A study on migration in the Middle East and North Africa

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi, İktisat Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2011

Öğrenci: EKİN ÖNŞAN

Danışman: ONUR YILDIRIM

Özet:

This thesis aims to investigate both the causes and effects of migration in the Middle East and North Africa with a view to identifying the patterns and trends that characterize migration phenomena in the region. It is argued that migration is a significant variable to understand the economic, social and political dynamics of the development that the MENA countries have experienced since imperial and/or colonial times. In its different variants, migration has been conditioned primarily by economic vicissitudes. With the exception of the Gulf states, all of the MENA countries have experienced significant levels of immigration as well as emigration especially since the 1980s when the structural effects of the oil crisis (1973) surfaced. The Iraq-Iran War of the 1980s and the Gulf War of the 1990s enhanced the existing trends of migration. In the absence of political reform and economic restructuring, the economies of the region have rejuvenated the conditions of migration. Having drawn upon sociological theories, political histories and economic analyses to identify and discuss the patterns and trends of migration, the present study argues in complete contrast to a policy-oriented Western scholarship that migration is far from being a stimulus for economic growth across the MENA countries.