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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol.7, No.6

Publication Date: June 25, 2020

DOI:10.14738/assrj.76.8275.

Domingo, A. (2020). From Replacement Migrations to the “Great Replacement”: Demographic Reproduction and National Populism in

Europe. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 7(6) 671-685.

From Replacement Migrations to the “Great Replacement”:

Demographic Reproduction and National Populism in Europe

Andreu Domingo

Centre for Demographic Studies

ABSTRACT

This article aims to analyse how the distorted story about demographic

evolution—demographic reproduction and its relationship with social

stratification—is becoming substantial enough to erode democracy. In

order to demonstrate this, it first analyses the origin of the “Great

Replacement” metaphor that is used to refer to international migration,

inside and outside the discipline of demography, as part of an allegory

referring to demographic transformations in the twenty-first century,

together with the metaphors “demographic winter” (referring to

population ageing), and “demographic suicide” (when speaking of

declining fertility). Second, it relates these three metaphors with right- wing national populist movements and explains how they have

developed as conspiracy theories.

Key words: Migration, Population Studies, Metaphors, Conspiracy theory,

National populism, Europe.

INTRODUCTION: METAPHORS, ALLEGORIES AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE

The rising rate of international migration in a context of population ageing in developed countries

and coinciding with globalisation at the end of the twentieth century has led to debate on how to

control migrant flows and the deterioration of the state. In reaction to this and shared by right-wing

national populist movements around the world [1], are building up an arsenal of arguments against

immigration as a threat to culture, security, and the economy. Part of this xenophobic instruction

manual has once again taken up anti-immigration clichés going back to the first three decades of the

twentieth century, a time in which a generalised steep decline in fertility marked the demographic

transition in Europe and the United States. At this point, they appeared with notable nationalist and

eugenicist components in which the idea of “decadence” was central in an exercise of biologising

the evolution of populations as an extension of civilisations. Instrumentalisation of demography

seems set to become a common feature of these narratives on the decline of the West, now

recovered and revamped for the twenty-first century, and wielded by demographers and non- demographers alike.

This time, metaphors like “demographic winter” referring to population ageing [2], “demographic

suicide”[3] in discussions about decline in fertility, “demographic fault”[4], and the “Great

Replacement”[5] will become consolidated. Taken together, they all comprise a constellation of

metaphors that might be considered as an allegory of present-day demographic change and, in fact,

of transformations in demographic reproduction that we are now witnessing. A particularly

efficient way of sketching the cognitive map and guiding subjects in their future actions has been

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URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.76.8275 672

Domingo, A. (2020). From Replacement Migrations to the “Great Replacement”: Demographic Reproduction and National Populism in Europe. Advances in

Social Sciences Research Journal, 7(6) 671-685.

recognised in the metaphors and in figurative language in general [6]. Meanwhile, it has been shown

in communication theory that metaphors are also an organising node in the work of discursive

framing. As Robert M. Entman notes [7], this framing highlights certain parts of the debate in such

a way that promotes a particular kind of understanding of the phenomenon being addressed, and

this includes causal interpretations, moral evaluations, and recommendations regarding the object

in question.

The present text approaches the “replacement” metaphor inasmuch as it is part of the figurative

interpretive framework [8] adopted by right-wing national populist movements, which can be

defined as conservative ideologies giving priority to national culture and interests, and promising

to give a voice to people who feel that the often corrupt and distant elites have abandoned and even

despise them [9]. These are metaphors that end up giving shape to conspiracy theories which make

replacement of the native population by immigrants the focus of their particular kind of storytelling.

Conspiracy theories are understood as narratives which, seeking to present complex phenomena in

simple terms and dodging causalities by looking for scapegoats, could be seen as a symptom of the

inability to make sense of an increasingly fragmented totality after postmodernism condemned

cosmogonies [10]. A main concern of the present study is to establish links between formulations

coming from the field of demography and appropriations made by other fields (literature and

journalism), and to trace a genealogy.

