This study confronts the double paradox of state-regulated labor migration: while markets benefit from open borders that allow them to meet the demand for migrant workers, the boundaries of citizenship impose a degree of limitation on cross-border migration. At the same time, the exclusivity of citizenship requires closed membership, yet civil and human rights undermine the state’s capacity to exclude foreigners once they are inside the country. By considering how Malaysia and Spain have responded to the demand for foreign labor, this book analyzes the unavoidable clash of markets, citizenship, and rights.
“This truly comparative book will become a standard work in the field. It opens new research venues, with major implications for a state migration control theory that has too long been Atlanto-centred.”—Leo Lucassen, Leiden University