Migration Governance Research Articles

Now you see them, now you don’t: performance and the politics of localizing (forced) migration governance in the Horn of Africa’s secondary cities

We critically examine a multi-year initiative led by Cities Alliance with municipalities and civil society groups in Somaliland, Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia to respond to refugees and migration. Adapting Goffman’s work, we posit that in ambiguous and resource-scarce political environments, network success rests on supporting two “frontstages” and a shared “backstage”. On stage one, authorities “visibilize” refugees to attract funding and national support while shaping national-level norms. On stage two they make refugees “invisible” within their own development strategies, integrating displaced populations into urban planning through data collection, service investments, and inclusive strategies. In an experimental and collaborative backstage, municipal actors share resources and workshop varied scripts for their respective audiences. The initiative has lessened host–refugee tensions, strengthened municipal voices in national and regional policy fora, fostered local accountability, and created financial and bureaucratic resources better able to outlast the vagaries of humanitarian or emergency aid.

Regional Refugee Response Plans and Violence Against Women: A Comparative Analysis of the Humanitarian Situations in Ukraine and Venezuela

Regional Refugee Response Plans (RRPs) have emerged as key protection frameworks in the context of displacement. In line with the UNHCR Refugee Coordination Model (RCM), RRPs involve multi-partner and multi-sector response strategies for priority areas established based on region-specific needs. Across RRPs, violence against women (VAW) constitutes a priority area within operational and funding structures on gender-based violence (GBV). The operational and funding structures on GBV in the response plans for the humanitarian situations in Ukraine and Venezuela reveal important insights for economic mechanisms and impacts of displacement on VAW, especially when examined through feminist economics discourse. To shed light on this, this article analyzes sectoral infrastructures and partnerships as indicative operational structures, and funding streams and funding recipients as indicative funding structures. The analysis focuses on high-risk GBV spaces reflective of prevailing challenges in the implementation of the response plans. HIGHLIGHTS Economic–political power relations inform discrepancies in global migration governance. Flexibility in responses to humanitarian situations leads to incoherent mechanisms and impacts in addressing VAW. Discrepancies are particularly problematic in high-risk GBV settings, as in the cases of Ukraine and Venezuela.

The Externalisation Gamble: Italy and Spain at the Forefront of Maritime Irregular Migration Governance

Irregular migration is rapidly becoming a permanent feature of the twenty-first century. Amid the European “refugee crisis”, Italy and Spain represent two major destination countries that are affected by substantial irregular flows. Despite this comparable condition, and notwithstanding the significance of their relevant policies, they have rarely been compared, a gap in the literature that this research addresses through a novel comparative analysis of their irregular migration governance. Following a broad contextualisation of destination countries’ strategies against irregular migration, this article delves into the two case studies’ external dimension of control policies from the 1990s to 2024 inclusive. In doing so, it assesses the nature of their foreign policy on irregular migration, their specific measures, and their geographical scope. It finds that there is a noticeable convergence towards readmission measures and externalisation, along with the growing use of informal deals. In terms of differences, the article highlights Italy’s much higher number of irregular arrivals compared to Spain, and the impact that this has had on domestic debates, priorities, and relevant policy formulation processes. As a novel investigation of two influential case studies, this article therefore contributes to the literature on both externalisation and Italy’s and Spain’s foreign policy.

Motivations and Views on State Support for Refugees: Distinguishing Between Politically and Socially Engaged

ABSTRACTThis research investigates engagement for refugees within the German socio‐political landscape. Following the arrival of one million forced migrants from Ukraine to Germany in 2022, we conducted two surveys on those who volunteered in support. The first was on general engagement (N = 2000) and the second was on individuals who provided homestay accommodation (N = 3682). Our analysis explores the driving motivations for different types of engagement, comparing individuals involved in political activities with those engaged in social‐humanitarian activities. We find that value‐based motivations impact both political and social‐humanitarian engagement, with universalism driving political engagement and benevolence linked to social‐humanitarian involvement. Further, differing motivations and types of engagement align with varying beliefs about the role of the state, suggesting that individuals engaged politically believe in increased state responsibility, contrasting with views held by socially engaged individuals. These findings are contextualized within the broader literature on engagement and migration regimes.

