An Influx Of Foreign Workers Into The United Arab Emirates Has Had What Demographic Impact?

An Influx Of Foreign Workers Into The United Arab Emirates Has Had What Demographic Impact
Author Question: An influx of foreign workers into the United Arab Emirates has had what demographic impact? (Read 34 times) –

Did you know? The eye muscles are the most active muscles in the whole body. The external muscles that move the eyes are the strongest muscles in the human body for the job they have to do. They are 100 times more powerful than they need to be. Did you know? More than nineteen million Americans carry the factor V gene that causes blood clots, pulmonary embolism, and heart disease.

Did you know? Long-term mental and physical effects from substance abuse include: paranoia, psychosis, immune deficiencies, and organ damage. Did you know? For about 100 years, scientists thought that peptic ulcers were caused by stress, spicy food, and alcohol. Later, researchers added stomach acid to the list of causes and began treating ulcers with antacids.

Now it is known that peptic ulcers are predominantly caused by Helicobacter pylori, a spiral-shaped bacterium that normally exist in the stomach. Did you know? The human body’s pharmacokinetics are quite varied. Our hair holds onto drugs longer than our urine, blood, or saliva.

What is unique about the population of the United Arab Emirates quizlet?

What is unique about the population structure of the United Arab Emirates? The population skews heavily male due to migrant laborers in the country.

What do many experts attribute as a cause of many of Africa’s civil conflicts?

Causes of Ethnic Conflict – Economic factors have been identified as one of the major causes of conflict in Africa. Theorists believe that competition for scarce resources is a common factor in almost all ethnic conflicts in Africa. In multi-ethnic societies like Nigeria and South Africa, ethnic communities violently compete for property, rights, jobs, education, language, social amenities and good health care facilities.

  1. In his study, Okwudiba Nnoli (1980) produced empirical examples linking socio-economic factors to ethnic conflict in Nigeria.
  2. According to J.S.
  3. Furnival, cited in Nnoli (1980:72-3), “the working of economic forces makes for tension between groups with competing interests.” In the case of South Africa, Gerhard Mare confirms that ethnicity and ethnic conflict appear to be a response to the uneven development in South Africa, which caused ethnic groups (Xhosas, Zulus and even Afrikaners) to mobilise to compete for resources along ethnic lines.

It follows that multi-ethnic countries are likely to experience distributional conflicts. Another major cause of ethnic conflict is psychology, especially the fear and insecurity of ethnic groups during transition. It has been opined that extremists build upon these fears to polarise the society.

Additionally, memories of past traumas magnify these anxieties. These interactions produce a toxic brew of distrust and suspicion that leads to ethnic violence. The fear of white Afrikaners in South Africa on the eve of democratic elections was a good case in point. Gurr’s (1970) relative deprivation theory offers an explanation based on an ethnic groups’ access to power and economic resources.

This is closely related to Horowitz, (1985) who wrote that group worth is based on the results of economic and political competitions. According to Lake and Rothschild, (1996) ethnic conflict is a sign of a weak state or a state embroiled in ancient loyalties.

In this case, states act with bias to favour a particular ethnic group or region, and behaviours such as preferential treatment fuel ethnic conflicts. Therefore, in critical or difficult political situations, the effectiveness of governance is dependent on its ability to address social issues and human needs,

Recently, scholars have come out with different approaches to conceptualising ethnicity. Faced with the proliferation of separatist conflicts in North America, the inadequacies underlying modernisation theory are being exposed. The notion that modernity would result in smooth transition from gemeinschaf (community) to gessellschaft (association), with gradual dissolution of ethnic affiliations, simply did not work.

  1. Ethnicity has persisted in North America, Africa and elsewhere.
  2. This failure simply means ethnicity will remain, and that the stability of African states is threatened not by ethnicity per se, but the failure of national institutions to recognise and accommodate ethnic differences and interests.
  3. According to this argument, the lesson for ethnic conflict management is that governments should not discriminate against groups or they will create conflict.

The second theory is from the primordial school and stresses the uniqueness and the overriding importance of ethnic identity. From their point of view, ethnicity is a biological and fixed characteristic of individuals and communities. (Geertz, 1963) The third theoretical approach is the Instrumentalist argument.

(Barth.1969, Glazer and Moynihan, 1975) In Africa where poverty and deprivation are becoming endemic, mostly as a result of distributive injustice, ethnicity remains an effective means of survival and mobilization. Ethnic groups that form for economic reasons, easily disband after achieving their objectives.

This corresponds with Benedict Anderson’s (1991:5-7) argument that ethnicity is “a construct” rather than a constant. Additionally, scholars’ attention has also shifted to the nature of ethnic conflict and violence because the post Cold War era has been marked by the resurgence of ethnic conflict and even genocide in some societies like Rwanda, Bosnia, and Zaire.

  1. An important theory on conflict and conflict management is John Burton’s (1979, 1997) human needs theory,
  2. This approach to ethnic conflict explains that ethnic groups fight because they are denied not only their biological needs, but also psychological needs that relate to growth and development.
  3. These include peoples’ need for identity, security, recognition, participation, and autonomy,

This theory provides a plausible explanation of ethnic conflicts in Africa, where such needs are not easily met by undemocratic regimes. This paper focuses on John Burton’s theory to explain ethnic conflict in Nigeria and South Africa, because it provided cogent reasons for the conflicts in the case studies.

(Burton 1979) The human needs theory was introduced to debunk the other theories that attribute causes of conflict to the innately aggressive nature of human beings. (John Burton 1990) The importance of this theory to ethnic conflict management in Africa is that it moves beyond theories that blame African conflicts on a primordial past.

The Economy of the United Arab Emirates

Instead, it points to ineffective institutions unable to satisfy the basic human needs of their citizens. Wherever such non-negotiable needs are not met, conflict is inevitable. Obviously, the problem of ethnicity in Africa largely depends on the level of state effectiveness, accountability, and transparency in handling the demands of diversity.

The focus on the human needs theory in this study does not mean the neglect of other theories, which I consider to be equally useful. It is necessary to emphasize that proper analysis of ethnic conflicts is very important in order to avoid prescribing a wrong medicine for the ailment. Failure to find solutions to Africa’s ethnic problem will have devastating social and economic consequences on a continent that is already worn out by conflict, poverty and disease.

According to theorists, conflict management means constructive handling of differences. It is an art of designing appropriate institutions to guide inevitable conflict into peaceful channels. The importance of conflict management cannot be overemphasised.

Which country of Southwest Asia and North Africa is the poorest in the Arabian Peninsula?

The World Bank In Yemen. Yemen has been embroiled in conflict since early 2015. For years the poorest country in MENA, it is now also suffering the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

Which of the following resources will prove to be of critical value for Southwest Asia?

Oil in the Middle East Two of the most important natural resources found in Southwest Asia are natural gas and oil. These two resources bring wealth into the region because they are needed for much of the world’s economy.

Why does United Arab Emirates have so many immigrants?

Background – The United Arab Emirates attracts immigrants from all over the world; this may be because UAE nationals prefer to work for the government or military. The country’s relatively liberal society compared to some of its neighbours has attracted many global expatriates, including people from western nations,

What is the impact of diversity in UAE?

How does diversity impact culture? – Culture has been considered as the way of life. The impact of diversity on culture aids in the dismantling of negative preconceptions and personal prejudices towards other communities. It also provides us cultural variety which enables us to understand and respect ways of life that are not always our own.

What are the dominant factors which leads to international conflict?

CAUSES AND CONDITIONS OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT AND WAR

Volume 4 | | Chapters, Perspective And Summary. International Relations. The International Actors. International Behavior Space-Time. International Expectations And Dispositions. International Actor And Situation. International Sociocultural Space-Time. Interests, Capabilities, And Wills. The Social Field Of International Relations. Latent International Conflict. International Conflict: Trigger, Will, And Preparations. The Balancing Of Power. Comparative Dynamics Of International Conflict. Empirical Dynamics Of International Conflict. Ending Conflict And War: The Balance Of Powers. The International Conflict Helix. Theoretical And Empirical Conclusions On Conflict And War. Principles Of Peace And Conflict Appendices, Phasing Propositions and Their Evidence on International Conflict. On Causes of International Conflict. Propositions and Their Evidence on the Causes and Conditions of International Conflict Behavior. Evidence on the Causes and Conditions of International Conflict Behavior. Propositions and Evidence on the Causes and Conditions of Ending International Conflict Behavior. Descriptive Propositions on International Conflict. Overall Evidence on 54 Social Field Propositions on International Conflict. Primary Propositions on Social Conflict. Unpublished Research and Results on International Relations. Event Data: Bases of Empirical Conflict Analysis. Characteristics of Published Quantitative International Relations Studies Other Volumes The Dynamic Psychological Field The Conflict Helix Conflict In Perspective The Just Peace Other Related Work page page

What causes war? Why international violence? International Conflict? The answers are specific. International Conflict Behavior (as defined in ) is caused by:

  • opposing interests and capabilities (specific sociocultural differences and similarities between the parties),
  • contact and salience (awareness),
  • significant change in the balance of powers,
  • individual perceptions and expectations,
  • a disrupted structure of expectations,
  • a will-to-conflict.
  • It is aggravated by:
  • sociocultural dissimilarity,
  • cognitive imbalance,
  • status difference,
  • coercive state power.
  1. It is inhibited by:
  • sociocultural similarity,
  • decentralized or weak, coercive state power.
  • It is triggered by:
  • perception of opportunity, threat, or injustice,
  • surprise.

Such are the general causes and conditions of international Conflict Behavior whether nonviolent conflict behavior, violence, or war. But, as pointed out in the, Conflict Behavior manifests a series of subphases in the balancing of powers, Each subphase involves different kinds of behavior.

  1. In addition to the general causes of Conflict Behavior, nonviolent Conflict Behavior and minor low-level violence, are aggravated by:
  2. They are inhibited by:
  • system polarity (centralization of coercive power),
  • a stable status quo.
  • In addition to the general causes of Conflict Behavior, violence (including war) is caused by:
  • at least one party having an authoritarian or totalitarian regime,
  • status quo disruption,
  • confidence in success.
  1. It is aggravated by:
  • system polarity (centralization of coercive power),
  • Big Power intervention,
  • weakness of the status quo Power,
  • credibility at stake,
  • honor at stake.
  • It is inhibited by:
  • cross-pressures,
  • internal freedom,
  • strength of the status quo Power,
  • world opinion.
  1. War is a particular type of intense violence and what generally causes, aggravates, and inhibits violence so affects war. In addition, war is uniquely aggravated by:
  • power parity,
  • class conflict.

It is inhibited by: This list immediately raises a number of questions: How are cause and condition defined? What is the theoretical foundation for the list? What do the particular causes and conditions mean, such as power parity or class conflict? What is the evidence? These are central questions, and must be answered.

To best organize the relevant technical material and answers, three appendices have been prepared. defines cause and conditions and considers their particular use here. presents 33 propositions stating the specific framework for understanding each cause or condition, the theoretical basis, prediction, and evidence.

provides methodological detail and the sources for evaluating the evidence used in, A necessity for understanding the causes and conditions of international Conflict Behavior (again, for definitions see ), violence and war is an appreciation that they operate as part of an international social field.

They are field forces, conditions, and states, This means that these causes and conditions are interrelated, part of a whole, a process, and an equilibrium. In other words, they operate contextually within the conflict helix, as pictured in of, The whole character of,, and ; my Field Theory Evolving (1977); and the previous chapters of this book therefore underlie as foundation, analysis, and evidence, the list of causes and conditions.

