Building upon the concept of migration regime, this open access book brings together the works of scholars who have investigated logics and routines of action in the field of immigration control within a single and innovative theoretical framework. The chapters cover a wide range of policy domains, from visa policy to the externalisation of controls, labour migration to asylum, internal controls towards irregular migration to restrictions for intra-EU mobility. By unravelling organisational strategies and practices across Europe, the book does not only contribute to dismantling the very idea of the European North-South divide in migration but also shows how Europe really works in the field of migration in times of deep economic, asylum and health crises. In this perspective, the book questions the widespread understanding of migration control outcomes as simply the result of more or less effective state policies without considering the embeddedness of the national policy goals and strategies in the dynamic interplay of different economies, institutional cultures and geopolitical positions.
This book traces the practices of migration control and its contestation in the European migration regime in times of intense politicization. The collaboratively written work brings together the perspectives of state agents, NGOs, migrants with precarious legal status, and their support networks, collected through multi-sited fieldwork in eight European states: Austria, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden and Switzerland. The book provides knowledge of how European migration law is implemented, used, and challenged by different actors, and of how it lends and constrains power over migrants’ journeys and prospects. An ethnography of law in action, the book contributes to socio-legal scholarship on migration control at the margins of the state. “This book is a major achievement. A remarkable and insightful study that through close analysis of the practices of migration control in 8 European countries (Austria, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden and Switzerland) provides powerful new insight into the power of the state at its margins and over those that are marginalised.” - Andrew Geddes, Director, Migration Policy Centre, European University Institute “Migrants Before the Law provides a much-needed account of the dizzying legal labyrinth that migrants navigate as they seek to survive in Europe. Based on multi-sited ethnography in detention centres, migration offices, police stations, and non-governmental organizations as well as on interviews with key government actors, advocates, and migrants themselves, this book explores the systems of control and forms of migrant precarity that operate along Europe’s internal borders, in multiple national and transnational contexts. Readers will come away with a deepened understanding of the perverse workings of power, the ways that the uncertainty and unpredictability of law foster both despair and hope, the degree to which the immigration “crisis” is both manufactured and experienced as real, and the ingenuity of migrants themselves in the face of Kafkaesque state practices.” - Susan Bibler Coutin, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and Anthropology, University of California, Irvine, USA “Migrants Before the Law is an excellent exposition of the dispersed sites of the law and the hinges and junctions through which this apparatus is actualized in the lives of migrants facing deportation, contesting their status as illegal migrants or seeking to regularize their precarious position. Written with great sensitivity and an eye to minute details this book is also an achievement in furthering the method of collaborative ethnography and new ways of staging comparisons.” - Veena Das, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University, USA
Irregular migration is one of the most momentous phenomena of the 21st century. While it is a life‐changing process for migrants themselves, it also entails a number of significant challenges for destination countries and their local populations. Consequently, irregular migration is now a heavily debated and polarising issue in most receiving states. However, the multiple perspectives on this phenomenon are rarely assessed together, and states’ role in shaping national and international responses remains understudied, which hinders a comprehensive understanding of irregular migration governance. To address this issue, this innovative book investigates irregular migration by concurrently analysing the viewpoints of migrants, states, and their local populations. To that end, it builds on multidisciplinary insights from international relations, migration studies, political science, and other disciplines, and adopts Italy and Australia as two highly relevant yet rarely compared case studies, with a focus on their migratory foreign policies. In arguing for a multidisciplinary and holistic interpretation of irregular migration, it sheds new light on an influential and permanent feature of our times through key theory, security, and policy implications, as well as with relevant proposals. It also provides an assessment of unfolding trends, novel insights, and potential future outlooks based on the latest data and published research. This book is therefore a valuable resource for academics, migration and security professionals, policymakers, diplomats, journalists, and students.