Who is a minor? Age assessments of refugees in Germany and the classificatory multiplicity of the state

The categories that states use to classify and govern migrants often diverge from how migrants themselves perceive and experience their conditions, biographies, and identities. Building on this insight, I argue in this article that state categories not only clash with migrants’ varied notions of categories: state categorization itself often relies on multiple definitions of categories and methods of categorization. Age assessments of young refugees in Germany demonstrate this multiplicity. These assessments are carried out by forensic medical examiners and social workers, respectively, who work with very different understandings of what constitutes age. While forensic scientists view age as countable, particular, and objective, social workers think of it as lived, assembled, and constructed. What I term the classificatory multiplicity of the state complements current scholarly endeavors aimed at critically examining state categories, particularly in the context of migration governance.

Deportation at all costs? Adapting US migration policies to the First World War

ABSTRACT The 1917 US Immigration Law marks a significant turning point in migration governance as a whole. More specifically regarding deportation, it shifted from a means of border control to become a post-entry tool of social oversight. Scholars stress that this transition was not sudden and developed gradually during the pre-war decades, yet they overlook how deportation was carried out during the war years immediately preceding the reform. This article discusses how the First World War disrupted deportations to Europe, the pressures this set on migration governance and the solutions the immigration authorities came up with. Apart from legal and humanitarian aspects, the article draws attention to the logistical and financial considerations shaping formal deportation policies and how these were put into practice. It does so from the perspective of an important but much neglected go-between in migration governance: the transatlantic shipping companies. Before 1917 they carried most of the legal, logistical and financial responsibility for executing deportations. In the article I argue that under the new law, shipping companies continued to function as an essential actor in immigration enforcement. Yet, by granting more leeway to the immigration authorities to carry out deportations independently, the law marked a crucial turning point in reducing the responsibility of transport companies for migration governance.

Porosity on the Thailand-Myanmar border: before and after Myanmar’s 2021 coup

ABSTRACT Points of political crisis in Myanmar’s history have been the catalyst for forced migration, and the Thailand-Myanmar border has, for decades, been a site of significant border-crossing. But while tens of thousands arrived in Thailand in the aftermath of previous crackdowns by Myanmar’s military, the severity of the February 2021 coup has not been met with a commensurate increase in arrivals. What explains the difference? Over time, the border is demonstrating differential porosity. In this article I theorise the physical, political and social elements that shape border porosity and locate spaces where informality resides within these elements. I liken porosity to a circuit board that stretches deeply into stakeholder states, with dimmers or switches that control the porosity of the border. I examine the case of the Thailand-Myanmar border pre- and post-coup and find that the ability of local actors to exercise discretion in heeding government policy diminished over time. This decrease in informality conditioned the porosity of the border. Part geography, part policy, and part informal social construction, the concept of porosity focuses on the journey, responds to a call for radically decentring the migration governance literature, and helps to uncover the troubled possibilities that border-crossers and potential border-crossers face.

Reimagining, Repositioning, Rebordering: Intersections of the Biopolitical and Geopolitical in the UK's Post-Brexit Migration Regime (and Why It Matters for Migration Research)

This article examines the emergence of a new immigration regime in the United Kingdom, following its exit from the European Union, to uncover the entanglements and intersections of biopolitics, geopolitics and ideology in migration and migration governance. It draws a clear line between Brexit as a political and geopolitical rupture, the ideological project of “Global Britain” that emerged from it, and the forms of migrant and citizen subjectivity that these paired projects produced as the body politic was re-modelled in this image. It demonstrates this through a critical analysis of recent immigration data and trends that consider who is coming to the UK, through what routes and under what conditions, and of recently introduced changes to the immigration system, including the curtailment of asylum and the emergence of new humanitarian routes. Building on scholarship that has shown the impact of migration on the outcome of the 2016 Brexit referendum, our analysis of migration and migration governance after Brexit offers unique insights into how migration continues to play a central role in the ideological reimagining and geopolitical repositioning of the UK on the global stage and develops the concept of rebordering to capture the nexus between ideological and geopolitical transformations and the making — through migration and migration governance — of a new body politic and its “others” that embody and can serve their purposes.

