From The Guest Editor.

• Author: Erdogan, M. Murat

It is an interesting coincidence that the "Revisiting Migration in International Relations" special issue of the Uluslararasi Iliskiler journal was published in 2021. Not only does 2021 mark the 70th anniversary of 1951 Geneva Convention, which identified the status of refugees, but it is also the 60th anniversary of the Turkey-German labour force agreement in 1961 as well as the 10th anniversary of the first arrival of Syrian refugees in Turkey in 2011. The number of Syrians fleeing their country now exceeds 6.6 million, and Turkey has been hosting the largest number of refugees in the world since 2014. Moreover, the effects of this phenomenon on Europe and the world, as well as global efforts to address this challenge have opened new paths both for academic literature and the international relations field to expand its inquiries. This development has also strikingly revealed the limits and dearth of secondary literature on migration.

When Stephen Castles and Mark J. Miller published their classic 1993 study, The Age of Migration, the number of international migrants totalled 160 million, or roughly 2.8% of the world's population. In 2020, when the sixth edition of the book was published, the number of international migrants exceeded 270 million, reaching nearly 3.5% of the world's population. Developments in technology and transport, overwhelming welfare-order inequality, and the developed countries' need for immigrants to meet labour shortages prompted what now looks like an inevitable increase in international human mobility.

The number of migrants that EU received from non-EU countries has exceeded 2 million per year in the recent years. This figure is expected to exceed 5 million per year in the coming years in line with ageing populations and decreased birth rates. Although migration is a requirement, the tension and conflict areas that emerge with migration escalate or "are escalated" intentionally. Most notably, the ethnic, religious or cultural properties of the refugee communities both create ghettoization and kindle populist, nativist politics in their arrival countries. These new forms of diasporas that are emerging, especially in Western countries, and the diaspora politics pursued by the countries of origin, which tend to differentiate from the interests of the destination countries, bring new aspects of power, security and international relations into play. Yet another significant aspect of the issue of migration in the Western societies is the acts of the faith-based terrorist organizations, which have grown more prominent following September 11, 2001 and are mostly associated with Muslim immigrants or those with migration origin, are continuing to shape domestic and international politics. The issue of migration as a political field per se and one associated with security may become a core, priority issue for destination countries, and spawn either top-down "securitization" or raise concerns from...