4b7745bb-7483-4ad6-8ebd-0b2c29a4bb6b202606230106133724Depositor Namedepositor_email@address.comRUA Metadata ExporterMattBakkerMarymount Universityhttps://ror.org/0008kv292SociologyHow Remittances Became a Development ToolWe understand very little about the billions of dollars that flow throughout the world from migrants back to their home countries. In this rigorous and illuminating work, Matt Bakker, an economic sociologist, examines how these migrant remittances—the resources of some of the world’s least affluent people—have come to be seen in recent years as a fundamental contributor to development in the migrant?sending states of the global south. This book analyzes how the connection between remittances and development was forged through the concrete political and intellectual practices of policy entrepreneurs within a variety of institutional settings, from national government agencies and international development organizations to nongovernmental policy foundations and think tanks.“Migrating into Financial Markets offers a much-needed interpretation of the institutions that frame migration. In this fascinating account, Bakker shows how, unable to come up with a political solution to large-scale migration, Mexico and the United States recast migrants as private actors of economic and social development.” RUBÉN HERNÁNDEZ-LEÓN, coauthor of Skills of the “Unskilled”: Work and Mobility among Mexican Migrants“Contrasting governments’ developmentalist rhetoric with the way their policies are actually designed and implemented, this thoughtful study makes an important contribution to a key debate in contemporary development policy.” GAY SEIDMAN, Martindale Bascom Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin—Madison“Bakker offers a cautionary tale of how international policy entrepreneurs’ commitment to an ideology of market fundamentalism reduced their approach to addressing the human rights of migrants in the post-9/11 world to lowering the costs of wire transfers and banking the un-banked.” DAVID SPENER, Professor of Sociology, Trinity University and author of Clandestine Crossings: Migrants and Coyotes on the Texas-Mexico BorderMATT BAKKER is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Marymount University.We understand very little about the billions of dollars that flow throughout the world from migrants back to their home countries. In this rigorous and illuminating work, Matt Bakker, an economic sociologist, examines how these migrant remittances—the resources of some of the world’s least affluent people—have come to be seen in recent years as a fundamental contributor to development in the migrant?sending states of the global south. This book analyzes how the connection between remittances and development was forged through the concrete political and intellectual practices of policy entrepreneurs within a variety of institutional settings, from national government agencies and international development organizations to nongovernmental policy foundations and think tanks.“Migrating into Financial Markets offers a much-needed interpretation of the institutions that frame migration. In this fascinating account, Bakker shows how, unable to come up with a political solution to large-scale migration, Mexico and the United States recast migrants as private actors of economic and social development.” RUBÉN HERNÁNDEZ-LEÓN, coauthor of Skills of the “Unskilled”: Work and Mobility among Mexican Migrants“Contrasting governments’ developmentalist rhetoric with the way their policies are actually designed and implemented, this thoughtful study makes an important contribution to a key debate in contemporary development policy.” GAY SEIDMAN, Martindale Bascom Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin—Madison“Bakker offers a cautionary tale of how international policy entrepreneurs’ commitment to an ideology of market fundamentalism reduced their approach to addressing the human rights of migrants in the post-9/11 world to lowering the costs of wire transfers and banking the un-banked.” DAVID SPENER, Professor of Sociology, Trinity University and author of Clandestine Crossings: Migrants and Coyotes on the Texas-Mexico BorderMATT BAKKER is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Marymount University.09302015978-0-520-28546-0978-0-520-96093-0978-0-520-96093-0978-0-520-96093-0University of California PressCaliforniahttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/10.1525/luminos.5https://www.luminosoa.org/books/m/10.1525/luminos.5https://www.luminosoa.org/books/6/files/682bcb1a-e19e-455a-997f-4bfd5e393823.pdfhttps://www.luminosoa.org/books/6/files/682bcb1a-e19e-455a-997f-4bfd5e393823.pdfThis chapter describes an emerging consensus around the view that remittances constituted a promising development tool and around a preferred set of market-based policy solutions that promise to spur development by incorporating migrants and their monies into global financial markets. This forms the basis of the remittances-to-development agenda. To put the emergence of this agenda in broader context, the chapter discusses two prominent features of the