Migration Diplomacy Research Articles

Interrogating and Broadening the Emerging Narrative on Migration Diplomacy: A Critical Assessment

As a promising field of inquiry to understand the nexus between migration and foreign policy, migration diplomacy is rich with studies focusing on the agency of countries in the global South, highlighting the effect of power asymmetries, as well as the existence of a wide range of migration diplomacy practices. This article proposes to take these important contributions even further by opening the field to a wider range of theoretical and epistemological approaches. In particular, this analysis highlights the ahistorical nature and eurocentrism of the field and the extent to which it is based on an unrooted conception of power asymmetries. It also calls for a stronger critique of the field’s focus on material interests, as well as the implicit prioritization of states’ interests. The article encourages further research based on the historical colonial/imperial positionality of different actors to highlight both past and current, visible and invisible practices of migration diplomacy.

PANDEMİ VE DÜZENSİZ GÖÇ: AVRUPA BİRLİĞİ DÜZENSİZ GÖÇ POLİTİKASININ TÜRKİYE VE LİBYA MUTABAKATLARI BAĞLAMINDA ELEŞTİREL BİR ANALİZİ

This study critically reviews the European Union’s (EU) irregular migration policy based on the Turkey and Libya deals’ performance during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study has two main findings about how the pandemic has affected the deals’ performance especially as to international cooperation and irregular migration management capacities: 1) The deals have failed in terms of sustainability and resilience. 2) The deals - aiming to reduce the irregular migration flows, improve access to protection, strengthen the international cooperation on irregular migration – have undermined the humanitarian and international cooperation. In conclusion, the study argues that strengthening the migration management capacities in transit and source countries as well as improving the humanitarian and international cooperation will be beneficial to overhauling of the EU’s irregular migration diplomacy.

Tsourapas, Gerasimos. 2021. Migration diplomacy in the Middle East and North Africa: Power, mobility and the state. Manchester University Press: Manchester. pp. 192.

Tsourapas, Gerasimos. 2021. Migration diplomacy in the Middle East and North Africa: Power, mobility and the state. Manchester University Press: Manchester. pp. 192.

Adjudicating labor mobility under France’s agreements on the joint management of migration flows: How courts politicize bilateral migration diplomacy

Abstract France’s agreements on the joint management of migration flows (AJMs) figure centrally within studies of bilateral migration agreements. With their origins in friendship and navigation treaties of the late 19th century, the AJMs are successors to the postcolonial, circular mobility conventions of the 1960s, and are uniquely positioned for periodizing the evolution of bilaterally negotiated labor mobilities. Nonetheless, due to the European Union’s reluctance to embrace mass regularization and the EU Member States’ legislative powers over labor markets, they have time and again scotched France’s ambition to leverage preferential labor market entries in exchange for more cooperation over irregular migration. Through documents and statistical data analysis, this Article studies the case of Senegal’s negotiation of additional pathways to France for its lower-skilled workers. At the center is France’s administrative court of appeals, which has confirmed the broad margin of discretion over Art. 42 in the AJM between France and Senegal. This jurisprudence has decoupled the automatic linkage between a job listed under duress in France under the Annex to the AJM and the entitlement to exceptional admission. We argue that France’s courts have removed a privilege of Senegalese workers, which has re-politicized France’s migration diplomacy with Senegal. At the same time, retention of the prefectorial discretionary power has levelled the playing field among West and North African countries that have concluded similar bilateral agreements with France. This Article adds to the research on bilateral migration agreements by proposing a multilevel legal analysis, which studies AJMs in the context of France’s common law, EU labor and return directives, and the multilateral of WTO/GATS liberalization.

Migration Diplomacy as a Foreign Policy Instrument

Migration Diplomacy as a Foreign Policy Instrument (Migračná diplomacia ako nástroj zahraničnej politiky) Journal Politické vedy has been released since 1998. The aim of the academically reviewed journal is to publish original articles of Slovak and foreign authors, concerning different fields of social science

Dreams of Development in Mexico and Spain: A Comparative History of Guestworkers and Migration Diplomacy

AbstractThis history of Cold War-era migration policy compares two emblematic guestworker programs that recruited several million Mexican and Spanish migrants to labor in the United States and Germany. Proponents of the bilateral accords defended them as diplomatic achievements that secured contractual labor rights, improved foreign relations, and sent migrants home with savings and skills to achieve the diverse development goals of the sending states. The study traces the programs’ historical and ideological roots, juxtaposes the guestworkers’ experiences, and uses the cases of Mexicanbracerosand Spanishgastarbeiterto explore the contested nexus between migration and development.

