The political regulation of migration in liberal nation-states depends on the differential deprivation of fundamental rights. These complex forms of granting and denying different sets of rights to different groups of migrants hinges on a multi-facetted interplay of two seemingly contradictory political logics: the securitisation (linked to construals of migration as existential danger and as out of control) and the economisation of migration (based on demands for ’rational’ policy approaches and stressing the need for migration). Using the example of the Austrian migration regime, this book shows how the interplay of these two logics has allowed for adapting regulatory frameworks to changing political-economic circumstances. This general argument is illustrated with examples from the early beginnings of the Austrian migration regime in the interwar-period to the post-WWII guestworker regime and, finally, to recent forms of neoliberal migration management that combine highly precarious legal statuses for so-called temporary migrants and a points-based system for the »highly-skilled«.

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