Regulating Migration in Europe: The Dutch Experience,1960-92

Abstract

Like other West European countries, the Netherlands has become an immigration country against its will. Since 1960, three migration flows in particular have contributed to the migration surplus: labor migration from the Mediterranean area, migration from former Dutch colonies, and migration of international refugees. In each case, the measures taken by the Dutch government to regulate the migration have not been successful. This article analyzes why it is so difficult, if not impossible, to effectively implement migration regulations. A very important reason seems to be the contradictory aims of the welfare state that, on the one hand, tries to keep immigrants out but, on the other hand, seeks to ensure full civil rights for the immigrant population settled in the country.

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References

In the present article, we have limited citations mainly to publications available in English. Full bibliographic documentation is given in Hans van Amersfoort and Rinus Penninx , “Migratieontwikkeling en migratiebeheersing,” in Migratie, bevolking en politiek: Nederland als immigratieland in een Westeuropese context, ed. Hans van Amersfoort (Amsterdam: Amsterdam Sociaal-Geografische Studies, 1993), nr. 46, pp. 57-84.

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3. Tomas Hammar , ed., European Immigration Policy: A Comparative Study (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

4. Rinus Penninx , “Towards an Overall Ethnic Minorities Policy,” in Ethnic Minorities, ed. Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (The Hague: Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy, 1979), pp. 92-105.

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Rinus Penninx , Immigrant Populations in Member States of the Council of Europe (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1984).

7. Hans van Amersfoort , Immigration and the Formation of Minority Groups: The Dutch Experience 1945-1975 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

8. Muus and Penninx , Immigratie van Turken en Marokkanen, pp. 66-70, 77-80.

9. Gary P. Freeman , “Migration and the Political Economy of the Welfare State,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 485:51-63 (May 1986).