Migration Diplomacy as a Foreign Policy Tool in Turkiye: a Comparative Analysis

Migration Diplomacy as a Foreign Policy Tool in Turkiye: a Comparative Analysis

Skema Visa British National Overseas dan Diplomasi Migrasi Inggris dengan Tiongkok

ABSTRACT In June 2020 Chinese Government officially enacted the National Security Act in Hong Kong. The UK saw the act as a serious breach of the 1997 Sino-British Joint Declaration. In response, the UK issued a new visa scheme for British National (Overseas) holders. The new scheme provides Hong Kong residents holding BNO status with a residence permit of up to 5 years and permission to apply for British citizenship. This research will describe how the UK uses migration policy in correlation to diplomacy through this phenomenon. The concept to be used is migration diplomacy by looking at aspects of the definition, categories, and objectives of the new BNO visa scheme. As a result, this research finds that the UK uses migration policy as a tool of diplomacy with China by positioning itself as a receiving country. The implementation of migration diplomacy by the UK in the BNO visa scheme aims for economic gain, related to bilateral relations with China, and promoting Global Britain.

Triangular migration diplomacy: the case of EU–Italian cooperation with Libya

AbstractBetween 2016 and 2017, inflows along the central Mediterranean peaked, increasing pressures on the southern European border. Coordination with Libya to reduce departures has been possible thanks to the role played by Italy, backed by the Union. The diplomatic effort exhibited mainly through 2017 crafted a framework aimed at simultaneously ensuring Libya's interest in regaining full control of its sovereign prerogatives and addressing the EU's desire to reduce irregular inflows. This new framework is explored in this work through the lens of migration diplomacy with a double aim: to enrich the existing body of research by proposing a triangular analysis of migration diplomacy and to expand the literature on the external dimension of the Union's migration policy, by pointing out the political nature of migration relations and its critical aspects.

Immigration and Revolution in Iran: Asylum politics and State Consolidation

Abstract. In May 2019, remarks by the then Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi implying Iran might ask Afghans to leave the country as U.S. sanctions tightened sparked widespread criticism from various segments of Iranian society. Critics from civil society and political factions accused Araghchi of using Afghans as leverage to extract concessions from Europe, and ignoring revolutionary ideals. Drawing on literature emphasising the role of mobilities in shaping the state, we posit that migration politics and related social dynamics are an integral element in state formation in post-revolutionary Iran, offering insights into the nature of Iran’s political system. We argue that the Islamic Republic’s immigration and asylum politics reflect both the revolutionary legacy and a political system striving for normalization, looking at how Iran’s migration regime was formed, encompassing the institutionalization of migration governance, ad hoc policies, migration diplomacy, conflicting political factions, and bottom-up social pressures.

Threats, deportability and aid: The politics of refugee rentier states and regional stability

In 2012, 2016 and 2018–2019, Pakistan threatened to expel Afghan refugees and in 2015, 2016 and 2019, Kenya threatened to demolish the Dadaab camp and expel Somali refugees. Following the threats, the governments extracted more than $300 million aid, combined. Why did these states succeed in extracting aid despite their relatively weak status and not bordering the target of their blackmail? This article first situates refugee expulsion within the literature on refugee policies, migration diplomacy and refugee rentier states. Second, in two cases – Somalis in Kenya and Afghans in Pakistan – I show how states used the threat of expulsion to construct and leverage the deportability of their refugee communities as a foreign policy tool. States used the legal uncertainty around deportability to channel threats and violence toward refugees, but the primary audience of the threats were not refugees, but the international community. Officials in Kenya and Pakistan used threats paired with six-month or one-year delays as negotiation tactics to extract aid. Surprisingly, states that were generous hosts to refugees become strategically important because of their role in providing regional stability, which turned otherwise weak states into important allies that could threaten expulsion and extract aid from superpowers.

Syrian Mass Migration in the 2015 EU Refugee Crisis: A Hybrid Threat or Chance for Implementing Migration Diplomacy?