Against this background and within the social field context, the causes and conditions of antagonistic international conflict behavior are shown in the phase map of, The base of this map pictures the theoretical and empirical supported phases of conflict and the subphases of conflict behavior discussed in the,

  1. Therefore, the figure is mapping the flow and process of conflict through time, from past to future, from left to right.
  2. The level between double lines just above the phases, map as horizontal lines behavior manifesting a particular phase or subphase of conflict.
  3. The length of each line is congruent with the phase or subphases the associated behavior reflects.

Thus, the line plot for intense military violence shows it to be congruent with a portion of the coercive violence subphase and the whole of the force subphase. Above these phase plots for behavior, the causes and conditions are then mapped in ascending levels.

  • the phase or subphase of conflict,
  • the types of conflict behavior a phase or subphase manifests,
  • the manifest causes and conditions of these behaviors,
  • the causes and conditions operating together in any phase or subphase of conflict.

This phase map is the basic organization (model) for interrelating the causes and conditions of international conflict. And I will now focus on it in brief. As shown at the top level of the phase map, there are two necessary and sufficient causes. The first is an incongruent structure of expectations which is correlative to the conflict situation.

  1. A structure of expectations is based on a particular balance of powers between states.
  2. The balance may shift in time, however, and aggravated by sociocultural dissimilarity and cognitive imbalance, will produce incongruent expectations.
  3. Without such incongruency between two states there would be no conflict situation,

There would be no mutual antiforeign riots or demonstrations, and tension, friction, and coolness in relations. When incongruency occurs, such a conflict situation is produced; tension and hostility are generated, Incongruency is a latent situation of conflict ripe for disruption, for an eruption into manifest confrontation.

  • This disruption divides in time, and thus in the phase map, the conflict situation from the situation of uncertainty and the balancing of powers.
  • The disruption of expectations is the necessary and sufficient cause of intentional, state Conflict Behavior, whether negative communications, sanctions, or war.

International Conflict Behavior assumes such a disruption has occurred; its occurrence produces Conflict Behavior. There are no other jointly necessary and sufficient causes. Incongruency and disruption are thus basic, and have been given considerable theoretical analysis in previous chapters and volumes, especially in terms of the conflict helix: structure of expectations become incongruent with the underlying-previously supporting-balance of powers, making disruption likely; disruption generates the balancing of powers, which determines a more realistic, mutually perceived balance of powers; this new balance forms a new, congruent structure of expectations; this structure becomes in time incongruent; and so on.

A necessary cause of Conflict Behavior is that without which the conflict behavior would not occur. There are a number of necessary causes that operate throughout or in various phases and subphases of the conflict process, as shown in the phase map. Considering the necessary cause of Conflict Behavior in general first (these are the lines beginning with the conflict situation or situation of uncertainty and running completely across the phase map ), one is the distance vectors between states in sociocultural space.

These mirror the basic opposition between national interests and capabilities-they measure the relative position of states in their meanings, values, norms, status, and class. Opposing interests are necessary to the latent conflict situation and for the actual balancing that takes place.

Another necessary cause is a mutual awareness, a contact between states and mutual salience. In addition, perceptions and expectations specific to each actor (as described in ) are necessary to their conflict. What the situational content of these might be depends on the actor. Two necessary causes specifically underlie the disruption of the structure of expectations and the consequent situation of uncertainty and balance of powers.

One is a significant change in the balance of powers. This is a change in interests, capabilities, or will (credibility) that causes one or both parties to feel that their understandings and agreements, the distribution of rights and benefits, duties and responsibilities-in short the structure of expectations-are wrong, unjust, inconsistent with their powers, and should and can be altered to the advantage of one or the other.

The second necessary cause of disruption is a will-to-conflict. No Conflict Behavior can occur unless the parties are willing to confront each other. So far then, for Conflict Behavior to occur between two states there must be a particular combination of sociocultural distances between them (an opposition of their interests and capabilities), mutual awareness (contact and salience), a significant change in their balance of powers, disrupted expectations, and a will-to-conflict.

Besides these necessary causes of Conflict Behavior of all kinds, violence uniquely assumes the existence of three additional necessary causes, as shown in the phase map (). One is the expectation of success. In their own subjective calculus of gains and losses, each party believes that the outcome of violence will be advantageous (even if it means for one invaded that it will at least succeed in forcing concessions from the aggressor).

  1. A second necessary cause of violence is a disrupted status quo.
  2. The status quo defines for states the ideological and territorial distribution of who has what.
  3. It is the core of the structure of expectations.
  4. Without a disruption in the status quo the issues are neither important or clear enough to warrant violence.

The third necessary cause is that a party to the conflict be nonlibertarian (authoritarian or totalitarian). Violence will not occur between two libertarian (or liberal democratic) states: domestic constraints, cross-pressures and libertarian bonds makes violent alternatives unthinkable.

  • Such is not the case for nonlibertarian states.
  • A sufficient cause of conflict is one whose occurrence produces conflict.
  • There is only one such cause, and it is of a conflict situation, not formal or official conflict behavior.
  • This is a significant change in the balance of powers, that is in the interests, capabilities, and/or wills of one or both parties Such change therefore has a dual effect.

It produces a conflict situation, perhaps manifested in tension, hostility, friction, coolness, and antiforeign demonstrations. Interstate relations remain “correct,” but beneath the pot is boiling. And this change is a necessary cause for the subsequent Conflict Behavior (as shown in the phase map ), once expectations have been disrupted.

Note that there is a logical relationship between incongruent expectations as a necessary and sufficient cause of hostility and tension, and a significant change in the balance of powers as a sufficient cause. “Significant” is defined in terms of those changes in the interests, capabilities, and wills comprising a balance of powers that creates a gap with regard to expectations.

That is, what states want, can get, or are resolved to get are no longer consistent with their understandings or agreements. Aggravating conditions worsen a conflict, make outbreak, escalation and intense conflict more likely. Four such conditions affect international Conflict Behavior generally, regardless of phase or subphase.

  • One is sociocultural dissimilarity, which makes opposing interest more likely and aggravates communications between parties.
  • The second is cognitive imbalance, or the imbalance in relationships or status between parties.
  • Such can create a pressure towards misperception and miscommunication, and necessitate a conflict aggravating readjustment.

A third aggravator is the overall status difference (distance vector), or rank between parties. Relative status is a basic force between states, as between individuals, and differences in wealth (e.g., a rich-poor gap), in power, and in prestige can interject status considerations into a conflict.

And make it far more difficult to resolve. And fourth is the coercive power of state, The more relative power a state has the more global its contacts and interests and the more concern over its reputation for power. Great power is not necessary or sufficient for conflict behavior. Weak states do conflict; do go to war.

But power does stimulate and aggravate issues, giving them a more global significance. And centralized state power means also that resources can be controlled and directed towards a conflict and domestic restraints manipulated. The more power the parties have in a conflict, the more conflict behavior there is likely to be.

  1. The other aggravating conditions only affect certain phases and kinds of conflict.
  2. The first of these is cross-pressures, which deepens the situation of uncertainty, provoking status quo testing and stimulating nonviolent conflict behavior and even possible minor, low level violence.
  3. While affecting some nonviolence also, most of the remaining aggravators primarily act on violence.

First of these is Big Power intervention in the conflict, which may transform a local dispute into one involving the status quo among the Powers, and thus raise the stakes at issue. Such intervention also injects into the conflict greater resources for confrontation.

  1. Two additional aggravating conditions of violence are the injection of honor and credibility (reputation for power) into conflict.
  2. If a leadership perceives its or the nation’s self-esteem at issue, or if it feels that the outcome of a conflict will determine how others perceive their will and capability, then the conflict is more likely to escalate, be more intense, and be more difficult to resolve.

Another aggravating condition is the perceived weakness of the Status quo Power. A status quo will always involve some perceived unequal distribution of rights and benefits. As long as the major benefactor-the Status quo Power-has the strength to defend the status quo, however, this distribution is likely to remain stable.

But if the Status quo Power becomes weak, which would be a significant change in the balance of powers, and its ability to defend the status quo is questionable, then attempts the realign the status quo by other parties are encouraged. And if violence occurs, it is acerbated. Finally, polarity also aggravates Conflict Behavior and violence.

International systems in which power is highly centralized assure that once conflict breaks out, it can easily involve the fundamental status quo among the Big Powers and become a test of the power-based international order, thus encouraging escalation and extreme violence.

Two conditions particularly aggravate intense violence and war. One is coercive power parity. The more equal in this power two states are, the more objectively ambiguous the outcome and the more both sides can believe in success. The second is class conflict. Class is a relationship of power regarding the status quo, where the superordinate class most benefits from the status quo.

The subordinate class comprises the “outs.” The more this class division puts states in the same one-up or one-down position on international rights, privileges, and benefits, the more likely conflict will become intensely violent. Inhibiting conditions restrain conflict, making outbreak, escalation and intense conflict less likely.

  • Many of the aggravating conditions of Conflict Behavior are inhibitors if their values are reversed.
  • Whereas, dissimilarity aggravates, similarity inhibits.
  • Likewise, cognitive balance, status similarity, and weak state power are the general inhibitors of Conflict Behavior.
  • Focusing now on particular subphases of conflict, there are only two inhibitors of nonviolent conflict behavior and low-level violence.

One is polarity, or the centralization of power within the international system. In centralized systems, except for extreme violence Conflict Behavior tends to be dampened and repressed. Such conflict is largely controlled, for it might escalate and involve the Big Power(s), or affect the general status quo.

  1. Polarity is a dual condition, therefore.
  2. It dampens nonviolent conflict behavior and low-level violence while aggravating major violence.
  3. The second inhibitor of low-level conflict is a stable status quo.
  4. Even though there may be an intense nonviolent dispute, as long as the status quo between the parties is unquestioned, the conflict is restrained and escalation to violence is unlikely.

Except for isolated low-level violence, coercive violence and force are over a disrupted status quo. Therefore, the line representing a stable status quo in the phase map must end where a disrupted status quo (the necessary cause of violence) begins. Turning now to inhibitors of violence (which may also inhibit some nonviolent Conflict Behavior), the first is the strength of the Status Quo Power.

  • Its weakness aggravates conflict, making violence and escalation more likely.
  • And its strength inhibits the escalation of conflict into violence and war.
  • The second inhibitor is cross-pressures, which like polarity has a dual causal role, but in opposite directions.
  • As a result of diverse, contending interests, cross-pressures encourage Conflict Behavior, but bleed off, segment and confuse this conflict so that violence and war are inhibited.

As generators of cross-pressures, libertarian (liberal democratic) political systems are inhibit in their involvement in extreme conflict and violence, especially in initiating violence. It is usually in defense of the status quo against authoritarian or totalitarian initiatives or aggression that libertarian states will be involved in violence, if at all.

Finally, there is world opinion, which if vocal and focused can inhibit the occurrence and escalation of violence. Allies can threaten to withdraw support; friendly countries can turn hostile, thus affecting other issues besides those in the dispute. In other words, world opinion can raise the cost of a conflict to the parties.

Aside from the inhibitors of violence, war as a type of violence has only one special inhibitor: coercive power disparity. Power parity makes escalation to and in war more likely. The ambiguity of power enables both parties to expect success. A power disparity that makes clear the power dominance of one party over the other tends to discourage war.

  1. Conflict Behavior is directly caused by some trigger that provokes the will of one or both parties to action, finally disrupting an incongruent structure of expectations.
  2. The trigger can be any event fitting into one of two overlapping classes.
  3. One class is of those events perceived by one or both parties as showing opportunity, threat, or injustice.

