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  • Title: [Manpower migrations and Arab unity: the challenges of the Iraqi model].
    Author: Roussillon A.
    Journal: Tiers Monde (1960); 1985; 26(103):637-64. PubMed ID: 12280380.
    Abstract:
    Iraq occupies a unique position in the system of manpower exchanges between Middle Eastern states brought about by the rise in petroleum incomes of the 1970s. Iraq was among the most important oil exporters until the war with Iran, but its economy is predominantly agricultural, it is a rich country in terms of available financial resources, and it is both an importer and exporter of labor, traits which place it squarely between the nonoil-producing states which are poor and overpopulated and the oil exporters which are rich and underpopulated. Its migration policy, which radically distinguishes between Arab and non-Arab manpower, is also unique. Data on migration to Iraq are very sparse despite the fact that the nation has a good data-gathering capacity. Estimates of migration to Iraq and employment patterns of migrants have varied widely and have contradicted each other in crucial respects. The most unusual aspect of Iraqi immigration policy, the free access offered to Egyptians and other Arabs, has hampered attempts to estimate the volume of migration, as workers come and go for relatively short periods, seeking their own employment in Iraq and working in jobs for which they may be overqualified. Official formulations of Iraqi migration policy insist that migration should not only be beneficial to individual importing and exporting countries in terms of development and social cohesion, but should also reinforce the solidarity and regional complementarity of the Arab world as a whole. Iraqi migration policy is presented as expressing the most fundamental choices of the "Arab revolution" in the socialist dimension of Arab unitary ideology rather than in terms of immediate national economic interest. Iraqi legislation grants non-Iraqi Arabs the same labor, residence, investment, and ultimately naturalization rights as those enjoyed by nationals, but severely restricts access to employment and other rights of non-Arab foreigners. Denunciation of the dangers posed by the presence of large numbers of foreign workers not only to the countries employing them but to the Arab nation as a whole allows Iraq to criticize the migration policies of the Gulf oil exporters, which are increasingly favoring more productive labor from Asian countries and which cede much of the authority to select and admit workers to private concerns. The evolution of Iraq's policy demonstrates the concern of its governing party with reconciling its Arab identity and its analysis of international power relations with consolidation of its own position internally and in the Arab world as a whole. The labor policy of the oil exporters exposes their countries and thus the Arab world to the possibility of sabotage and to demographic overpowering of ethnic and cultural identity. Interpretations differ as to whether the Iraqi model has led to a better deployment of labor and as to its theoretical contribution to pan-Arab unity, given the diverging interests of the individual states concerned.
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