At the beginning of the new millennium, the UN Population Division published the report

Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations?[11] The report’s

formulation, designed to achieve the maximum possible media attention in order to attract funding,

soon led to arguments put forth by NGOs which favoured implementing more open migration

policies. However, taking the other side and distorting and opposing the report’s content, there

were also different viewpoints expressed by dissenters who depicted migration as an “invasion”

that would replace native populations. Increasing emphasis on “security” in migrant policy after the

attacks of 11 September 2001, has fuelled old and new conspiracy theories, according to which

cosmopolitan elites, leftists (antiracist movements), and feminists (under the heading of “gender

ideology”) seek to replace native populations by immigrants coming from the Global South.

Following the onset of the crisis in 2008 and the concurrent rise of national-populist movements in

Europe, terrorist attacks, and the refugee crisis after 2015 have given impetus to stories that

present demographic data in such a way as to construct a climacteric with which to mobilise

emotions in order to shape public opinion on matters of political importance, thus far independently

of ideological labels. This is neither more nor less than the definition of “post-truth” offered in 2016

by the Oxford English Dictionary when it chose the neologism as its Word of the Year [12].

The aims of this paper are two: 1) establish the origin of the demographic allegory (as a constellation

of metaphors); and, 2) specifically, to analyse the metaphor of the Great Replacement as a

conspiracy theory.

THE “GREAT REPLACEMENT” AND OTHER DEMOGRAPHIC METAPHORS

The “scientific” origin of the metaphor

In January 2000, the United Nations Population Division published on its website the report

Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations? This consists of a set of

forecasts calculating, first, a population estimate for each country with a view to 2050, on the

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assumption that the fertility and mortality rates for 1995 had not varied. Second, it calculated the

number of immigrants necessary for each country to maintain the population observed at the

starting point. Third, it estimated how many workers would be required to keep the same number

of economically active population (between 16 and 64 years of age). Fourth and finally, it considered

how many people would guarantee the same dependency ratio, which is to say the number of

dependents (under-sixteen and over sixty-four) in a population divided by the number of working- age people. And all of this only showed the absurdity of ever-burgeoning magnitudes. From this

perspective, migrations were coming to replace the births that had not occurred among

autochthonous populations and that would have been essential to sustain the ratio between

working population and dependents. The report concluded that migration is part, but not remotely

sufficient, of a possible solution for the problem of ageing and relative growth of the dependent

population, while also pointing to an obligatory improvement in the levels of working women and

young people, as well as better measures for increasing the contributions to Social Security and

private pension systems by companies and workers. In fact, given the magnitude of the number of

people hypothetically required, the whole report can be understood as an exercise in reductio ad

absurdum rhetoric. Nevertheless, the notion that international migration was indispensable for

curbing population ageing and avoiding failure of pensions systems became a mantra thereafter.

To a large extent, misinterpretation of the report was due to the intentional ambiguity in the way it

was conveyed to the media, starting with the use of the metaphor of “replacement”. The report was

the start of a new procedure in the United National Population Division where marketing techniques

were applied to attract media interest and thereby to raise necessary funding for the division’s

continuity and ability to compete with other United Nations departments. Sensationalism in making

known the report’s contents, focusing on both opportunity and the disproportion of the estimated

migratory flows meant that some sectors of the media conveyed the information as if the flows were

actually happening, or that they would cover the numbers of people needed if the pensions systems

were to be saved. Hence, the report was criticised by numerous observers in the field of

demography [13].

The first thing that needs to be understood, then, is that “Replacement” as applied in international

migration is itself a metaphor and not a scientific concept. When used for the first time, it referred

to migration that was supposed to occur as an effect of births that did not happen because of

declining fertility and at least twenty years later than the supposed date of (non)-births. The logic

is based on the idea that one of the main causes of migration is the relative scarcity of young people

joining the job market due, precisely when they were at the age of joining it, to the appearance of

“empty” generations as a result of low fertility. However, this cause is far from proven. Migrations

have a contextual cadence in which the determining factor is creation of jobs, but also the process

of dualisation of the job market. The coincidence or otherwise between an economic boom cycle, an

expanded job market, and the size of the young generations at the time is, in principle, independent.

They could correspond with an “empty” generation which, in fact, would have a multiplier effect in

the demand for immigrants, but they might not too.

There is enough evidence of this from the crisis that started in 2008—and in Spain and Italy alone,

with minimal birth rates after the mid-1980s—of how young nationals left both these countries in

the first five years of economic recession. Moreover, the boom in international migration at the

beginning of the millennium, between 2000 and 2007 did, in the case of Italy, occur at the same time