Opportunity could be indicated by some event displaying the weakness of the other party, such as its withdrawal from a local conflict with an apparently inferior party, mutiny of a garrison, or a coup d’état. Threat may be perceived in an assassination plot financed by the other party, or discovery of the development of a secret weapon, or declared alliance between the other party and another adversary.

  1. And injustice may be seen in the other sinking one’s passenger liner, harboring or supporting terrorists, or refusing to concede territory one feels the other illegally occupies.
  2. The second class of triggers are those which occur suddenly, provoking surprise, and crystallizing will and opposition.
  3. These are the crises creators.

The events which were not foreseen, but which cannot be ignored and change or threaten to change the relationship between the parties, The sudden discovery by the United States that the Soviet Union was putting missiles and bombers in Cuba in 1962, threatening to alter the balance of powers was such a trigger.

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So was the sudden blockade of West Berlin by the Soviet Union in 1948, the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961; and the nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egyptian President Nasser in 1956. Note on the phase map that triggers conveying perceptions of opportunity threat, or injustice, and surprise may operate also to escalate the subphases of conflict.

What causes war? This question has been answered above, but the range and nature of all the causes and conditions may not be clear, because the discussion moved across phases and subphases of conflict and types of causes. War is generated by a field of sociocultural forces seated in the meaning, values, and norms of states.

Specifically, war is an outcome of an imbalance among these forces in international space-time. And is the process through which a new field equilibrium is established. The causes and conditions of war, therefore, operate within this social field. They are interrelated; their operation is relative to the space-time.

War is therefore not the product of one cause, or x number of causes operating independently. War is a social field phenomenon, and its causes and conditions must be understood as aspects of this field-as contextual, situational. With this understanding, an answer to “What causes war?” requires first stating the conditions that must be met for war to be possible.

  • These are the necessary causes of war.
  • For war to occur between two states they must have some contact and salience, some awareness of each other.
  • They must also have some opposing interests, something to fight about, and capabilities to fight.
  • Such is obvious, What is not so clear is the more abstract but operational statement of this: they must have specific sociocultural distances (vectors).

What opposing interests are necessary for war depend on the actor and situation. But there is one characteristic, however, which can be defined. At least one of the potential combatants must be nonlibertarian, Shared domestic restraints, cross-pressures and bonds, ideology, preclude war between libertarian-liberal democratic-states.

If at least one of the parties is nonlibertarian, there are still additional requirements for war to occur. There must be a significant change in the balance of powers supporting the status quo. Interests, capabilities, and will singly or in combination must have changed sufficiently that the status quo is now felt to be unjust, threatened, or ripe for readjustment.

This change has created a tension, a cold or hostile climate between the parties; it had made it obvious to informed observers that if something is not done to prevent it, violence and possibly war will break out. Second, there must be a will-to-war. That is, each potential combatant must have a will to fight either in defense of or to change the status quo.

Abnegation, surrender, concessions can avoid war, at least for the short run. Such, of course, may be at a cost in honor, benefits, potential gain, or freedom greater than a leadership is eventually willing or able to bear; and thus stimulating a subsequent will-to-war. And third, each potential combatant must expect success as he defines it.

That is, each must believe that if war does occur as a result of the increasingly unstable status quo, then he will be able to achieve his war aims (desirable slice of territory; defeat the other’s border attack; force acceptance of a new sphere of interests; establish control over trade routes, humiliate the other, defend one’s honor, and so on).

These, then, are the rock bottom, generally necessary causes for war: contact and salience, opposing interests and capabilities, nonlibertarian enemies, significant change in the balance of powers underlying the status quo, a will-to-war, and a belief in success if war occurs. Wherever present between states on the globe, these causes demarcate the war potential zones, the possible global fronts of extreme violence.

The zone including only libertarian states is a zone of peace, Outside of this zone are those that circumscribe the disequlibriums among powers supporting the local, regional, and global status quos. These are the hot spots, the zones of possible war.

  • Yet, war may not occur.
  • For a final necessary cause also must be present.
  • This is the disruption of the status quo.
  • Some, perhaps surprising, event will communicate injustice, threat, or opportunity in a way to crystallize the conflict situation and provoke the will-to-action for one or both parties.
  • The change in the balance of powers has created tension, a recognition of the possibility of war over a status quo.

The trigger event brings this to a head, provoking a crises in which war is the outcome. Disruption of the status quo is both necessary and sufficient for Conflict Behavior, but only necessary for violence and war. Such disruption will not occur unless the requirements for war are present (opposing interests, significant change in balance of powers, and so on).

The decision to go to war takes preparation and months may go by in which tension grows or, through the subterfuge of one party or another, seems to abate before the attack. Such are the necessary and sufficient causes of war, what in the abstract must be present or happen for war to occur. However, it should be clear that all these requirements for war may be present, and still no war may break out.

Moreover, the war that does occur can be a short, intense confrontation on a border, or a full-scale war between the parties involving bombing raids on each other’s capital city and invasion, or a general war in which many states are involved. There are three groups of aggravating conditions which increase the likelihood of war, given the presence of the necessary conditions, or increase its intensity once it has occurred.

  • One group is of those conditions which worsen Conflict Behavior generally, whether negative communications, sanctions, violence, or war.
  • These include the sociocultural dissimilarity between the parties, their cognitive imbalance and status difference and the coercive power of the parties.
  • All these acerbate opposing interests and with regard to war, tend to destabilize the status quo, and increase the likelihood of its disruption.

A second group of aggravating conditions uniquely influence violence and war. One of these is the polarity of the system, which defines the generality of the status quo and increases the probability that a state’s violence, wherever it occurs, will involve Big Power interests.

A second is Big Power intervention itself, which may inject into local conflicts larger status quo interests and resources and provoke violence or its escalation. Another aggravating condition is the weakness of the Status quo Power. Given the presence of the necessary causes, if the Status quo Power seems to display an unwillingness or inability to defend an already unstable status quo, then this makes more likely its disruption and the escalation of violence and war, once they occur.

Finally, there is honor and credibility. If these are at stake in a conflict situation, it becomes more explosive, making violence and war more likely, more intense once they occur, and more difficult to resolve. The third group of aggravators is unique to war.

  1. These make disruption and war more likely, given the necessary causes, and make the escalation of war more probable.
  2. One is power parity, or a sufficient equality of coercive power and force such that each side believes that it can successfully oppose the power of the other.
  3. The second aggravator is class conflict.

Class in international relations defines the authoritative, status quo rights of the parties. As there is increasingly one division separating those who have from those who want; those with wealth, power and prestige from those who are poor, weak, and unrenowned; and those states who command and those who obey; then this division worsens conflict, makes war more likely, and tends to turn a war, once it occurs, into a general war.

  • In total, the three groups of aggravating conditions push toward war.
  • But, singly or collectively, they will not in general cause war by themselves.
  • The necessary causes must be present; the status quo must be disrupted.
  • However, these aggravating causes can turn potential into disposition and disposition into a war seeking an excuse to happen.

In any conflict, however, there are always two sets of conditions present. Those promoting confrontation; those discouraging it. For war, also, there are a variety of inhibiting conditions that oppose its occurrence and escalation. These also comprise three groups, depending on whether they operate in all Conflict Behavior subphases, only violence and war, or only on war.

  • The first group comprises those aggravators that when reversed act also as inhibitors.
  • Thus, sociocultural similarity, cognitive balance, status similarity, and state weakness restrains the tendency toward Conflict Behavior, violence and war.
  • The second group contains a number of inhibitors which act on violence, only one of which is the reverse of an aggravator.

This is the strength of the Status quo Power. If in spite of a change in the balance of powers, the supporter of the status quo appears willing and able to defend it, this tends to work against its disruption. Even then disruption and consequent violence or war may occur.

The AntiStatus quo Power may believe it can successfully change the status quo over the other’s resistance. But, the threshold for this is raised. Another inhibitor in this group is cross-pressures. These involve diverse interests that may segment the particular opposing interests of the parties. Violence or war may be desirable for these interests, but other interests may therefore be compromised or lost.

Some interests push toward war; some pun away from it. Related to this is internal freedom-a libertarian political system-as an inhibitor of violence and war. Libertarian states do commit violence and go to war; but reluctantly, usually against totalitarian or authoritarian threats or aggression, and often with considerable domestic opposition.

  • A final inhibitor in this group is world opinion, the pressure that allies and neutrals can bring to bear to prevent or check violence and war.
  • The final group is of those conditions uniquely inhibiting war.
  • It has one member: power disparity.
  • Power parity worsens a war-potential situation; power disparity restrains it.

War still may occur, in spite of a gross inequality in military forces and resources. Other factors, such as honor, credibility, survival, or determination may make the difference, as they have in the Israeli-Arab Wars. Success may be pegged to the potential for Big Power intervention; or success may be measured not in terms of winning, but in actually having fought the other to a standstill or in unifying a nation.

Or a state may calculate that the other side will use only a small part of its power, as small North Vietnam correctly did in fighting a war against a Superpower, the United States. These, then, are the causes and conditions of war. in pulls them all together, by level and group. shows these causes operating by phase and subphase.

And the basic picture of the conflict helix in of portrays the process of conflict, and thus of war as well; In order to be as clear as possible, however, I have also constructed, This brings together in one figure all the necessary and sufficient causes and the aggravating and inhibiting conditions of war, in their relationship to each other and to the underlying process of conflict.

Causes and conditions are shown in lower case; descriptive terms for this process are capitalized. The core of the structure of expectations-the status quo-is shown as a bar with regard to which a gap (incongruence) is created by a change in the balance of powers (necessary cause). This assumes mutual contact and salience, and opposing interests and capabilities (necessary causes).

A trigger (cause) disrupts the status quo (necessary and sufficient cause) and war results, assuming a will-to-war, confidence in success, and that totalitarian or authoritarian states are involved (necessary causes). The war then determines a new balance of mutually recognized powers and a congruent status quo as shown in,

Also as shown, a number of aggravating and inhibiting conditions operate on the process. Such, then, is a well-confirmed perspective on war. The evidence is presented in Appendices 16B and 16C. Scanned from Chapter 16 in R.J. Rummel, War, Power, Peace, 1979. For full reference to the book and the list of its contents in hypertext, click,

Typographical errors have been corrected, clarifications added, and style updated. There are two levels of evidence. One level is the statement of the cause, such as “x causes y.” Such are the propositions given in, The other is the premises of the statement.

  1. For example, one might assert that because of premises a, b, c, and d, then “x causes y.” Now, if a, b, c, and d are supported by the evidence, then the derivation of “x causes y” gives the statement a truth value over and above the empirical evidence bearing on the statement alone.
  2. Only true deductions can be logically derived from true premises.

presents the evidence for the statements (propositions) involving the causes and conditions. The previous chapters and volumes provide the evidence (such as the psychological evidence from multivariate psychology in and the cross-national evidence for the general conflict propositions in ) for the premises of the statements.

Although the general causes and conditions refer to Conflict Behavior, which involves both the coercive and noncoercive paths, where the latter may comprise cooperative behavior (see ), I have restricted the phase map to the former for simplicity. Attempts to visually model causes of war usually employ an arrow diagram to show the causal relationship between independent and dependent variables.

The phase map in is an alternative model which allows dynamic interrelationship among variables to be simultaneously shown at different phases in process. A complete, detailed discussion of each cause, theoretically and empirically, would obviously entail a separate volume.

