Leiden University Scholarly Publications

Ennis, C.A.; Walton-Roberts, M. 2017

Labour market regulation as global social policy: The case of nursing labour markets in Oman

Article / Letter to editor

open access

This article examines global social policy formation in the area of skilled migration, with a focus on the Gulf Arab region. Across the globe, migration governance presents challenges to multiple... Show moreThis article examines global social policy formation in the area of skilled migration, with a focus on the Gulf Arab region. Across the globe, migration governance presents challenges to multiple levels of authority; its complexity crosses many scales and involves a multitude of actors with diverse interests. Despite this jurisdictional complexity, migration remains one of the most staunchly defended realms of sovereign policy control. Building on global social policy literature, this article examines how ‘domestic’ labour migration policies reflect the entanglement of multiple states’ and agencies’ interests. Such entanglements result in what we characterize as a ‘multiplex system’, where skilled-migration policies are formed within, and shaped by, globalized policy spaces. To illustrate, we examine policies that shape the nursing labour market in Oman during a period when the state aims to transition from dependence on an expatriate to an increasingly nationalized labour force. Engaging a case-study methodology including a survey of migrant healthcare workers, semi-structured interviews and data analysis, we find that nursing labour markets in Oman represent an example of global policy formation due to the interaction of domestic and expatriate labour policies and provisioning systems. The transnational structuring of policy making that emerges reflects a contingent process marked by conflicting outcomes. We contend that Oman’s nursing labour market is an example of new spaces where global social policies emerge from the tension of competing national state and market interests. Show less

Gonçalves, M.A. 2017

Of peasants and settlers: ideals of Portugueseness, imperial nationalism and European settlement in Africa,c.1930–c.1945

Article / Letter to editor

closed access

This article examines policies and ideas of European settlement in Africa through the lens of imperial rhetoric and nationalist imaginations in Portugal during the first decades of Salazar’s... Show moreThis article examines policies and ideas of European settlement in Africa through the lens of imperial rhetoric and nationalist imaginations in Portugal during the first decades of Salazar’s dictatorship. Even though European settlement in Africa was under discussion since Brazil’s independence, the debate was invigorated in the 1930s. This article will place the renewed interest within the wider context of transnational migration, world economic crisis and inter-European competition for colonial dominance before the Second World War. Although European settlement was perceived as necessary both in terms of domestic social regulation and international competition at the time, state-sponsored settlements in Portuguese Africa were not a reality until the worldwide process of decolonization had started. On the contrary, not only did Portuguese political elites not invest in settlement schemes, but they actually adopted measures to curb migration to the colonies up until 1945, contradicting their imperialist rhetoric at home. The author argues that the contradiction between rhetoric and practice needs to be analysed in light of the growing desire to intensify control over space and people in European settlements in Africa. Barriers to block undesirable migrants from the metropole were only one part of the process of forcing an idealized vision of Portugal and Portugueseness into reality in both the colonies and the metropole. This article concludes that policies and ideas of European Settlement cannot be dissociated from the anti-urban rhetoric and anti-modernizing agenda of Estado Novo. Show less