The papers presented in this volume form a homogeneous body of knowledge with many facets. The topics researched present a wide variety. . . This volume offers solid research on a variety of issues in the study of migration. Theodore P. Lianos, South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics The enlargement of the European Union has had an enormous impact on migration within Europe. This book addresses the form of these effects, outlining the social, political and economic problems created by the free movement of people within the European Union. The eminent European contributors to this book explore the ways in which nation states and the EU seek to promote the benefits of migration but at the same time counter threats arising from dislocation. The advantages and costs of migration are considered, as is the crucial problem of who gains and loses from migration. Underpinning the analysis are studies on retirement migrants in Turkey and migrant workers in countries including Austria, Finland, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and the UK, which highlight the impact of immigration in the host states, the motivation for migration within the EU as well as the issues of societal integration of migrants and the need for control as a consequence of growing levels of migration. This timely and relevant study will strongly appeal to scholars and researchers in a wide range of fields including European studies, migration studies, social policy, human geography, international relations and sociology.
Separation of powers is the time-tested touchstone of the legitimate exercise of power in modern democracies. This collection examines decision-making in the EU's multilayered and polycentric constitutional structure through this lens. The focus on separation of powers reveals how strong executive powers collaborate in the EU as a single source of public power, which is not sufficiently counterbalanced by parliaments or the judiciary. The collection explores 3 policy fields marked by crisis: the economic and monetary union (EMU), migration, and trade. Drawing on expertise from across these sectors, with a strong conceptual thread linking all the contributions, this important work illustrates how different branches of government co-determine each others' powers.
This book provides a comparative overview of asylum seekers’ reception throughout Europe by adopting a theoretical framework based on an analytical approach to the notion of multilevel governance (MLG). It challenges the tendency of the MLG literature to overlook political controversies and conflicts and questions the assumption that it represents the best policymaking arrangement for promoting policy convergence. In doing so, it explores the functioning of the reception component of the Common European Asylum System in centralised states and federal/regional states and analyses its implementation at both national and local levels. The book reveals the heterogeneous development of reception policies not only across Member States but also within each country where solutions adopted at the local level generally diverge substantially. Furthermore, the overall centralisation of policy-making on reception regardless the institutional structure, seems to leave little room for MLG arrangements tailored to specific localities and triggers tensions between central governments and local authorities. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of migration and asylum studies, immigration, (multilevel) global governance and more broadly to comparative politics, European studies/politics and public policy. Chapter 3, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Perhaps the most vexing question facing Europe today is what to do about asylum seekers and people in search of work who arrive daily, some escaping nations where poverty and persecution are, for them, facts of life. Given its costs - both human and economic - immigration policy has understandably become a highly politicized issue. With the abolition of internal borders within the EU, new controls are needed to stop immigration and to prevent non-citizens from working illegally. New external policies are being used, such as early warning systems and visa controls, with the long-term aim of reducing emigration from poor and war-ridden nations. Europe has also intensified its control of internal aliens. But there are limits to how tight a control can be made without violating the norms and values of the democratic state, where human rights should be valid for citizens and non-citizens alike. However, free immigration is not in the interests of the European states. It might undermine labour and housing markets, make planning impossible, and alter the preconditions for welfare states. This timely book addresses the politics and mechanisms of immigration control in Europe in an effort to unravel its complexities and propose sensible solutions. It covers recent events, including racist and populist party politics, as well as changes in the international setting, such as the development within the European Union and Schengen, and the recent refugee crisis in the former Yugoslavia. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in immigration studies, European politics, international relations, anthropology and sociology.
This research questions the seemingly ossified premise that states have an absolute discretion to control international migration. Applying Max Weber’s theories of legitimacy, it determines that while states have certain traditionally legitimate functions, migration control, as distinct from the determination of citizenship, is not one such function. Measures of migration control must thus be justified on a rational-legal basis, that is, on a minimal evidential basis. Acknowledging the many obstacles states face in carrying out this legitimising exercise, it is suggested that a supranational approach at the regional level is the most sustainable long-term model, with an ultimate aim of achieving inter-regional cooperation on migration management on the basis of equality between regions.
In Europe, immigration is a politically potent issue—especially when it comes to the treatment of asylum seekers and illegal labor immigrants. This volume draws the reader into the complex and contradictory world of migration regulation and control, covering the wide range of different policy approaches that aim to control the entry and residence of non-EU citizens. Revealing the common framework, tendencies, and policy convergences brought about less by design than a common concern about migration’s impact on the future of the EU, Modes of Migration Regulation and Control in Europe questions the effectiveness of additional efforts in terms of their fiscal and societal costs. “This important book emphasizes that European countries individually and collectively are converging in their efforts to manage migration.”—Philip Martin, University of California, Davis
