Differently Similar: The Quest for Migration Control in the Netherlands and Spain

Abstract

AbstractIn relation to migration controls, the perceptions of the public opinion, but also the accounts of a good part of the specialized literature in this field, have often portraited the Netherlands and Spain as opposite examples. The Northern European country has been imagined as a paradigmatic case of strong control enforcement, while the Southern as one of weak control measures. Because of this type of analysis, a more general idea of a North/South divide, which sums up in a dichotomic picture the different approaches to migration in the continent, has become the hegemonic interpretative framework. However, whereas dichotomic pictures may be of help when the goal is to produce clear-cut and simple representations (or political and moral judgements), they are invariably misguiding when the goal is to understand reality. Migration policies and their enforcement are neither clear-cut, nor simple. Countries display in this field a very dynamic and fragmented conduct that may generate at times convergences or divergences with the others. This chapter will focus on internal control policies in the Netherlands and Spain. The analysis will show an ambiguous reality, complex enough to escape a dichotomist description in terms of opposites.