This article examines the use of coercive engineered migration as a hybrid threat during the 2015 EU refugee crisis. The authors argue that coercive engineered migration can be used as a threat by a state, even when it is not the source of outflows; that it is possible under conditions of an internal or external conflict in the state that is the source of migration; that a state-challenger would most probably be an authoritarian state that supports the government of the emigration state. The authors state that the sound action for Turkey and the EU in the conditions of a crisis that of 2015, would be to develop a migration diplomacy initiative that could contribute not only to a deal but to a sustainable, mutually beneficial solution for both parties.

Migration diplomacy in the Gulf – non-state actors, cross-border mobility, and the United Arab Emirates

ABSTRACT What is the role of non-state actors in the international politics of labour migration in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries? This paper employs a ‘migration diplomacy’ framework in order to examine the politics of regional mobility while interrogating the assumed centrality of the state in this process. It focuses on labour migration into the United Arab Emirates and draws on a range of primary sources in order to identify four types of non-state actors that seek to maximise their interests within the workings of Emirati migration diplomacy: public-private partnerships, namely the Tadbeer (‘procurement’) centres; corporations within the Emirati construction sector; business elites managing subcontracting companies; and, finally, non-governmental organisations and foreign consulting firms. The paper identifies how each of these four sets of actors pursues strategies that are able to strengthen, supplant, or undermine the state’s formal migration diplomacy aims. Furthermore, the Emirati case debunks the myth of the state as a centre of power in Gulf migration management via the kafāla (‘sponsorship’) system. Overall, the paper demonstates how a range of non-state actors can navigate migration management policymaking, thereby underlining the complexity of Gulf migration diplomacy.

International cooperation on migration: what do domestic publics want?

What preferences do people have for cooperation between high and lower-income countries on irregular migration and refugee protection? Despite the increase in the number and breadth of cross-country cooperation agreements in this policy area, we know little about people’s preferences for such policies. This paper addresses this question in the context of the EU-Turkey ‘migration deal’ agreed in 2016. We conduct cross-country conjoint experiments in Germany, Greece, and Turkey to shed light on the types of policies that generate public support for cross-country cooperation on irregular migration and refugee protection. Our respondents are favorable to several core features of the current EU-Turkey migration deal regarding the return of irregular migrants, financial aid to refugees in Turkey, and the intensity of Turkish border controls. We also find evidence of public support for cooperation on resettlement and EU support to Greece to deal with migration. In certain aspects of cooperation, public preferences seem to respond to interactions between policy dimensions. For example, German public support for relocating refugees from Greece is enhanced if there are stepped-up border controls in Turkey. These findings have important implications for research on public attitudes to asylum and migration policies, ‘migration diplomacy’ in international relations, and public backlash against international cooperation more generally.

Инструментализация миграции: управление миграционными потоками в двустороннем формате

This article assesses the theoretical contours and effectiveness of migration governance and diplomacy as an instrument of statecraft in interstate relations. The first part provides an overview of the stakes and challenges of migration within the fields of international relations and political theory. In particular, the category of migration defies the theoretical model of the nation­state, on which traditional IR and political theory are grounded. The second part highlights how the state, through the securitization of migration, uses migration as a tool to reaffirm its defining features: reinforcing its borders, legitimating state sovereignty, and building societal security. The third section demonstrates the usefulness of the category of statecraft within the context of migration governance at a bilateral level owing to the absence of a global normative framework. This relationship can serve different purposes, depending on the context: to harm, to deter, to bargain, to escalate. The last section presents contemporary case studies of the application of migration statecraft by the United States and Russia, as well as by member states along external border of the European Union and within the Schengen space. The elements of "migration statecraft" evidenced by these episodes focus on several objectives: trade blackmail, cooperation in an asymmetrical relation, political threat, and diplomatic escalation for electoral purposes. The variety of these cases illustrates the specificity of statecraft in comparison with foreign policy analysis. While the latter refers to a general and long­term strategy, the former is context­dependent and specific to achievement of a precise desired outcome.

