Migration, Precarization and the Democratic Deficit in Global Governance

This article attempts to provide a critical understanding of the dual signification of precarity. It explores what precarity as a concept may potentially offer to studies of the changing contemporary political economy of migration. It discusses shifting trends in global migration and point to tendencies for a possible convergence between South and North, East and West. Based on a review of current advances in research, it discusses, with reference to the classical work of Karl Polanyi, the potential for a contemporary countermovement which would challenge the precarity of migrants. Bringing forward the issue of the space for civil society the article addresses a still lingering democratic deficit in the global governance of migration.