Part 3 Summary of Findings, Conclusions and
2.1 Globalisation and the Changing Nature of the Nation State
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sustained threat of violence. I conclude that in such a context, practitioners in the field of social work with cross-border can expect to face considerable ethical challenges.
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and tended to ‘mystify this accountability in the eyes and ears of their own public through the new vocabulary of globalisation, interdependence and competitiveness’ (Cox 2002:81). With nation states surrendering the power to regulate economic activities within their territory to global financial institutions, to their respective economic elites, and to a limited number of transnational corporations, both the global and national economies have become more volatile (Strange 1996; Bauman 1998; Papastergiadis 2000; Cox 2002; Terreblanche 2012).
This has led to significant shifts in economic power relations and to deepening inequalities both between and within countries. Yet, faced with a growing inability to serve as regulative, ameliorative and redistributive agencies, most states have curtailed their public spending budgets – particularly in the fields of education, health, and welfare (Bauman 1998; Sewpaul and Hölscher 2004; Terreblanche 2012). Worldwide, previously autonomous and self- sufficient ways of life have given way to one that would fit into a global, market-mediated mode of production and consumption (Bauman 2004). And as pre-existing social, political and cultural economies are disrupted, many people are uprooted and mobilised in search of new livelihoods and survival, especially in regions of the Global South (see Section 2.3 below).
At the point of commencing this study in 2008, the global economy was experiencing yet another major recession (Terreblanche 2012; Calland 2013). In its wake, certain global and local policy changes have prompted some authors to engage with the idea of post-neoliberal possibilities (Ballard 2013). However, there is no indication that the overall trajectory of the neoliberal agenda has changed. Elmar Altvater (1991), Ankie Hoogvelt (2001), John Perkins (2005) and Sampie Terreblanche (2012) are among the myriad of authors who offer detailed descriptions of how contemporary financial institutions and global trade relations have evolved historically and have systematically imposed economic and social policy decisions on nations of the Global South with a view to preserving and increasing the wealth and economic dominance of former colonial and current neo-colonial powers. The price paid by many erstwhile colonies has been corruption and the cementing of power by oppressive and exploitative elites, stunting growth of fledgling economies. As a result, the majority of the world’s population have been retained in situations of protracted political and economic subjugation (Altvater 1991; Hoogvelt 2001; Pogge 2002; Perkins 2005; Meredith 2011;
Terreblanche 2012). This is why Jim Ife (2001:17), though acknowledging that the neoliberal version of globalisation has created new patterns of inequality and new depths of poverty
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and oppression, contends that the current politico-economic dispensation is nonetheless a
‘logical extension’ of pre-existing systems of ‘capitalism, patriarchy and colonial exploitation’.
Still, Nikos Papastergiadis (2000:6) observes, along with others, that globalisation ‘has exposed the limits of the nation state … [and] undermined [its] legitimacy and putative … autonomy’.
Historically, nation states are a relatively recent phenomenon (Fraser 2005, 2008a), and the mapping of the world along interlocking state borders was completed only in 1884 with the partitioning of Africa (Reader 1998). Characteristic of nation states are their claims to sovereignty, that is, ‘the power and undisputed right of the state to make and enforce law and policy within its territory’, and to autonomy, that is, ‘the state’s actual capacity to achieve goals and policies once set’ (Lister 1997:55). From the onset, states’ efforts to create and maintain their claims to sovereignty and autonomy have been characterised by a ‘struggle to attain a sense of unity and coherence’, both against perceived external threats and internal divisions (Papastergiadis 2000:82). Defending their sovereignty and autonomy externally, nation states have always attempted to ward off unsolicited immigration: invariably, ‘policies have … been formulated according to the principle that the national community needs protection’ (Papastergiadis 2000:53). To deepen an internal sense of sovereignty and autonomy, nation states have sought to develop and instil a spirit of national identity amongst the peoples living within their respective territories. Mechanisms to this end have included the use of overt force, but also ideological strategies such as the mythical creation of common origins, campaigns to emphasise shared values and de-emphasise difference, and efforts to instil a belief in a common destiny (Heckmann 1992). In addition, most nation states have tried to ensure at least minimal levels of socio-economic protection, with the offer of an
‘insurance policy against individual mischance and calamity’ serving to legitimise people’s
‘submission to state power’ (Bauman 2004:51). All of these processes have been supported by an insistence on ‘exclusive citizenship’ (Papastergiadis 2000:82).