Modern state migration policy models: migration protectionism as a factor of migration attractiveness

The choice of the model of migration policy of a modern state depends on various aspects, both in the economic, demographic and political planes. A rationally chosen model of migration policy allows you to ensure the effectiveness of managing migration flows and achieving optimal socio-economic development of the state, minimizing risks in the field of national security. The study examines various approaches to typologizing the models of migration policy of a modern state, and also provides an author's classification of migration policy models characteristic of states receiving migrants. Migration protectionism is cited as a key criterion for the author's typology of models, which, within the framework of the migration regime of a particular state, has a significant impact on the level of its migration attractiveness, based on the norms of acts of national migration legislation and ratified international agreements. Migration protectionism is considered as a result of the activities of the authorities of the receiving state of migrants, directly forming the migration regime. At the same time, the level of preferences in relation to various categories of migrants and types of migration acts as a mechanism for differentiating external migration according to various criteria, among which one can single out the purpose of entry, the state of origin, the level of qualifications of external migrants, knowledge of the language, which makes it possible to stimulate the demanded migration and limit unwanted. The study of migration protectionism as one of the instruments of the migration policy of the state makes it possible to identify the conceptual foundations of the formed migration regime, determine the types of foreign migration in demand and predict the trends in further political and legal regulation of state migration policy.

Out of sight, out of mind? The bipartisan Australian foreign policy on irregular migration

ABSTRACT Australian foreign policy traditionally claims middle power and good international citizenship credentials, although it also resorts to unilateral actions due to its deep-rooted condition of ‘frightened country’. This article argues that the country's irregular migration governance embodies this tension, and thus seeks to shed light on this increasingly-neglected aspect of Australian external engagement. Following a theoretical understanding of Australian foreign policy, it investigates the country's irregular migration policies between 2000 and 2024. The article finds that there is a strong continuity in such policies irrespective of the type of government in power, supported by foreign policy bipartisanship, resulting in specific foreign policy tools to stem seaborne arrivals. These include military missions; territorial excisions from the migration zone; offshore processing and/or externalisation agreements with Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka; pushback manoeuvres, and at-sea processing of asylum claims. Inevitably, such measures complicate Australia's international status as they emphasise the uneasy coexistence of both the globalist middle power and the self-interested nation images in its foreign policy, therefore warranting new research on this under-examined condition.

Commodifying Passage: Ethnographic Insights into Migration, Markets, and Digital Mediation at the Darién Gap and Mexico–Guatemala Border

This paper examines transit migration through the Darién Gap and the Mexico–Guatemala border, focusing on the commodification of migration, the transformative role of digital platforms, and the socio-economic impacts on local economies. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews conducted from 2021 to 2023, we explore how migration has evolved into a commodified journey where services and safety are bought and sold, often exploiting migrants’ vulnerabilities. We analyze how digital platforms have become essential tools for navigation and community building among migrants, yet also introduce new risks and inequalities. Our findings highlight the dual nature of local economic adaptations, which both capitalize on and are reshaped by the migratory flows, leading to significant economic and social transformations. The paper argues for a reevaluation of migration policies that integrates these elements and supports a migration governance framework that prioritizes human dignity and rights. Through exposing these dynamic and interlinked phenomena, we aim to contribute to a better understanding of migration that goes beyond traditional paradigms of border security and control, advocating for policies that are just, equitable, and respectful of human experiences and challenges.

STATE MIGRATION POLICY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION: FEATURES OF EXTERNAL MIGRATION IN THE POST-PANDEMIC PERIOD

The purpose of this study is to determine the features of one of the most significant areas of Russian migration policy - external migration, in the context of the lifting of restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the statistical information published by the executive authorities, it was possible to analyze data on external migration for 2022 and 2023, which allows us to affirmatively speak not only about the recovery in the volume of external migration characteristic of the period 2018-2019, but also about the existing trends in the increase in external migrations, primarily from Central Asian states. Such trends are due to the high level of migration attractiveness of modern Russia, which is characterized by the peculiarities of the migration regime implemented within the framework of existing international agreements with the Central Asian states of the post-Soviet space, concluded back in the 1990s, but also by certain provisions of the national migration legislation, which forms a special level of migration preferences for citizens of such states. At the same time, the migration system of the Russian Federation has several levels of implementation of migration policy, which allows, with the effective use of existing legal mechanisms at the regional level, to ensure the solution of the tasks of managing migration processes, in order to prevent a number of migration risks of mass external migration, namely replacement migration of the local population, the formation of places of compact residence of foreigners, the development of diasporas, the criminalization of immigrant communities, as well as the creation of tension in the labor market.