However, because each basic concept (e.g., structure of expectations, power, libertarian political system) has been defined and analyzed in previous volumes and chapters, and because focuses this previous analysis on each propositional statement of a cause or condition, I can be brief here. Because this is a necessary and sufficient cause of an international situation of conflict and not behavior, it does not appear in the list of causes and conditions in, nor in the propositions listed in,

As I discuss these causes and conditions, such as incongruent expectations, I will be moving up and down the vertical region in the phase map whose width is defined by the horizontal line that plots a specific cause or condition. Thus, for incongruent expectations, note that the vertical region encompasses at the base the conflict situation; such behaviors as UN voting, and antiforeign behavior; and such aggravating conditions as sociocultural dissimilarity and cognitive imbalance.

The vertical region also includes, as sufficient cause, a significant change in the balance of powers, which I have just pointed to in the text as producing incongruent expectations. This approach underlines the interrelatedness of the causes and conditions, behavior, and latent process. Hostility, manifested in unofficial antiforeign behavior, and tension or friction reflect a latent situation of conflict.

They are not intentional state acts or actions necessarily connected to the specific situation. Indeed, hostility and tension are a matter of atmosphere and feeling, not a specific behavior. In the situation of uncertainty and balancing of powers, however, conflict acts and actions are willful, intentional confrontations regarding the conflict.

  • This is not a trite nor tautological assertion, for the cause is defined in terms of distance vectors in sociocultural space.
  • Interests are therefore given a specific empirical manifestation and operational meaning distinct from empirical conflict behavior.
  • Provides some related useful results on situational expectations and perceptions.

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What are the 3 main causes of the civil war in Africa?

Causes of Conflicts in West Africa – The root of violent conflicts and civil strife in West Africa is linked to several complex factors. In his article, ‘Conflict and Peace in West Africa,’ Cybil Obi identifies that: The roots of conflict in West Africa are much deeper and complex, and are embedded in the interplay of historical factors, socio-economic crisis, legacies of authoritarianism and the politics of exclusion, international forces, and local struggles ( Obi 2012 ).

Admittedly, while the aforementioned constitute the broader causal factors, embedded within and related to them are bad governance and corruption, human rights violations, poverty, ethnic marginalization and small arms and light weapons proliferation (among others), which continue to serve as triggers and drivers of violent conflicts in the sub-region.

Even though there are several other specific causes of violent conflicts and civil strife in West Africa, the paper will focus on discussing the aforementioned.

What is the 2 poorest country in Africa?

The 10 Poorest Countries in Africa (by 2020 GNI per capita, Atlas method, current US$):** –

Burundi ($270) Somalia ($310) Mozambique ($460) Madagascar ($480) Sierra Leone ($490) Central African Republic ($510) Liberia ($530) Niger ($540) Democratic Republic of the Congo ($550) Malawi ($580)

** For comparison: United States 2019 ($65,910) Based on the per capita GDP and GNI values from 2020, Burundi ranks as the poorest country in not only Africa, but also the world. The second-poorest country in Africa, Somalia, holds the same distinction.

  • In fact, this pattern carries through much of the list.
  • With the lone exception of the Asian country Afghanistan, whose GNI per capita of $500 would place it at #6 on the second list, Africa’s 10 poorest countries are also statistically the world’s 10 poorest.
  • To be fair, this ranking comes with one significant caveat: It is possible that additional non-African countries—particularly North Korea, Syria, and/or Yemen —would appear in the bottom 10 if they openly shared their GDP/GNI data, but they typically decline to do so.

That said, African countries would still take up the majority of the list. It can be difficult to grasp the scale of Africa’s economic challenges when viewing the numbers in a vacuum. To add perspective, we can look at the GDP values of the wealthiest countries in the world,

According to 2020 data, the country with the highest GDP per capita (PPP int.$) is Luxembourg, with a value of $118,356—which is more than 150 times higher than Burundi’s $771. Similarly, Norway ‘s world-leading 2020 GNI per capita (Atlas method, current US$) of $78,250 seems almost modest—until one realizes that it’s a full 289 times higher than Burundi’s $270.

Africa’s economic situation may not always be so bleak. A few African countries have seen significant economic growth and development over the past two decades. If this progress can be sustained and expanded, many Africans may realize a more promising economic future.

Burundi – $270 Somalia – $310 Mozambique – $460 Madagascar – $480 Sierra Leone – $490 Eritrea – $510 Central African Republic – $510 Liberia – $530 Niger – $540 Dr Congo – $550

Is population declining in the Middle East?

Fertility Declining in the Middle East and North Africa (April 2008) The Middle East and North Africa includes some of the world’s fastest growing countries, and the region as a whole saw its population quadruple in the second part of the 20th century, from 104 million to 400 million. Note: MENA refers to the countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Source: UN Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision (2007:, accessed April 7, 2007). But growth of the mainly Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa has been slowed by a veritable revolution in marriage and childbearing in recent decades.

While a young population structure ensures momentum for future growth, the pace has slackened thanks to fertility declines in some of the region’s largest countries. MENA’s total fertility rate (TFR), or average number of children born per woman, declined from about seven children in 1960 to three children in 2006.1 The decline started first in Lebanon, then in a few other countries, including Egypt, Iran, and Tunisia.

These last three countries were among the first to adopt policies to lower fertility as a way to slow population growth.2 In Iran, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Turkey, fertility was at or below the replacement level of about 2.1 children per woman. Yemen’s TFR has edged downward, but remains the region’s highest at 6.2 in 2005. Note: The total fertility rate refers to the average number of children born per woman given current birth rates. Source: UN Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision (2007;, accessed April 7, 2007).

Why is it difficult to determine which countries belong to Europe and which belong to Southwest Asia?

2

Identify the key geographic features of Europe Explain how the industrial revolution has shaped the geographic landscape of Europe Summarize how migration has impacted Europe’s population Describe the current controversies regarding migration to Europe

Europe? Where’s that? It might seem like a relatively easy question to answer, but looking at the map, the boundaries of Europe are harder to define than it might seem. Traditionally, the continent of “Europe” referred to the western extremity of the landmass known as Eurasia (see Figure 2.1 ).

  1. Eurasia is a massive tectonic plate, so determining where exactly Europe ends and Asia begins is difficult.
  2. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean in the North, the Atlantic Ocean and its seas to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea to the south.
  3. Europe’s eastern boundary is typically given as the Ural Mountains, which run north to south from the Arctic Ocean down through Russia to Kazakhstan.

The western portion of Russia, containing the cities of St. Petersburg and Moscow, is thus considered part of Europe while the eastern portion is considered part of Asia. Culturally and physiographically, Western Russia is strikingly similar to Eastern Europe. An Influx Of Foreign Workers Into The United Arab Emirates Has Had What Demographic Impact Figure 2.1: European Physical Geography and Political Boundaries (© San Jose, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0) In addition to the Ural Mountains, Europe has several other mountain ranges, most of which are in the southern portion of the continent. The Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Carpathians divide Europe’s southern Alpine region from the hilly central uplands.

Northern Europe is characterized by lowlands and is relatively flat. Europe’s western highlands include the Scandinavian Mountains of Norway and Sweden as well as the Scottish Highlands. Europe has a large number of navigable waterways, and most places in Europe are relatively short distances from the sea.

This has contributed to numerous historical trading links across the region and allowed for Europe to dominate maritime travel. The Danube, sometimes referred to as the “Blue Danube” after a famous Austrian waltz of the same name, is the European region’s largest river and winds its way along 2,860 km (1,780 mi) and 10 countries from Germany to Ukraine.

  • This proximity to water also affects Europe’s climate (see Figure 2.2 ).
  • While you might imagine much of Europe to be quite cold given its high latitudinal position, the region is surprisingly temperate.
  • The Gulf Stream brings warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean to Europe’s coastal region and warms the winds that blow across the continent.

Amsterdam, for example, lies just above the 52°N line of latitude, around the same latitudinal position as Saskatoon, in Canada’s central Saskatchewan province. Yet Amsterdam’s average low in January, its coldest month, is around 0.8°C (33.4°F) while Saskatoon’s average low in January is -20.7°C (-5.3°F)! An Influx Of Foreign Workers Into The United Arab Emirates Has Had What Demographic Impact Figure 2.2: Europe Climate Classification (© Ali Zifan, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) While geographers can discuss Europe’s absolute location and the specific features of its physical environment, we can also consider Europe’s relative location. That is, its location relative to other parts of the world.

  • Europe lies at the heart of what’s known as the land hemisphere.
  • If you tipped a globe on its side and split it so that half of the world had most of the land and half had most of the water, Europe would be at the center of this land hemisphere (see Figure 2.3 ).
  • This, combined with the presence of numerous navigable waterways, allowed for maximum contact between Europe and the rest of the world.

Furthermore, distances between countries in Europe are relatively small. Paris, France, for example, is just over a two-hour high speed rail trip from London, England. An Influx Of Foreign Workers Into The United Arab Emirates Has Had What Demographic Impact Figure 2.3: Map of Land and Water Hemispheres and Europe’s Relative Location (Derivative work from original by Citynoise, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) This relative location provided efficient travel times between Europe and the rest of the world, which contributed to Europe’s historical dominance.

When we consider globalization, the scale of the world is shrinking as the world’s people are becoming more interconnected. For Europe, however, the region’s peoples have long been interconnected with overlapping histories, physical features, and resources. Europe’s physical landforms, climate, and underlying resources have shaped the distribution of people across the region.When early humans began settling this region, they likely migrated through the Caucasus Mountains of Southwest Asia and across the Bosporus Strait from what is now Turkey into Greece.

The Greeks provided much of the cultural and political foundations for modern European society. Greek ideals of democracy, humanism, and rationalism reemerged in Europe during the Age of Enlightenment. The Roman Empire followed the Greek Empire, pushing further into Europe and leaving its own marks on European society (see Figure 2.4 ). Figure 2.4: Map of the Roman Empire, 117 AD/CE (Map by Andrei nacu, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain) The Roman’s vast European and Southwest Asian empire united the region under Christianity and created new networks of roads and trading ports. With the fall of the Roman Empire, however, tribal and ethnic allegiances reemerged and a number of invasions and migrations occurred.

England, for example, was settled by the Germanic Anglo-Saxons, from which the name “England” or “Angeln” is derived, then by the Normans from present-day France. Europe today is comprised of 40 countries, but historically, this was a region dominated by kingdoms and empires – even fairly recently. A map of Europe from just 200 years ago looks strikingly different from today’s political boundaries (see Figure 2.5 ),

At that time, Greece and Turkey were still controlled by the Ottoman Empire and Italy was a conglomerate of various city-states and independent kingdoms. Many of the countries and political boundaries of Europe we know today were not formed until after World War II. Figure 2.5: Map of Europe, 1812 CE (© Alexander Altenhof, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0) Europe’s population has shifted and changed over time as well. Whereas Europe was once largely feudal and agrarian, today around 75 percent of its people live in cities.

Europe’s largest city is London, with a population of around 8.5 million within its city limits. Although the United Kingdom was the dominant force in Europe during industrialization, Germany now dominates the region in terms of population, gross domestic product, and size. The political map of Europe continues to change, with shifting alliances, competing goals, and new pushes for independence.

In general, Western Europe has moved toward cooperation. The European Union developed out of the Benelux Economic Union signed in 1944 between Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. France, Italy, and West Germany signed an economic agreement with the Benelux states in 1957, and from there, the economic cooperation continued to expand. An Influx Of Foreign Workers Into The United Arab Emirates Has Had What Demographic Impact Figure 2.6: Map of the European Union (Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain) Today, it is relatively easy to travel across Europe, in part because of economic and monetary cooperation, but also because internal border checks have largely been abolished. The Schengen Agreement, signed in the 1990s allows member states to essentially function as a single territory in terms of entry.