The arguments thus far imply that that the dynamics of globalisation have eroded the ability of states to exercise their autonomy over economic and social policy, yet it does not follow that they have lost ground on sovereignty as well. In fact, Ruth Lister (1997:55) suggests that especially ‘as regulators of access to territory, jobs and welfare, the power of nation states … could be said to be enhanced’. Lister’s (1997) claim has been contested by some, however,
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there appears to be greater consensus that nation states have become increasingly pre- occupied with policing access to rights, opportunities and resources within their respective spheres of sovereignty seeking to ‘maintain at least the illusion of control’ (Morrison 2001:71). Similarly, Zygmunt Bauman (2004:52) asserts that ‘present-day nation states … still claim the foundational, constitutional prerogative of sovereignty: Their right of exemption’.
Within the South African context, a former Director General in the Department of Home Affairs expresses these sentiments as follows:
Control over the transnational movement of people is, similar to protecting the territorial integrity of the state, a fundamental element of statehood and sovereignty … South Africa’s stated policy to maintain an open door to foreign investment should not be equated with the
… absence of migration control (Masetlha 2001:56-58).
According to Papastergiadis (2000:2), the ‘haunting paradox … at the centre of all claims to national autonomy’ and sovereignty is that as global interconnections and interdependencies proliferate, national boundaries are fortified: ‘every nation state is at once seeking to maximise the opportunities from transnational corporations, and yet closing its doors to the forms of migration that these economic shifts stimulate’ (Papastergiadis 2000:3). In other words, while undermining states’ autonomy, globalisation also increases states’ tendency to assert their sovereignty claims – in particular against those large-scale and multifaceted forms of migration, which, too, it has caused.
In this context, distinctions made between different types of migration – for example, in the terms ‘labour’, ‘forced’, or ‘irregular migration’ (UNHCR n.d.; IOM 2011) – also signify underlying assumptions concerning the utility of particular migrant groups for the political economies of receiving countries. Such assumptions have shaped discourses and practices around human mobility across the world. All nation states use legislative, administrative and law enforcement methods to try and govern non-citizens within their territories. These stretch from entry to departure (including deportation) of foreigners and pertain to a myriad of issues including the allocation (or the denial) of entitlements, such as for example political rights, or the right to free movement, work, or access to public provisions for education, health and so on (see for example, Lister 1997; Brysk and Shafir 2004; Hayes and Humphries 2004). Indeed, Friedrich Heckmann (1992), Ruth Lister (1997), and Nancy Fraser (2005, 2008a) assert that the very concept of a sovereign nation state contains institutional forms of inclusion and exclusion as symbiotic, constitutive processes. Operating through modes both
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formal (i.e. the legal status of membership) and substantive (i.e. the ability to enjoy those rights and duties that accompany this membership), citizenship draws two sets of boundaries around the nation state: one regarding admission to its territory and another pertaining to the depth and degree of people’s membership. Accordingly, ‘refugees, asylum seekers, would-be immigrants and migrant workers face a common set of ‘gates’, albeit differently constructed’ (Lister 1997:46). South Africa, too, has developed differential mechanisms that provide for layered levels of inclusion and exclusion of non-citizens. Sections 2.2 and 2.3 explore the dynamic relationships between global economic and political processes, changing forms of migratory movements and evolving systems of migration governance in relation to sub-Saharan migratory systems and in relation to South Africa as a traditional destination point for the region’s migrants.