The Evolving Political Economy of Migration Systems

Abstract

In a dynamic global context of rising ethno-nationalism, economic neo-mercantilism, and climate change, migration remains a defining feature of global political economy. As the analytical boundaries between economic, political, and environmental drivers break down, migration has increasingly been conceptualized as a complex, interconnected system. Moving beyond early “push-pull” hypotheses that reduced human mobility to simplistic individual calculations, migration systems theory and network analysis expanded this framework by shifting focus from isolated bilateral relationships to triadic, hierarchical networks. However, contemporary sociology cautions against Eurocentric biases and against flattening historical specificities into mathematical abstractions. Instead, recent work asserts that migration systems do not exist in a vacuum; they collide, overlap, and actively disrupt one another, producing spillover effects and feedback loops across overlapping geographies. By recentering focus toward South–South dynamics and comparative institutional frameworks, modern systems approaches broaden the analytical scope of migration studies. Ultimately, this reorientation compels a deeper reckoning with the structural inequalities and institutional anxieties that continue to shape who moves, how, and under what conditions.