  • These states share a common visa system and residents and vehicles can travel freely throughout states participating in the agreement.
  • Although the European Union has provided member states with a number of advantages, the system has had some structural concerns.
  • Greece, for example, admitted to the EU in 1981, adopted the euro in 2001.
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It has had continued issues with debt, however, and has required massive bailouts from other member states. The United Kingdom held a referendum in June 2016 and decided to leave the EU, the first time a country has made the decision to leave the organization.

When analyzing the EU and its advantages and disadvantages, you might consider why a country would join a supranational organization. To join an organization like the EU, a country gives up some of its sovereignty, its independence in making economic, political, or legal decisions. Ideally, a country would gain more than it loses.

Countries united economically can more easily facilitate trade, for example, or could share a common military rather than each supporting their own. Those who favored the United Kingdom withdrawing from the EU, however, argued that membership in the EU did not offer enough advantages and preferred the United Kingdom to control its own trade deals and immigration restrictions.

Devolution, which occurs when regions within a state seek greater autonomy, has continued in Europe, representing a tension between nationalistic ideals and ethnic ties. In the United Kingdom, a 2014 Scottish independence referendum was narrowly defeated but led to greater autonomy for Scotland. In general, policies offering increased autonomy have kept the map of Western Europe fairly intact.

Ethnic groups seeking sovereignty often want political autonomy but economic integration, and thus devolution generally allows them more decision-making power. In the Balkan region, however, strong ethnic identities has contributed to continued political instability and the formation of new states.

In fact, the devolutionary forces found in this region led to the creation of the term Balkanization, referring to the tendency of territories to break up into smaller, often hostile units. The Balkans came under the control of the Ottoman Empire, and once the empire collapsed following World War I, several territories in this region were joined together as the country of Yugoslavia (see Figure 2.7 ).

Following World War II, Yugoslavia was led by Josip Broz Tito who attempted to unify the region by suppressing ethnic allegiances in favor of national unity. After his death, however, those ethnic tensions reemerged. In the 1990s, Yugoslavia was led by the dictator Slobodan Miloševi´c, a Serbian who supported a genocidal campaign against the region’s Croats, Bosnians, and Albanians. Figure 2.7: Map of Former Yugoslavia (United Nations, Public Domain) The map of Europe continues to evolve. In February 2019, for instance, the country formerly known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia officially changed its name to the Republic of North Macedonia, or just North Macedonia, resolving a long dispute with Greece.

  • While some countries in the region have decidedly benefitted from globalization, others remain fairly limited in terms of global trade and global economic integration.
  • Figure 2.8, a map of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita reveals a marked difference between the states of Western Europe and the eastern region.

Germany’s GDP per capita as of 2017, for example, was $44,470 (in US dollars), according to the World Bank. In Moldova, a former Soviet republic bordering Romania, that figure was $2,290. An Influx Of Foreign Workers Into The United Arab Emirates Has Had What Demographic Impact Figure 2.8: GDP (in PPP) per capita, 2012 from WorldBank (© XNeverEver, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0) The differences in levels of development across Europe today have largely been shaped by the Industrial Revolution. The refers to the changes in manufacturing that occurred in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

These changes had profound effects on society, economics, and agriculture, not just in Europe, but globally. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, most goods in Europe were produced in the home. These so-called “cottage” industries consisted of individual workers making unique goods in their homes, usually on a part-time basis.

These products, such as clothing, candles, or small housewares, could be sold by a farming family to supplement their income. The Industrial Revolution began in the United Kingdom, and while it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact point at which the revolution began, a key invention was James Watt’s steam engine, which entered production in 1775.

This steam-driven engine was adopted by industries to allow for factory production. Machines could now be used instead of human or animal labor. Interestingly, a side effect of the steam engine was that it enabled better iron production, since iron required an even and steady stream of heat. This improved iron was then used to build more efficient steam engines, which in turn produced increasingly better iron.

These improvements and new technologies gradually spread across Europe, eventually diffusing to the United States and Japan. During this time, there were also significant changes in agricultural production. The Agrarian Revolution began in the mid-1750s and was based upon a number of agricultural innovations.

This was the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific reasoning championed during this era was applied to the growing of crops. Farmers began using mechanized equipment, rather than relying solely on human or animal labor. Fertilizers improved soil conditions, and crop rotation and complementary planting further increased crop yields.

During this time period, there was a shift to commercial agriculture, where excess crops are sold for a profit, rather than subsistence agriculture, where farmers primarily grow food for their own family’s consumption. Around the same time improvements in rail transportation changed both the way goods were distributed across Europe and the movement of people across the region.

  1. The use of steam engines and improved iron also transformed the shipping industry, with steamships beginning to set sail across the Atlantic Ocean.
  2. The Agrarian Revolution coupled with the Industrial Revolution profoundly changed European geography.
  3. With the improvements of the Agrarian Revolution, farmers could produce more with less work.

This provided an agricultural surplus, enabling a sustained population increase. Port cities and capital cities became centers of trade and expanded. Critically, the Agrarian Revolution freed workers from having to farm, since fewer farmers were needed to produce the same amount of crops, enabling people to find work in the factories.

These factories were primarily located in cities, and thus it was the combination of these two revolutions that dramatically increased urbanization in Europe. At the start of the 19th century, around 17 percent of England’s population lived in cities; by the end of the 19th century, that figure had risen to 54 percent.

Overall, the Industrial Revolution considerably improved European power by boosting their economies, improving their military technology, and increasing their transportation efficiency. Even before the Industrial Revolution, Europe exerted a considerable amount of control over the rest of the world. An Influx Of Foreign Workers Into The United Arab Emirates Has Had What Demographic Impact Figure 2.9: European Colonization (Derivative work from original by Cogito ergo sumo, Wikimedia Commons) Coinciding with the Industrial and Agrarian Revolutions were a number of political revolutions in Europe. The most influential political change came as the result of the French Revolution, which occurred between 1789 and 1799 CE.

  • This revolution ended France’s monarchy, establishing a republic, and provided the foundation for numerous political revolutions that followed.
  • It also weakened the power of the Roman Catholic Church in France, inspiring the modern-day separation between church and state that is typical of many Western countries, including the United States.

Today, the map of Europe reflects the changes brought about by the Industrial and Agrarian Revolutions as well as the political changes that took place throughout the time period. Europe’s core area, where economic output is highest, is largely centered around the manufacturing areas that arose during the Industrial Revolution (see Figure 2.10 ). An Influx Of Foreign Workers Into The United Arab Emirates Has Had What Demographic Impact Figure 2.10: Regions of Europe (Map by Koyos, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain) The shift in labor that occurred during the Industrial Revolution, as people left rural farms to find work in factories, led to the specialization of labor that is found in Europe today.

  • Areas within Europe tended to specialize in the production of particular goods.
  • Northern Italy for example, has maintained a specialty in the production of textiles.
  • Germany continues to specialize in automotive manufacturing.
  • The Benz Patent-Motorwagen, the world’s first gasoline powered automobile, was first built in Germany in 1886 and would later develop into the Mercedes-Benz corporation.

As regions focused on the manufacture of particular goods, they benefited from, the savings in cost per unit that results from increasing production. If you wanted to build a chair, for example, you’d have to buy the wood, glue, and screws as well as the tools needed to construct it, such as a drill, sander, and saw.

  • That single chair would be quite costly to produce.
  • If you wanted to make ten chairs, however, those same tools could be used for every chair, driving the cost of each chair down.
  • Many areas in Europe have shifted from more traditional to high-tech manufacturing and industrial output in the region remains high.

The Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions shaped both migration patterns within Europe and immigration to the region. refers to a move from one place to another intended to be permanent. When considering migration, geographers look at both intraregional migration, movement within a particular region, and interregional migration, such as migration from Europe to North America.

Geographers who study migration also investigate push and pull factors that influence people to move. Push factors are those that compel you to move from your current location. A lack of job opportunities, environmental dangers, or political turmoil would all be considered push factors. Pull factors, on the other hand, are those that entice you to move to a new place, and might include ample jobs, freedom from political or religious persecution, or simply the availability of desirable amenities.

Historically, most intraregional migration in Europe was rural to urban, as people moved from farms to cities to find work. Cities grew rapidly in the region as centers of trade and industry. Before the industrial revolution, migration to the region was usually in the form of invasions, such as with the Roman Empire, the Islamic Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.

  • One notable, historical migration that did not represent an invading empire was the Jewish diaspora following the conquest of Judea, the region now known as Israel and Palestine, by a number of groups including the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Romans.
  • A diaspora refers to a group of people living outside of their ancestral homeland and many Jewish people moved to Europe to escape violence and persecution, particularly after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE.

Jews migrating to Europe were often met with anti-Semitism, however. During the Middle Ages, European Jews were routinely attacked and were expelled from several countries including England and France. Jewish communities were destroyed during the mid-14th century as the Black Death swept across Europe and thousands of Jews were murdered, accused of poisoning the water and orchestrating the epidemic.

In actuality, the disease was likely spread by rats, and worsened by the superstitious killing of cats in the same time period. European Jews were often forced to live in distinct neighborhoods, also known as ghettos. In fact, this requirement to live in specific areas was required in Italy under areas ruled by the Pope until 1870.

These distinctive communities were often met with suspicion by European Christians, many of whom continued to foster the same anti-Semitic sentiment that had been prevalent during the Middle Ages. This anti-Semitic fervor and persecution of Jews reached its height at the time of the Nazi Party’s rule in Germany.

Prior to World War II, close to 9 million Jews lived in Europe; 6 million of them were killed in the Holocaust, the European genocide that targeted Jews, Poles, Soviets, communists, homosexuals, the disabled, and numerous other groups viewed as undesirable by the Nazi regime. Following the war, many surviving Jews emigrated back to the newly created state of Israel.

Around 2.4 million Jews live in Europe today. There was another shift in population after the signing of the Schengen Agreement in 1995, with large numbers of immigrants from Eastern Europe migrated to the western European countries in the core. Citizens of European Union countries are permitted to live and work in any country in the EU, and countries like the United Kingdom and Spain contain large numbers of Eastern European immigrants.

  1. Around half of all European migrants are from other countries within Europe.
  2. Economic and political inequalities have driven much of the interregional migration to Europe since the 1980s.
  3. Immigrants from North Africa and Southwest Asia, for example, driven by limited employment opportunities and political conflict, have migrated to Europe in large numbers and now represent approximately 12 percent of all European migrants.

What does it mean to be European? Perhaps simply it means someone who’s from Europe. But what does it mean to be French or German or Spanish or British? These countries have long been comprised of a number of different ethnic and linguistic groups (see Figure 2.11 ).

  1. Spain, for example, not only contains groups speaking Spanish, the language of the historic Castilian people of the region, but also the Basque-speaking region in the north, the Catalan-speaking region centered around Barcelona, and numerous other distinct language groups.
  2. The United Kingdom, while comprised primarily of people who identify as “English,” also includes the areas of Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, each with a distinct linguistic and cultural identity.

The Welsh are actually believed to be the oldest ethnic group within the United Kingdom, so perhaps they could argue that they represent the original national identity. Figure 2.11: Languages of Europe (Map by Andrei nacu, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain) Before the creation of states as we understand them today, Europe, as with the rest of the world, was divided largely by ethnicity or tribe.