Urban Geopolitics and the Decentring of Migration Diplomacy in EU-Moroccan Affairs

ABSTRACT In 2018, the International Organization for Migration stated that ‘migration has nearly become synonymous with urbanization, given the dominance of the city as the destination of most migrants’. The geopolitical dimension of migration governance is especially important in Mediterranean cities where the European Union’s (EU) efforts to push border management onto external actors has occurred alongside the transfer of new powers, competencies, and responsibilities for local authorities. Morocco is one such country where a number of administrative and territorial reforms have sought to transform the territoriality of migration governance, and by extension the structure of Euro-Mediterranean affairs. Our objective is to examine more fully how distinctly local aspects of Moroccan migration diplomacy have been harnessed as a force for geopolitical action today. The approach serves to decentre analysis of EU migration policy by rescaling the focus of migration to the urban peripheries of Europe, and to thereby contest Eurocentric accounts of migration governance in the region. Based on an analysis of Moroccan cities’ involvement in migration governance, including the MC2CM Project – a Mediterranean network of cities supported by EU and international actors – we argue that the rescaling of migration diplomacy aims to ‘change the narrative’ about Morocco’s capacity to manage immigration in light of international condemnation of state violence towards sub-Saharan migrants. In particular, devolution is skilfully used to cast Morocco as an advocate for the empowerment of local authorities managing migration, and migrants themselves as an opportunity for socio-economic development. At the same time, however, we observed that the rescaling of migration governance does not so much change the prevailing autocratic securitization of demographic mobility, but rather restructures its coordination through new governing actors (cities) and management techniques (migration).

Introduction: Arab responses to EU foreign and security policy incentives: Perspectives on migration diplomacy and institutionalized flexibility in the Arab Mediterranean turned upside down

ABSTRACT Based on analyses of the migration policies of Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco, the overall idea behind this themed issue is to present a comparative study of responses by Arab Mediterranean states to EU foreign and security policy incentives. The themed issue draws on a historical institutionalist line of thought analysing how the given state-to-EU relationships develop or change over time and how institutions form part of and respond to new developments. Taking its point of departure in different dimensions of resilience attributed to the states analysed, this themed issue aims at shedding light on processes of institutional developments in the context of cooperation between the Arab states Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco, and the EU.

Migration diplomacy in a de facto destination country: Morocco’s new intermestic migration policy and international socialization by/with the EU

ABSTRACT This article examines Morocco’s migration diplomacy with a focus on the New Migration Policy (NMP) it launched in 2013 as a destination country. It argues that the NMP serves the objectives of Moroccan foreign policy towards both Africa and the EU, as international socialization by/with the latter remains a primary driving force for the country’s migration policies. The main recent change in Morocco-EU socialization has been a return from norm-driven role playing to an overt exhibition of rational choice and a transactional attitude around migration and border control practices – while role playing has been reoriented towards Africa and the wider international community.

Syrian refugees in Jordan and their integration in the labour market: Jordanian migration diplomacy and EU incentives

ABSTRACT Framing the analysis in Jordan’s foreign and security policy, this article discusses Jordanian migration diplomacy in relation to incentives offered by the EU. It is demonstrated that the unstable situation resulting from the long-lasting Syrian crisis has created a need for the Jordanian state to develop new political strategies, adjusting institutional policies and practices to the EU’s conditionalities regarding democratic progress and socio-economic reforms. The article takes its point of departure in the concept of migration diplomacy and bases its analysis of how the Jordanian government has developed its institutional flexibility on the theory of historical institutionalism.

Accession conditionality and migration diplomacy: Turkey’s dual identity in migration policy negotiations with the EU

ABSTRACT Securitization and politicization of migration in the EU, led the states in its periphery to strategically use migration management in negotiations for a wide range of issues. In this setting, Turkish case is unique due to the country’s dual considerations: (i) maintain the accession conditionality framework for longer term benefits and (ii) negotiate through ‘migration diplomacy’ for shorter-term concessions. This article analyses the last two decades of EU-Turkey relationship on migration management, through four case studies representing the migration policy field including regular migration, irregular migration and asylum. It presents the evolution and transformation of migration policy to become a subject of diplomacy and the interplay between accession conditionality and migration diplomacy in Turkey’s relationship with the EU. It shows that, in all policy fields, with the decline in its accession prospects, Turkey was empowered to negotiate through migration diplomacy by establishing issue linkages between various issues including visa liberalization, and the promise of cooperation in migration policy field. This trend of conducting negotiations in the framework of migration diplomacy rather than in an asymmetrical manner through accession conditionality, is expected to become the norm in the future of EU-Turkey relationship.