Global crisis and state stability

This afternoon I attended a good talk by the director of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy on the impact of the financial crisis on migration trends. He said that the criris was likely to foster xenophbia, declining remittances, tougher (and wrong) policies, but more mobility for EU job-seekers who would always be on the move. He also predicted that those low-skilled migrants who lose their jobs would stay put, even illegally, rather than go home and this would increase their vulnerability.

I was intrigued by one question that was asked at the end of the talk. Someone wanted to know whether the crisis was going to threaten the stability of particular states. The speaker said that China and Russia would have to solve the problems of millions of rural migrants who lost their jobs in their cities and that India and Bangladesh might have to cope with a massive influx of laid off workers from the petromonarchies of the Gulf. My personal take on this question is that it all depends on the nature of the state we're talking about. I expect dictatorships to struggle this year and in the mid-term future more than anyone else. They will be starved of their oxygen; the illusion of the welfare state through which they have secured popular endorsement for decades. They will have to face (and they have started already) extraordinary public debt, social unrest driven by growing discontent and rising unemployment, dwindling currencies, and lower remittances from expatriates. This is not going to be an easy year for them.