contemporary political-economic terrain: (1) the state-led transnationalism efforts of migrant-sending states; and (2) the continuing dominance of market fundamentalism in the realm of international development discourse and practice.0930201510.1525/luminos.5.ahttps://www.luminosoa.org/chapters/m/10.1525/luminos.5.ahttps://www.luminosoa.org/books/6/files/0e2e5547-c421-49e3-8d0f-69dd3cf9ecb4.pdfThis chapter examines the work involved in constructing remittances as a financial flow. The power dynamics and politics of expertise involved in recent controversies over remittances data—its measurement, compilation, and representation—are explored. The chapter examines the work of a small number of policy entrepreneurs within a handful of international financial institutions, development agencies, and think tanks—the work that went into the design and spread of particular data-collection techniques and representational practices. Particular attention is placed on these actors’ deployment of the soft power available to them as officials in reputable international agencies as they sought to standardize remittances data across the Latin American region.0930201510.1525/luminos.5.bhttps://www.luminosoa.org/chapters/m/10.1525/luminos.5.bhttps://www.luminosoa.org/books/6/files/287d4c91-57d6-4c52-9101-f7a8d3fd42bc.pdfThis chapter details and unpacks three sets of policies designed and promoted by purveyors of the remittances-to-development agenda that promise to link remittance flows to development in the global South. These policy constructs suggest that remittances can be linked to development by (1) reducing the remittance transfer costs paid by migrants, (2) using remittances to promote financial democracy, and (3) constructing new innovative financial mechanisms from cross-border remittance flows. The analysis of the significant governmental work required to make these so-called market-based solutions a reality demonstrates the wide gulf that exists between the ideology of market fundamentalism and practice of neoliberal globalization.0930201510.1525/luminos.5.chttps://www.luminosoa.org/chapters/m/10.1525/luminos.5.chttps://www.luminosoa.org/books/6/files/91178082-50ff-451d-8e9a-c259e9fe50c0.pdfThis chapter charts the evolution of Mexican state-led transnationalism from the 1980s to the present and identifies its increasing convergence with U.S. government policies in the furtherance of North American economic integration. The chapter develops a distinction between emigrant policies and emigration policies pursued by the Mexican government over these three decades. New light is shed on the policy content and dynamics driving state-led transnationalism. The chapter demonstrates that the contemporary state-led transnationalism policies being pursued by the Mexican government have taken on a market-centric tint. And it shows that the form of state-led transnationalism being pursued by the Mexican government involves significant intergovernmental collaboration with agencies and government officials from the United States.0930201510.1525/luminos.5.dhttps://www.luminosoa.org/chapters/m/10.1525/luminos.5.dhttps://www.luminosoa.org/books/6/files/eed65e34-2205-4c63-8b8e-ae30eb42cba0.pdfThis chapter focuses on a particular program that has promoted financial democracy among migrants and remittance recipients in North America. The chapter analyzes the work carried out by Mexican and U.S. government officials collaborating in the design, implementation, and promotion of a low-cost remittance transfer service marketed under the brand name “Directo a México.” With this product, government agencies aimed to both reduce the costs of remittance transfers and expand access to financial services for migrants in the U.S. and remittance recipients in Mexico. The chapter illustrates the significant work required of government officials attempting to turn the promise of remittances-to-development into a reality, and it examines some of the reasons that help explain why these efforts have, until now, met with little success.0930201510.1525/luminos.5.ehttps://www.luminosoa.org/chapters/m/10.1525/luminos.5.ehttps://www.luminosoa.org/books/6/files/2ffe7952-eb81-44eb-b3d3-2d319a3f9ff3.pdfThis chapter summarizes the main findings of the previous chapters and draws out the broader implications of this study. It begins with a discussion of the paradox of neoliberal policymaking and the significant governmental work required to construct remittances as a market-based development tool. Then it moves on to discuss what the remittances-to-development agenda tells us about the content, rationale, and challenges of transnational engagement policies in the contemporary moment. Finally, the book concludes with a discussion about the possibilities for re-politicizing the field of migration and development, finding new ways to envision this relationship, and identifying the conditions that might, one day, truly make migration an option rather than a necessity.0930201510.1525/luminos.5.fhttps://www.luminosoa.org/chapters/m/10.1525/luminos.5.fhttps://www.luminosoa.org/books/6/files/c6f352b2-2186-4e50-99af-d7573131039a.pdf