  1. Empires often took control of multiple ethnic areas.
  2. Familial allegiances were of fundamental importance.
  3. That’s not to say that geography or territory didn’t matter, but simply that who you were mattered more than where you were.
  4. The creation of sovereign political states changed this notion.
  5. Multiple ethnicities were often lumped together under single political entities, sometimes due to peaceful alliances and sometimes due to armed conquest.

In cases where a state was dominated by a single, homogeneous ethnic and linguistic cultural identity, we would refer to it as a, from the term state, meaning a sovereign political area, and nation, meaning a group with a distinct ethnic and cultural identity.

  1. Several European countries today are considered nation-states, including Poland, where 93 percent of the population is ethnically Polish, and Iceland, which is 92 percent Icelandic.
  2. Historically, countries like France and Germany were also considered nation-states, though immigration has changed their cultural landscape.

The concept of nation-state is distinct from the idea of, which refers the feeling of political unity within a territory. National flags, anthems, symbols, and pledges all inspire a sense of belonging amongst people within a geographic area that is distinct from their ethnic identity.

  • What happens when feelings of nationalism and national identity are linked with a particular ethnic group? In cases where a particular ethnic group represents the majority, nationalist ideals might be representative of that group’s language or religion.
  • But what if there are other, minority ethnic groups that are excluded from what people think it means to be part of a particular state’s nationalist identity? Migration has continually changed the cultural landscape of Europe and as immigrant groups have challenged or been challenged by ideas of nationalism.

In 1290 CE, King Edward I expelled all Jews from England, essentially establishing Christianity as being at the core of English national identity. This expulsion lasted until 1657 CE. In France after the French Revolution, ideas of nationalism included “liberty, equality, and fraternity,” and extended into areas they conquered.

In Germany, what it meant to be “German” under the Nazi Party excluded those who were considered to be “undesirable” and “enemies of the state,” such as Jews, Roma (sometimes referred to as Gypsies), persons labeled as “homosexuals,” communists, and others. Under Benito Mussolini, Italian nationalism excluded Slavs, Jews, and non-white groups.

Nationalism, taken to this extreme, is known as fascism. Fascists believe that national unity, to include a strong, authoritarian leader and a one-party state, provides a state with the most effective military and economy. Fascist governments might thus blame economic difficulty or military losses on groups that threaten national unity, even if those groups include their own citizens.

  1. Within every country, ideas of nationalism grow, weaken, and change over time.
  2. Are those that threaten national unity by dividing a state.
  3. These might include differing religious beliefs, linguistic differences, or even physical barriers within a state.
  4. On the other hand, tend to unify people within a country.

A charismatic leader, a common religion or language, and a strong national infrastructure can all work as centripetal forces. Governments could also promote centripetal forces by unifying citizens against a common enemy, such as during the Cold War. Although the countries of Europe always had a significant amount of ethnic and linguistic variety, they typically maintained a strong sense of national identity.

  • Religion in particular often worked as a centripetal force, uniting varying cultural groups under a common theological banner.
  • Religious adherence in Europe is shifting, however.
  • In Sweden, for example, over 80 percent of the population belonged to the Church of Sweden, a Lutheran denomination, in 2000.

By 2014, only 64.6 percent claimed membership in the church and just 18 percent of the population stated that they believed in a personal God (see Figure 2.12 ). This is indicative of a broad shift in Europe from traditional, organized religion toward humanism or secularism.

  1. Is a philosophy emphasizing the value of human beings and the use of reason in solving problems.
  2. Modern humanism was founded during the French Revolution, though early forms of humanism were integrated with religious beliefs.
  3. Secular humanism, a form of humanism that rejects religious beliefs, developed later.

refers broadly to the exclusion of religious ideologies from government or public activities. Figure 2.12: Percentage of People Who Answered “I believe there is a God” in 2005 Eurobarometer Poll (© Alphathon, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0) Geographers can examine how secularization has occurred in Europe; that is, how Europe has been transformed from countries with strong religious values to a more nonreligious society.

In general, areas within the core of Europe tend to be more secular and thus some researchers link secularization with rising economic prosperity. Most Western European countries have strong social welfare programs, where citizens pay a higher percentage of taxes to support universal healthcare, higher education, child care, and retirement programs.

These programs often serve as centripetal forces, unifying a country by providing government support and preventing citizens from falling into extreme poverty. The increasing secularization of Western Europe has magnified the conflict over immigration to the region.

Whereas Western Europeans have become less religious over time, immigrants to the region are generally more religious. Increasing numbers of Muslim immigrants from North Africa and Southwest Asia have settled in Europe, lured by the hope of economic prosperity and political freedom. In 2010, around 6 percent of Europe identified as Muslim.

That number is expected to grow to 10 percent by 2050. Muslims have the highest fertility rate among the major religious groups, so coupled with increasing immigration, this population is growing. In contrast, just under three-quarters of Europeans identified as Christian in 2010.

  • This is expected to drop to 65 percent in 2050.
  • Europeans are divided about how open the region should be to immigrants, and how asylum seekers, refugees seeking sanctuary from oppression, should be treated.
  • Even before the 2015 wave of Syrian migrants to Europe, a 2012-2014 survey showed that most Europeans (52 percent) wanted immigration levels to decrease.

Opinions vary within the region, however. In the United Kingdom, 69 percent of people support decreased immigration. In Greece, a gateway country for migrants attempting to enter Europe, 84 percent of people desire decreased immigration. A majority of adults in Northern European countries, however, want immigration to stay the same or increase.

  1. In 2014 and 2015, migration to Europe intensified as a result of an ongoing civil war in Syria.
  2. There were more refugees in 2014 than in any other year since World War II.2015 shattered that record, however, as 65.3 million people were displaced.
  3. Germany has received the most applications for people seeking refugee status.

The journey for migrants is difficult and dangerous. Many attempt to cross by sea into Greece. Boats are often overcrowded and capsizing is common. Around 34 percent of refugees are children, many of them unaccompanied. Although the entire influx of refugees represents around 0.5 percent of Europe’s population, it is not necessarily the sheer number of refugees that poses a problem, but rather, the idea of how immigrant populations might change the identity of a nation-state.

Many small towns in Europe have experienced shifting demographics as people move away to work in cities and immigrants move in to work in the available jobs. As Western Europe moved through industrialization, it has increasingly shifted away from heavy manufacturing and increased employment in service and high-tech industries, a process known as deindustrialization.

The higher-skilled and higher-educated workers from small towns moved to the cities to find work, while lower-skilled immigrants worked the often dangerous or labor intensive jobs that remained. In the United Kingdom in particular, many of the people who oppose immigration and supported Britain leaving the EU are located in these small towns where immigration has quite visibly changed the cultural landscape that had already shifted as a result of deindustrialization.

For some, the debate over immigration and asylum are less questions of national identity and more issues of social justice. Do countries that have political freedom and economic prosperity have a moral obligation to assist those in need? Historically, the answer has often been “no.” In 1938, on the brink of World War II, representatives from Western European countries voted not to accept Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria.

Numerous countries in Europe have similarly voted not to accept Syrian migrants. Countries like Germany, which has accepted a relatively large number of asylum seekers, have been critical of other countries that have not been as welcoming. Sweden has specifically argued that if every country in Europe accepted a proportional amount of refugees, they would easily be able to accommodate the influx.

Refugee populations typically have lower unemployment rates than native-born populations and though they require social services like housing and employment, can provide a long-term economic boost by increasing the labor force, especially in countries with otherwise declining populations. Europe’s population will continue to shift in terms of demographics and cultural identity.

Recent economic changes and migration patterns have highlighted deep divides about ideas of national identity and the role of the region in global affairs. Europe continues to be an influential and economically important region and will likely continue to attract migrants from surrounding areas.

What is one of the most important natural resources in Southwest Asia because they have so much of it?

Two of the most important natural resources found in Southwest Asia are natural gas and oil. These two resources bring wealth into the region because they are needed for much of the world’s economy.

What appears to be the most important economic activity in Southwest Asia?

With the exception of the Maldives, where the main industries are tourism and fishing, the principal industry in the countries of Southwest Asia is agriculture, which is susceptible to the influence of climatic conditions.

How immigration affected the population of the UAE?

Over the past few decades, the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—one of the world’s pre-eminent oil-rich nations located in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region—has become a popular destination for temporary labor migrants seeking employment opportunities and higher standards of living.

  • In 2013, the UAE had the fifth-largest international migrant stock in the world with 7.8 million migrants (out of a total population of 9.2 million), according to United Nations (UN) estimates.
  • With immigrants, who come particularly from India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, comprising over 90 percent of the country’s private workforce, the UAE attracts both low- and high-skilled migrants due to its economic attractiveness, relative political stability, and modern infrastructure—despite a drop in oil prices and the international banking crisis in 2008.

Heavily reliant on foreign labor to sustain economic growth and high standard of living in the country, the UAE government in 1971 introduced a temporary guest worker program called the Kafala Sponsorship System, which allows nationals, expatriates, and companies to hire migrant workers.

The Kafala system has posed a number of challenges for UAE policymakers both at home and in the eyes of international onlookers. Chief among them: ensuring economic opportunities for UAE nationals, and closing policy and implementation gaps to address widespread concerns that migrants fall victim to labor and human-rights abuses in the UAE.

Over the past several years, the UAE government has substantively reformed its laws to address the concerns of those who condemn the Kafala system for exposing migrant workers, especially domestic workers, to abusive practices. Recent measures have ranged from outlawing employer confiscation of workers’ passports to allowing workers to transfer employer sponsorship and introducing wage protection measures.

Despite these efforts, human-rights and migrant organizations maintain that abusive labor practices have persisted at alarming rates, largely due to poor enforcement. Furthermore, the Kafala system poses many domestic challenges for UAE policymakers, from effectively controlling the costs of the program (according to researcher Mouawiya Al Awad, the UAE government invests approximately $3,000 per foreign-born worker to maintain its national infrastructure and services, e.g.

police security and subsidized programs) to, more generally, ensuring economic opportunities for its own nationals. Drawing from policy reports and interviews with UAE policymakers, this article examines the economic, social, and political challenges and implications of the Kafala system for the UAE government, Emirati nationals, and migrant workers in the UAE.

Table 1: Number and Share of Native-Born and Foreign-Born Populations in GCC Countries, 1975-2010
Year Number Share Annual Growth Rate
Total Native Born Foreign Born Native Born Foreign Born Native Born Foreign Born
1975 9,731,259 8,790,223 941,036 90.3% 9.7% 3.2% 14.5%
1990 22,522,620 14,201,239 8,241,381 63.4% 36.6% 3.3% 5.0%
2010 41,093,624 23,536,409 17,557,409 57.3% 42.7%

Source : Shah, Nasra and Philippe Fargues.2013. The Socio-economic Impacts of GCC Migration. Cambridge: Gulf Research Centre. Available online, Note : Estimates do not include unauthorized migrants, estimated in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands from the 1970s forward.

The majority of migrants in GCC countries are male, although the share of women — especially in the cases of Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines — has increased over the past few decades. The vast majority of foreign-born working men are employed in low-skilled service sectors, while women are most often employed in domestic services and retail jobs.

  • The region also attracts large numbers of high-skilled migrants from countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), particularly in the oil and gas, education, finance, and investment sectors.
  • The UAE: A Lure for Low- and High-Skilled Migrants Immigration has been the primary driver of population growth in the UAE since the 1990s, with immigrants making up the vast majority of the total population in 2013.