Strategies to Exclude: Temporariness and Return/Readmission Policies of the EU

Migration governance, migration management and migration crises have been key themes among migration scholars and governments over the last decade. Historically, systemic political economic crises are accompanied by the scapegoating of migrants, often as a strategy to shift the focus away from political and economic decisions taken by states. The EU has been no exception, and political and social tensions around migration are arguably at an all-time high, as European governments aim to protect their interests and manage their borders amidst increasing migration pressures globally. In this paper, we will examine these three EU immigration prevention strategies, with a focus on the recently adopted Pact on Migration and Asylum. Specifically, we ask the following research question: what are the roles of temporariness and return/readmission as important EU strategies to hinder, stop, and exclude the movement of migrants to EU (and Schengen)?

Humanitarian capitalism: The labour regime of aid and the surrogate welfare state in times of global displacement

Recent literature on the geography and political economy of humanitarian migration governance has highlighted the diverse circuits of economic value being forged through ‘refugee crises’ across the world. However, there is a noticeable gap in the examination of what kind of labour relations sustain these new economic circuits. Additionally, there is limited analysis of how humanitarian labour practices intersect with existing geographies of labour precarity in regions where refugee aid operations are conducted. This article aims to address these gaps by exploring the dominant labour relations within the changing landscape of private and public service providers in Greece following the 2015–16 European ‘refugee crisis.’ The article argues that the growth of the refugee aid sector in Greece both capitalised on and exacerbated ongoing processes of labour market deregulation and public sector contraction. The burgeoning aid sector operated as a surrogate welfare state, relying on devalued local labour to address the basic social reproduction needs of global ‘surplus populations’. Extending discussions on the political economy of migration industries beyond profit-making to account for their role in transforming the welfare state and labour relations in spaces of accentuated capitalist crisis, the article demonstrates how the emergency temporalities of aid funding, the rise of public sector managerialism, and employment protection liberalisation impact migrant-facing services, effectively serving as both anti-labour and anti-immigration policy. Furthermore, it illustrates how politically induced migrant ruination is used as a lever to intensify and moralise humanitarian labour in a feedback loop detrimental to both working-class locals and migrants.

Governing transit and irregular migration: informality and formal policies

ABSTRACT Informality has attracted significant attention in migration studies, yet a fresh look is needed given the succession of world crises over the past 15 years and the increasing use of informality to deal with them. This special issue considers informality as practices of governance that supplement, substitute, replace or operate beyond formal rules. It focuses on dissecting the governance of transit and irregular migration in the liminal space between formal policies and informal practices, and focuses on three major questions: Why and how has migration governance experienced informality’s expansion in policies and practices? What are the drivers, sites, temporalities, and implications of such an expansion? How do power relations among different stakeholders affect such governance compared to normative and institutional logics? This special issue ventures beyond existing constatations that the formal and informal are entangled. A core assertion is that informality can be a deeper structuring force, because informal interactions repeat over time, creating alternative or supplementary forms of governance beyond formal institutions. This collection of articles is original in shedding light on such governance from the perspective of world politics and political regimes, little discussed thus far in systematic ways. It is also at the forefront of theorizing on how stakeholders use mechanisms of power to govern polycentrically, that is from multiple centres related to each other but not hierarchically subordinated. This collection provides novel perspectives on socio-spatial and temporal aspects of informality’s use in such governance. Building on extensive fieldwork and data-driven secondary research, this collection covers Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, post-socialist countries in Eastern Europe, including Belarus and Russia after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Turkey and Iraq in the Middle East, and Albania in the Balkans, as well as Thailand and Myanmar in Asia.

