6 The uncertainties involved in calculating migration
Franz Nuscheler
6.1 Preface: The methodological problem
A few years before the uprisings in the Arab world, the migration researcher
Steffen Angenendt wrote the following:
Generally speaking, we should remember that, for methodological
reasons, any prognoses about migration potentials are based on so
many assumptions as to be severely limited in value [...]. Making
predictions about the development of a population is, in both the
short- and mid-term, relatively reliable: Most inf luential factors are
well known and stable, whereas many other assumptions on the
economic, political and social development in the respective countries
remain speculative. This is especially true of countries that experience
profound transformational processes [...], and for countries in the
midst of latent or even manifest political crises, such as a number of
countries in North Africa (Angenendt 2008: 19-20).This is particularly true of the MENA region. It was the situation before the
revolutionary upheavals in the Arab world, and it has not changed since,
especially because there is no certain ending to its course. Today, it is still
unclear what the ramif ications of the profound changes taking place in this
region will be for the migration patterns of its citizens. Will the ‘uprising
at the doorstep of Europe’ (Scholl-Latour 2011) mean that residents of the
MENA region will cross that threshold, as has occurred to a limited extent
in Tunisia and Libya? The insurrection in Syria, still of unknown outcome
and even more unknown impact on the entire region, has raised the level
of tenuousness of all prognoses and predictions.
Today one can observe a growing inf luence of religious groups on the
political developments and reorientation processes in all MENA countries
caught up in this transition – but it is still unclear whether or not they
will orient themselves towards Turkey as a model of moderate Islam.
The regional expert Volker Perthes (2011: 165) expects that the Egyptian
Muslim Brotherhood will move toward becoming a ‘conservative people’s