Immigrants from Asia and the Middle East and North African (MENA) region have dominated the low- and semi-skilled sectors, while workers from the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Canada, and various Western European countries have become concentrated in the UAE’s key high-skilled sectors: the oil and gas industry as well as banking and finance (see Table 2).

There are at least 400,000 foreign-born domestic workers in the UAE from mainly Asian countries. Under the Kafala system, domestic workers fall under the authority of the Ministry of Interior, while all other foreign-born workers fall under the Ministry of Labor. As a result, they are excluded from national labor laws, and their labor complaints are often dealt with by police only.

About 65,000 unauthorized migrants — including those who entered the country illegally, visa over-stayers, migrants working on tourist visas, and others — currently reside in the UAE, according to official estimates (unofficial estimates run up to 135,000).

Figure 1: Top Five Origin Countries of the Foreign-Born Population in the United Arab Emirates
Source : United Nations.2013. Total Migrant Stock at Mid-Year by Origin and Destination. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. Available online, Note : Estimates do not include unauthorized migrants. Estimates cited in local media sometimes differ greatly: 2.2 million Indian migrants; 1.2 million Pakistani migrants; 700,000 Bangladeshi migrants; 680,000 Filipino migrants; and 400,000 Iranian migrants. Local media estimates for Egyptian migrants (300,000) do not place Egypt in the top five countries. See Kader, Binsal Abdul.2013. Indian Worker Pensions in UAE Soon. Gulf News, May 26, 2013. Available online ; Emirates 24/7.2013. UAE Has 2.2m Indians: 40% from Kerala. May 13, 2013. Available online ; Kader, Binsal Abdul.2013. Bangladeshis Lead UAE Amnesty Beneficiaries. February 3, 2013. Available online ; UAE Interact.2013. Emirates’ Second Philippines Gateway Helps Link Millions of Filipinos Globally. July 17, 2013. Available online ; Gulf News.2012. Iranian Expats in the UAE See Polls as a Pointless Exercise. March 1, 2012. Available online ; and Salama, Samir.2012. Upbeat Egyptian Expatriates Vote in First Free Presidential Elections. Gulf News. May 12, 2012. Available online,

The Kafala System: Ongoing Challenges Policy and enforcement gaps in the UAE enable foreign and local employers and recruitment agencies to violate local and international labor standards, and also undermine the UAE’s efforts to uphold international human-rights obligations.

The Kafala system has also presented a number of domestic challenges stemming from the country’s dependence on foreign labor. Human-Rights Considerations According to Human Rights Watch and other international rights advocates, the Kafala system exposes migrant workers to abuse in many forms, including exploitative working conditions, poor living accommodations, restrictions on freedom to organize or bargain collectively, and nonpayment of salaries (despite a mandatory electronic payment system in place since 2009).

Sexual abuse and violence are also reported regularly, and the Philippine government has, on occasion, enforced temporary bans to prevent female workers from being deployed in certain countries, including the UAE, Jordan, and Iraq. For its part, the UAE government recognizes gaps in implementation of labor laws and other mandates but contends that organizations like Human Rights Watch often turn a blind eye to past efforts and current policy developments to better protect migrant workers from abusive labor practices.

  1. Labor Complaints The UAE’s legal adjudication process has struggled to keep up with the large volume of labor complaints filed by migrants and employers.
  2. In the first half of 2008, the number of labor dispute cases filed in Dubai courts was more than twice the number in the first half of 2007.
  3. As UAE companies and individual employers began to feel the effects of the global economic crisis in early 2008, many either filed bankruptcy or fled the country without paying their (primarily migrant worker) employees.

Critics point out that there is insufficient institutional and staff capacity and funding, as well as lack in coordination between federal and local agencies to enforce labor laws. Recruitment Agencies Many recruitment agencies exploit workers by charging exorbitant visa fees leading to debt bondage (see Migration’s Middlemen: Regulating Recruitment Agencies in the Philippines-United Arab Emirates Corridor ).

  • Although illegal in the UAE, it is difficult to combat this practice because many of these agencies operate outside of the country.
  • The UAE has signed bilateral agreements with several sending countries, including Bangladesh, China, India, and Pakistan, with the aim of eliminating these “middlemen.” Economic Competition The UAE government struggles to ensure employment opportunities and career advancement for its own (very small) high-skilled workforce.

Emirati professionals face constraints in all public, private, and quasi-government sectors. Additionally, limited lateral mobility to move from public or quasi-government sectors to the private sector is a critical problem for Emirati professionals. At worst, their previous public-sector work experience is simply not recognized or overlooked when applying for private-sector jobs (roughly analogous to the problem of foreign diploma recognition).

At best, they must take pay cuts and/or suffer from occupational downgrade after managing to make a successful lateral move. Further, UAE nationals are often perceived as incompetent, lazy, and dependent, which negatively shapes and normalizes their value within the labor market. Employers generally prefer high-skilled expats and often ignore the presence of high-skilled UAE nationals, giving rise to economic competition between the two — and leaving Emirati professionals generally underutilized within the labor market.

Although the government facilitates equal access to entry-level employment opportunities in the public, quasi-government, and private sectors, little follow-up is carried out to evaluate UAE nationals’ experiences within organizations and the labor market more generally.

While there has been extensive public debate on the issue, little research has been conducted to probe into the frequency or extent of the problem. The UAE Government Responds To address this array of problems, the UAE government has reformed its laws as well as its bilateral agreements with labor-sending countries over the past several years.

It has also scaled up its international cooperation on labor issues, and many Emirate-level governments have also taken steps to protect the rights of migrant workers. Labor Issues: Federal Actions and International Cooperation There have been several developments in terms of federal and Emirate-level laws and regulations to address labor issues in the UAE, including a “mid-day break” law passed in 2005 to protect construction and other outdoor workers from heat-related injuries.

  1. In addition, the Ministry of Labor established offices in the Dubai and Abu Dhabi courts to facilitate the handling of labor dispute cases.
  2. One of the most notable actions to address labor issues has been the Wage Protection System (WPS), introduced in 2009, which aims to crack down on nonpayment of salaries in the private sector (mainly construction, retail, and small businesses).

Since its launch, approximately 2.9 million workers and 205,000 of the UAE’s 250,000 registered businesses have enrolled in the WPS, and more than 600 employers have been penalized. In 2007, businesses paid 52 million dihams ($14.2 million) in unpaid wages after legal action.

Although domestic workers are not covered under the WPS, there have been a few other policy developments in their favor. The UAE Federal National Council in 2012 approved legislation to address the protection of domestic workers’ rights (with provisions such as paid vacation and sick leave; the measure currently awaits the president’s signature).

In 2013, the UAE government amended a federal law to better safeguard victims of human trafficking, and also launched an awareness-raising campaign targeting those who may be in a position to combat trafficking, such as airport security personnel. UAE officials have also shown openness to international cooperation on labor standards, for example taking an active role in the Abu Dhabi Dialogue, established in 2008, which brings together 11 origin countries and seven Asian destination countries and aims to create a regional framework for regulating labor migration.

  • The UAE government has longstanding bilateral relationships with several labor-sending countries, one prominent example being the Philippines.
  • Relations between the UAE and Philippine governments began in 1981 with the Protocol Agricultural Cooperation.
  • However, bilateral cooperation on labor issues only materialized in 2007 with the introduction of a standardized contract and protection for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), particularly domestic workers, in the UAE.

Immigration Enforcement: Amnesty, Migrant Worker Strikes In response to public concerns about illegal immigration and the hiring of unauthorized migrants, the UAE government has occasionally used restrictive immigration measures, for example imposing temporary bans on migrants from certain labor-sending countries or suspending the issuance of new visas (e.g.

for workers from Bangladesh in 2012). The UAE government has also invested heavily in high-tech devices (e.g. requiring the use of iris scans for arriving travelers) to deter illegal immigration, and administers more restrictive labor immigration controls within and along its borders, including unannounced inspections.

The UAE government has also attempted to curb illegal immigration and illegal hiring through amnesty programs. In December 2012, the government announced a two-month amnesty program allowing unauthorized migrant workers to regularize their situations or leave the country without punishment.

  • Close to 20,400 migrants had applied for amnesty by January 2013, according to local media (the total number is currently unavailable).
  • Previously, about 95,000 unauthorized migrant workers took advantage of the 2007 amnesty campaign to find jobs and regularize their legal status.
  • However, UAE authorities have also reportedly used immigration enforcement measures to suppress collective action by migrant workers.

According to local media reports, the government in May 2013 deported at least 43 migrant workers employed by an Emirati construction company, Arabtec, after they went on strike demanding increased wages and better working conditions. A similar situation took place in January 2011, reportedly leading to the deportation of around 70 migrant workers employed by the same company.

Sending Countries, Civil Society Weigh In Major labor-sending countries have weighed in on protecting their nationals who work in the UAE. For example, in the Philippines, women receive predeparture orientation and training before taking up domestic work in the UAE. The Philippines has also shifted its efforts away from deploying low-skilled workers, particularly domestic workers, in favor of high-skilled workers who are supposedly less exposed to abuse.

These efforts have seemingly begun to pay off; according to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, between 1997 and 2008 there was a 15 percent decrease in the share of low-skilled workers going to the UAE, and a sharp increase in the deployment of newly hired professionals and semi-skilled workers, such as in sales.

Over the past several years, civil society has also become increasingly engaged in reaching out to migrant workers in the UAE, as well as aspiring migrants. One example is the Lawyers for Human Rights International (LFHRI), an NGO based in India — the number one origin country of migrant workers in the UAE — which campaigns for protection of Indian workers overseas.

Among the many aims of the organization is to raise awareness about human-rights abuses, for example campaigning in 2010 for an investigation into claims that Emirati police tortured 17 Indian migrant workers who were facing the death penalty for allegedly murdering a Pakistani national.

Another example is the extensive and dynamic Filipino civil society supporting its nearly 500,000 migrants (680,000 according to local media) in the UAE, the third most popular destination for OFWs after the United States and Saudi Arabia. Founded in 2003, the UAE chapter of Migrante International, an alliance of Filipino migrant organizations worldwide, advocates for stronger labor protections and penalties for recruitment agencies and employers that violate Filipino and UAE labor laws.

They provide legal advice, temporary shelter, training, counseling, and other services for Filipino victims of employer abuse, especially domestic workers. Economic Competition For the past decade, the UAE government has implemented a number of state programs to improve employment prospects for Emirati professionals in the private sector.

The Absher Initiative, launched in 2012, aims to improve Emiratis’ chances in the job market, and to provide them with “dignified standards of living by offering them stable and fulfilling career opportunities.” Other private-sector companies like Injazat and Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank have also partnered with various institutions (e.g.

Emirates National Development Program) to improve employment opportunities for UAE nationals. While some claim that these state- and private-led initiatives have helped address UAE nationals’ struggles in the job market, others point out that they fail at addressing the reality that the native-born workforce falls short of sustaining long-term economic growth.

A Regional Perspective Other GCC countries with large numbers of migrant workers are currently struggling with similar challenges and have intensified their efforts to regulate temporary labor migration over the past several years. Some have restricted inflows or carried out large-scale amnesty programs and/or deportation campaigns in response to concerns about illegal immigration and national security (e.g.

Oman and Saudi Arabia). Others have led campaigns to increase the native-born share of their workforces (i.e. Saudi Arabia’s 2009 “Saudization” law), concerned that high native-born unemployment, in particular among youth, will lead to unrest similar to what took place in countries that experienced the Arab Spring.

Labor migration flows to GCC countries are expected to grow in the coming decades, and will therefore remain a critical public policy challenge. The UAE — although one of the most liberal GCC countries and one that is seemingly proactive in addressing migration and human-rights issues — still struggles to balance labor market needs with native-born employment and a host of other pressing concerns.

An important first step will be to strengthen efforts in data collection and knowledge sharing across the Emirates, for example, to probe further into career trajectories of UAE nationals versus foreign-born professionals, or to identify the victims of human trafficking.

Building on existing initiatives like the Abu Dhabi Dialogue, origin and destination countries could also expand data collection efforts to collectively ensure evidence-based policymaking and improved labor migration governance across the region. Sources Agunias, Dovelyn Rannveig.2010. Migration’s Middlemen: Regulating Recruitment Agencies in the Philippines-United Arab Emirates Corridor.” Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.

Available online, Al Awad, Mouawiya.2010. The Cost of Foreign Labor in the United Arab Emirates. Institute for Social & Economic Research, Zayed University. Working Paper No.3. Available online, Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Washington, DC. Labor Rights in the UAE.

Available online, Fargues, Philippe.2011. Immigration without Inclusion: Non-nationals in Gulf State Nation Building. Presented at the 2011 Gulf Research Meeting (Workshop 12, Migration in the Gulf), University of Cambridge. Available online, Gulf News.2010. UAE pledges $5m to UN’s Pakistan flood relief fund.

Available online, Human Rights Watch.2010. Slow Reform: Protection of Migrant Domestic Workers in Asia and the Middle East. New York: Human Rights Watch. Available online,-, UAE: Proposed Law to Benefit Domestic Workers. May 11, 2012. Available online, Nagraj, Aarti.

Almost 10,000 Illegal Residents Exit UAE after Amnesty. Gulf Business, January 8, 2013. Available online, Shah, Nasra and Philippe Fargues.2012. The Socioeconomic Impacts of GCC Migration. Cambridge: Gulf Research Centre. Available online, Sonmez, Sevil; Apostolopoulos, Yorghos; Tran, Diane; and Shantyana Rentrope.2011.

Human Rights and Health Disparities for Migrant Workers in the UAE. Journal of Health and Human Rights 13 (2): 1-19. Available online, UAE Ministry of Labor.2007. The Protection of the Rights of the United Arab Emirates Annual Report. Available online, UAE National Bureau of Statistics.2013.

What are the effects of migration in UAE?

Look at bright side of migration to Gulf – conference hears Abu Dhabi: The principal focus of scholarly and popular writings on labour migration to the Gulf is the harms and abuse perceived to be associated with the phenomenon, not the benefits to workers or countries, an international conference on Labour Mobility heard yesterday (Wednesday).

Migration is one of the largest ways that the GCC countries interact with the rest of the world. But there is extremely scarce research on any of these effects,” said Michael A. Clemens, fellow and research manager, Centre for Global Development and NYU Financial Access initiative. Clemens argued although labour migration to the Gulf has very large, global effects, we know little about this.

“The population of the GCC as a whole is approximately 41 per cent foreign-born, which is much higher than that seen in high-immigration OECD (organisation for economic cooperation and development) countries such as the United States and France (both 13 per cent), Canada (21 per cent) and Australia (27 per cent).” Clemens added in all GCC countries, except Saudi Arabia, foreign workers make up around 90 per cent or more of the entire private sector labour force, the large majority of them from developing countries – principally South Asia and the Philippines.

Yet researchers know very little about the effects of labour migration to the Gulf, with the foremost theme of research on Gulf migration the problematic and exploitative labour relations that seemingly characterise the experiences of many of the poorest transnational labour migrants who spend time in the Gulf states, Clemens said in a paper presented to the conference, jointly organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Labour and the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research. Clemens cited two of numerous examples of academic research on foreign workers in the UAE, Keane and McGeehan (2008), which described “appalling” conditions in “a form of slavery”, while Zachariah et al (2003) found that “nearly one-fifth of the Indian migrants have not received the same job, wages and non-wage benefits as stipulated in their work contracts”. Clemens estimated that of all internet pages in English that mention migrant workers in Dubai, almost one third contain the words “slave” or “slavery”. Clement, however, tried to study the true effects of UAE work on 2,727 Indian households across 10 states of India. The findings of his study, based on data gathered from Indian hiring records of a major UAE construction firm, a purpose-built survey conducted in nine states of India, and administrative records of the UAE Ministry of labour, were: First, the economic benefit to migrant workers is extraordinarily and systematically large: migration to the UAE for basic construction work causes their daily wage to rise by a factor of five, and causes employment to rise by at least 20 percentage points. Second, there is no sign that many of the commonly-mentioned costs of migration are systematically experienced by migrants’ households: migration to the Gulf causes the fraction of households in debt to sharply decline, and there is no evidence of labour force entry by school-age children or labour-force exit by adult family members.

Third, households are generally well-informed about working and living conditions in the UAE, and there is no evidence that they enter into migration systematically overestimating the benefits. Households with migrants give estimates of migrants’ income that closely reflect true income in the UAE administrative records; and households’ estimates of non-wage working and living conditions in the UAE change little whether or not that household has a migrant.

Clemens said the findings suggested that concerns about overindebtedness, regret, and unrealised aspirations should be regarded as anecdotal rather than systematic. “Indeed, they raise questions about continuing to place top research priority on ‘problematic and exploitative labour relations’ and suggest instead exploring other aspects of the effects of Gulf labour migration,” Clemens said.

: Look at bright side of migration to Gulf – conference hears

What impact has migration had on the UAE?

Literature Review – The movement of the individuals from different societies and cultures had a great influence on the labour market. The labour market now consists of business and organizations unified by people from different cultures and organizations.

The reason which contributes to the migration of individual is to increase the earnings. Further the economy of the region is dependent on the manner in which the individuals perform in different business in the regions. As per the impact on the economy of the UAE is concerned the immigration of individuals has helped in the development of economy.

It has been noticed in all the years that the availability of a large number of resources and the effort taken by the employees in order to exploit the resources has contributed to the development of economy of the region. The immigrants contribute to the working of different organizations and in different sectors.

The count of immigrants is so high and the wide spread functioning of the immigrants in different organizations have lead to uniform development of all the sectors. The migration process started due to the availability of the oil and relates resources (Migration, 2006). However, as the present scenario reflects there has been development in all the sectors in a uniform manner.

The technological advancements of the region attracted many immigrants which lead to the development of the UAE as a major technology hub. As a result of the migration of foreign individuals the region has developed and the resources of the country have been utilized to the maximum extent possible.

  1. However, one of the drawbacks of large number of immigrants has been that the native population of the region is less in number in comparison to the immigrants.
  2. Even though the population is diverse the people living in the UAE have preserved their culture and the way the business is operated in the region.

Some of the main points which have been noticed concerning the impact t of immigrants on the economy are as follows: As an average result the natives of the UAE have gained advantage due to the functioning of the immigrants. This is because the immigrants have helped in the improvement of the productivity of the country and the increase in the income.

  • On properly analyzing the fiscal influences of the immigration it has been concluded that the influence which the immigrants have on such matters is positive and modest.
  • If the immigrants who have arrived in the UAE are skilled it is highly probable and has also been noticed that they contribute to the innovation in different industries and therefore have a positive impact on the economy of the region.

The immigrants in the UAE have become a critical part of the workforce in the UAE and they have contributed to a great deal to the advancement of technology in the UAE. In some of the occupations in the UAE the immigrants have a large share and contribution.

Some of the immigrants work in the UAE as entrepreneurs which has further developed and improved their economy. The immigrants who further reside in the UAE adopt the culture of the emirates and therefore their culture flourishes further through generations (Appleyard, 1989). One of the important impacts which have been noticed is that in the long run the UAE would be benefitted through the working of the immigrants in the region.

As a part of different researches concerning the impact of immigrants on the economy it has been deduced that even though the competition in the labour market would increase due to immigration but the benefits which come to the productivity and other aspects outweigh the competition.

  • The impact cannot be deduced with certainty because it depends on the skills and performance of the workers in the regions.
  • Therefore, there are different factors impacting the economy from the perspective of the immigrants.
  • The performance of the immigrants also depends on the scenario of the market globally.

There may be certain scenarios as per which the market is not well and therefore the performance of the immigrants is influenced.

What are the cultural demographics in the UAE?

UAE Population by Nationality in 2022 –

Nationality Population Percentage
India 2.77 Million 27.49%
Pakistan 1.28 Million 12.69%
Bangladesh 0.75 Million 7.40%
Philippines 0.56 Million 5.56%
Iran 0.48 Million 4.76%
Egypt 0.43 Million 4.23%
Nepal 0.32 Million 3.17%
Sri Lanka 0.32 Million 3.17%
China 0.21 Million 2.11%
All other countries 1.81 Million 17.94%
Total Expat Population 8.92 Million 88.52%

While examining the population statistics of the UAE in 2022, it is necessary to look at the breakdown of the whole population in terms of the different nationalities that inhabit the region. This is important because expatriates form the majority here. An Influx Of Foreign Workers Into The United Arab Emirates Has Had What Demographic Impact

What is the impact of diversity?

The first thing to acknowledge about diversity is that it can be difficult. In the U.S., where the dialogue of inclusion is relatively advanced, even the mention of the word “diversity” can lead to anxiety and conflict. Supreme Court justices disagree on the virtues of diversity and the means for achieving it. An Influx Of Foreign Workers Into The United Arab Emirates Has Had What Demographic Impact It is reasonable to ask what good diversity does us. Diversity of expertise confers benefits that are obvious—you would not think of building a new car without engineers, designers, and quality-control experts—but what about social diversity? What good comes from diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation? Research has shown that social diversity in a group can cause discomfort, rougher interactions, a lack of trust, greater perceived interpersonal conflict, lower communication, less cohesion, more concern about disrespect, and other problems. An Influx Of Foreign Workers Into The United Arab Emirates Has Had What Demographic Impact The fact is that if you want to build teams or organizations capable of innovating, you need diversity. Diversity enhances creativity. It encourages the search for novel information and perspectives, leading to better decision making and problem solving.

What do you know about the population of the United Arab Emirates?

The Population of UAE in 2022 is 10.08 Million, a 0.90% increase from 2021. Population Density of United Arab Emirates in 2022 is 102.20 Km 2. The Total Expat Population of UAE in 2022 is 8.92 Million.

What is unique about Emirates?

Emirates has always been known as one of the world’s best carriers and has won buckets of awards. Most passengers say it is a lot to do with the fantastic service from economy to first-class, the larger and more modern in-flight entertainment, and the better-than-average plane food. Let’s look at some of the reasons Emirates is highly regarded.

What is unique about the UAE?

Distinct features of the UAE – The UAE is an ideal tourist destination in many ways. Some of its distinct features that contribute to making it an ideal tourist destination are:

Economic and political stability Strategic location connecting the East and the West Well-connected by major airlines of the world Robust infrastructure supporting tourism A range of accommodation to choose from for all budgets and fancies A range of events and activities that cater to all age groups and people with varied interests Unique biodiversity – the UAE has deserts, oases, mountains, valleys, salt plains, mangroves, beaches and a very rich terrestrial and marine flora and fauna Religiously and culturally tolerant population – the UAE is home to more than 200 nationalities from different religious and cultural backgrounds living peacefully Low crime rate – the rate of premeditated murders in the UAE is 0.3 per cent for every 100,000 people as of January 2018.

Visit the UAE-An exceptional tourist destination -Ministry of Economy. Updated on 04 Oct 2022