What do governments do when much of their population simply gets up and walks away? In Mexico and other migrant-sending countries, mass emigration prompts governments to negotiate a new social contract with their citizens abroad. After decades of failed efforts to control outflow, the Mexican state now emphasizes voluntary ties, dual nationality, and rights over obligations. In this groundbreaking book, David Fitzgerald examines a region of Mexico whose citizens have been migrating to the United States for more than a century. He finds that emigrant citizenship does not signal the decline of the nation-state but does lead to a new form of citizenship, and that bureaucratic efforts to manage emigration and its effects are based on the membership model of the Catholic Church.
- ISBN10 0520257049
- ISBN13 9780520257047
- Publish Date 2 December 2008 (first published 1 January 2008)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 13 August 2013
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of California Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 264
- Language English