The Politics Of International Migration Management

Throughout the world, governments and intergovernmental organizations, such as the International Organization for Migration are developing new approaches aimed at renewing migration policy-making. This book, now in paperback, critically analyzes the actors, discourses and practices of migration management.

This book examines the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) practices of international migration management and studies current transformations of migration governance and the role of international organizations outside Europe. While so-called migration crises in North Africa in 2005 and 2011 made the instability of the increasingly militarized border regime visible, they also created space for new actors and instruments to emerge under the label of international migration management, promising softer forms to control migration outside Europe. Who are these actors, and how do they think and practice migration control without the use of physical force and obvious repression? This book develops an innovative theoretical framework that mobilizes Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice to critically investigate the work of the IOM in Morocco and Tunisia between 2005 and 2015. Analyzing its information campaigns, voluntary return programs, and anti-trafficking politics, the book shows how this organization teaches (potential) migrants and North African actors to understand migration as their own problem and its management as their own responsibility. This book advances our understanding of the complex and ambivalent practices of controlling migration through information, protection and repatriation, and the implications of ubiquitous but underresearched institutions, such as the IOM, in this contested field. It will appeal to postgraduates, researchers, and academics in International Relations Theory, Border and Migration Studies, International Political Sociology, international organizations, and contemporary politics in North Africa.

Twenty-nine specialists offer their perspectives on migration from a wide variety of fields: political science, sociology, economics, and anthropology.

Migration has become, since the nineties, the subject of growing international discussion and cooperation. By critically analyzing the reports produced by international organisations on migration, this book sheds light on the way these actors frame migration and develop their recommendations on how it should be governed.

Over the last two decades, international migration has become a global issue. It is perceived as an ongoing challenge for governments, as well as an issue that is deeply related to other international challenges, such as development, climate change, security and public health. In this context, international organisations have become influential in the way in which migration is thought about and governed. They play an important role, steering states’ behaviour and intervening on the ground, through the design and implementation of immigration policy. International organisations tend to promote a positive view of migration, extolling its benefits for all parties. There often exists a contrast between this positivity and the public and political scepticism regularly expressed in Western receiving countries. According to their advocates, international organizations have the potential to improve the governance of migration, by supporting cooperation between states and promoting balanced and comprehensive political strategies. However their detractors criticise them for aligning themselves with the interests of receiving states and for their political agenda. This book brings together analytical and empirical contributions that explore the role of international organisations in migration politics worldwide. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

In 2016, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) became part of the United Nations. With 173 member states and more than 400 field offices, the IOM—the new ‘UN migration agency’—plays a key role in migration governance. The contributors in this volume provide an in-depth and comprehensive insight into the IOM, its transformation, current structure and projects, as well as its capacity, self-understanding and political agenda.

The Routledge Handbook of the Politics of Migration in Europe provides a rigorous and critical examination of what is exceptional about the European politics of migration and the study of it. Crucially, this book goes beyond the study of the politics of migration in the handful of Western European countries to showcase a European approach to the study of migration politics, inclusive of tendencies in all geographical parts of Europe (including Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans, Turkey) and of influences of the European Union (EU) on countries in Europe and beyond. Each expert chapter reviews the state of the art field of studies on a given topic or question in Europe as a continent while highlighting any dimensions in scholarly debates that are uniquely European. Thematically organised, it permits analytically fruitful comparisons across various geographical entities within Europe and broadens the focus on European immigration politics and policies beyond the traditional limitations of Western European, immigrant-receiving societies. The Routledge Handbook of the Politics of Migration in Europe will be essential reading and an authoritative reference for scholars, students, researchers and practitioners involved in, and actively concerned about, research on migration, and European and EU Politics.

This text fulfills a major gap by comprehensively reviewing one of the most salient policy issues in Europe today, migration and immigration. It is the first book to address the question of whether we can legitimately speak of a European politics of migration that links states in terms of their policy response to each other and to an evolving EU policy. The book carefully differentiates between different types of migration, introduces the main concepts and debates, and provides a broad comparative framework from which to assess the role and impact of individual states and the European Union (EU) and European integration to this key contemporary issue. Topical and up-to-date, the author fully reviews the politics and policies of immigration across the breadth and depth of Europe including the `older' immigration countries of France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the `newer' southern European countries, and the enlargement states of East and Central Europe. The Politics of Immigration and Migration in Europe is essential reading for all undergraduate and post-graduate students of European politics, political science and the social sciences more generally. Andrew Geddes lectures at the School of Politics and Communications Studies, University of Liverpool. `This book will be essential reading for students of migration and European integration, but will also be important for decision-makers, and, indeed, anyone who wants to understand one of the burning issues of our times' - Stephen Castles, Professor of Migration and Refugee Studies, Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford