Challenges in Determining Migration Causes: Policies and Theories

For some researchers, poverty, climate change, and conflicts are the driving forces of migration. For others, an improving economic situation facilitates emigration, in other words, emigration is a sign of an improving, not deteriorating economic situation. Other researchers have explored the global economic system, interconnectedness, and its impact as a push factor. Moreover, the migration surge to Europe has underscored the already migration policy-dominated approach of Europe toward Africa. In this chapter, I will discuss the different and usual migration theories. Before moving to the mimetic approach to postcolonial African migration to the West in the chapters that follow, I shall discuss in this chapter the various theories that explain the causes of migration.