The Structural and Orbital Effects of Active Galactic Nuclei Feedback on SMBH Binaries Embedded in Gaseous Circumbinary Disks

Using subparsec-scale-resolution radiation+hydrodynamical adaptive mesh refinement simulations deployed with the RAMSES code, we study the dynamics of supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries embedded in gaseous nuclear circumbinary disks, where we investigate the effects of active galactic nucleus feedback on the SMBH binaries' migration behavior and disk structure. The radiative feedback effects are modeled by injecting photons that interact with the gas, through the adoption of a grid of BH emission spectra. We run simulations with initial conditions that lead by pure gravity plus hydrodynamics both to the formation of a low-density tidal cavity and to systems where gas–viscous diffusion is efficient enough to maintain a sizable gas reservoir surrounding the binary. For gap-forming binaries we find that orbital evolution is unchanged with the inclusion of feedback, but ionizing radiation photoevaporates gas that is at the outer edge of the low-density region. For non-gap-forming systems we find that when feedback is included a strong initial disruption of the circumbinary disk is followed by an eventual stabilization of the medium that can usher a return to a fast binary migration regime. All of this is possible as a result of how our simulations capture the ionization states of the nuclear disk region and how this affects the coupling efficiency decrease with respect to the radiative feedback.

Migration management and uneven development: economic geographies of migrant camps on the Greek island

This article focuses on Lampedusa as an exemplary case study of economic transformation brought about by migration, as well as the creation of a ‘migra-tion industry'. On the basis of interviews with key informants and a reconstruction of the secondary literature, it shows how migration has given international visibility to the island, starting from the first arrivals of emigrants in the 1990s, through the increase in landings during the so-called ‘Arab Spring', and up to the pre-sent. This has fed various processes of conversion from an economy based on fishing towards an economy built around relatively recent tourism. Further-more, it highlights how the national, European and international policies of migration governance have contributed to creating an industry based on con-sumption by the military, police, volunteers, health and humanitarian person-nel present on the island and the impact this has had on the local service sec-tor.

Contextualizing Fair Migration in Malaysia: From Sovereign Migration Governance Toward Developmental Global Migration Governance

This paper proposes that fair migration governance in Malaysia reflects a gradual shift from sovereign migration governance towards developmental global migration governance. It examines three approaches the Malaysian government takes to enhance migrant rights protection: concluding a zero-cost migration memorandum of understanding (MoU), digitalizing the recruitment process for foreign workers, and introducing joint liability schemes for employers and private employment agencies. These approaches are a significant move towards rights-based solutions, consistent with Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 10.7: Facilitate orderly, safe, regular, and responsible migration and SDG 8.8: Protect labor rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers. Document analysis examines data from official documents and legislations, reports from international organizations, statements from migrant advocacy organizations and trade unions, parliamentary debates, and newspaper articles. The findings have two implications. First, it reflects a central shift in the conceptualization of Malaysia’s labor migration industry from a business model to a rights protection model through eliminating intermediaries. Second, it illustrates the transition of Malaysia’s migration policy from sovereign migration governance to developmental global migration governance. In the Malaysian case study, policy changes are both the consequence of a top-down statist approach and global and societal movements toward developmental global migration governance.

European migration governance in the context of uncertainty

European migration governance in the context of uncertainty

The Visual Governance of Canadian Migration Agencies

Despite increasing attention to images in the study of world politics, the role of visual representations in transnational governance processes in general and migration governance, in particular, has received less attention. This paper aims to fill this gap by examining the visual representation of migration governance by the two Canadian government institutions responsible for it: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). Through a multi-modal analysis of their X (formerly Twitter) images, the paper shows how they tend to shy away from a visual representation of people on the move, privileging a technical communication in an aspiration toward a “neutral” representation of migration issues. Secondly, it sheds light on the discrepancies between the policies directed toward Afghani and Ukrainian refugees and the unexpectedly undifferentiated visual communication about the two groups. Finally, the paper explores what the pictures accompanying X (formerly Twitter) posts of IRCC and CBSA can tell about how these government institutions represent themselves. Findings showed that government institutions’ esthetic practices are not always in line with the institutional migration policies and text narratives, suggesting that different government implementation tools (i.e., regulations, practices, textual discourses) may not reinforce each other but advance alternative perspectives.