including Canadians of all ethnolinguistic backgrounds (PDF format)--was often used by Americans to justify Canada's extinction. ("Pull" migration seems to have been the dominant factor in this Canadian emigration: Canada might have been among the richest countries in the world, but the United States was richer still, with an economy having many more openings for factory workers at the turn of the century than Canada. Newfoundland's was a different situation.)
In the First and Second Worlds, emigration has arguably had the most spectacular impact on the former Soviet Union. The demand for Jewish emigration rights from the Soviet Union bedevilled Cold War relations and, when granted, signified the success of Gorbachev's liberalization. The political disintegration of the Soviet Union, long-suppressed ethnic tensions, and the uneven collapses and recoveries of different post-Soviet national economies has made migration in the Soviet era an important issue, whether we are talking of Ukrainian emigration to points worldwide, continuing Jewish emigration from the former Soviet Union, or mass migration to Russia.
One issue with serious ramifications on the viability of some post-Soviet states is the mass emigration from the independent states of the South Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia. This past January, I'd made a brief note about demographic trends in the Armenian diaspora. The most spectacular of these trends is the mass emigration from post-Soviet Armenia, as at least one million Armenians have left the Caucasus ahead of war and economic collapse. Armenia and Armenians, however, are far from being unique in what looks like a veritable depopulation of the region.
( Read more... )
This emigration is important because of the impact it will have on receiving countries, of which Russia is far and away the most important: If large Georgian and Azerbaijani diasporas are able to maintain strong group identities in Russia, this could conceivably impact Russian domestic trends and foreign policies. Putin, after all, is trying to become a patron of Armenians.
More important than the impact of South Caucasian mass emigration on receiving nations, however, is the impact on the sending nations. This mass emigration, having as it does a disproportionately large impact on the South Caucasus' working-age population, and on the South Caucasus' educated population, can seriously impact the economic viability of the South Caucasus in the world economy. The future growth of the Italian economy--currently sixth-largest in the developed world--could be limited by a low fertility rate alone. (The balance of Italian migration, perhaps fortunately, is entirely positive; the emigration that characterized Italy until the 1970s has stopped.) Massive emigration, coupled with low birth rates, could easily help beggar the small and exposed economies of the South Caucasus. A depopulated and impoverished South Caucasus could definitely be a destabilizing factor in the region as a whole--failed states have a tendency to do that.
And the pity of this whole situation is that there's no reassuring answer ahead. The countries of the South Caucasus have a long way to go and quite a lot to do before they regain their Soviet-era standards of living, never mind take part in the convergence with the First World enjoyed in the EU's soon-to-be member-states in central Europe. In the meantime, larger and wealthier economies--like Russia, like western and central Europe, like North America--will continue to attract emigrants from the South Caucasus who want a better life. Blocking legal mechanisms for this migration can't be justified on either humanitarian or practical grounds, since this would only push it further into the shadowy realms of illegal migration. Perhaps things can change for the better, but it wouldn't be sound to bet on this.
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