MigPros stands for "Prospects for Migration"- it is a five year project funded by an Advanced Investigator Grant of the European Research Council awarded to Professor Andrew Geddes, Department of Politics, University of Sheffield. MigPros compares migration prospects in the Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America and South America. Its current progress: 300 interviews with élite policy actors were conducted across the regions, including 84 in Europe/EU. This presentation is about its three preliminary findings on the meanings and drivers of migration governance and more.

1. Prospects for
International Migration Governance
Strengthening Migration Governance:
The role of Inter-institutional Coordination and
evidence-based policy making
27-28 October 2016 – Tunis, Tunisia
By: Luca Lixi`
By: Luca Lixi
Funded by the
European Union
République
Tunisienne
Ministère des
Affaires Etrangères

2. • A 5 year project funded by an Advanced Investigator Grant of
the European Research Council awarded to Professor Andrew
Geddes, Department of Politics, University of Sheffield. From
January 2017, Director, Migration Policy Centre, European
University Institute, Florence, Italy.
• Comparing Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America and South
America
• Progress: 300 interviews with élite policy actors conducted
across the regions, including 84 in Europe/EU
What is MIGROSP ?

3. The presentation:
1. Share preliminary findings of the MIGPROSP
project on International Migration Governance
2. Look at how these apply to the case of the
European External Migration Governance

4. The drivers of migration governance
• How do actors in migration governance systems
understand the causes and effects of migration?
• How do they understand and try to manage key risks
and uncertainties?
• What effects do these understandings have on
institutional responses now and in the future?

5. The meaning of migration governance
• Migration occurs as a result of change in underlying economic, social, political,
demographic and environmental systems.
• Migration governance is not a simple response of an institutional framework to an
exogenous migration shock because these governance systems play a role in defining
their challenges as a result of the way in which they define their own borders and
boundaries
• The ways in which élite policy actors understand these change can be seen as the
drivers of migration governance
• The way migration is understood as a phenomenon leads to defining it as an issue
(problem/opportunity/challenge/threat) and can then shape the way solutions are
developed for it

6. Emerging findings 1
• A new normal?
“These 250,000-280,000 irregular migrants a year, that’s basically what
we have to count on in the foreseeable future. Nothing will change in
this regard.”
Structural problems like poverty, inequality and conflict are seen as key
drivers of these pressures, likely to continue this trend.
Communication on Partnership Frameworks of the Commission uses the
same language… “External migratory pressure is the ‘new normal’

7. A new normal, but…
• A new normal seen as requiring a new approach in migration
governance
• But…..What emerges is a strongly reactive tendency, leading to
a status quo bias.
• Key tension of migration governance in times of changing
dyanamics
• Changing the rulebook problematic because of the potential
unforeseen consequences in a highly politicized policy field

8. Emerging findings 2
• The causes and limits of deterrence
Deterrence: key theme in migration policy
making, especially in EU/USA/AUS
Linked with a particular view on the causes of
migration, with a strong emphasis on PULL
FACTORS.

9. The causes and limits of deterrance
• Understanding of causes of migration shaped by centrality of economic
factors as reasons to MOVE and CHOOSE destination country
• This means that a country’s attractiveness and openness (ease of entry,
rights, benefits) could drive migration
• Response of governance is deterrence: efforts to make country X less
attractive, to limit migration to it.
• Reductive: over emphasises pull factors, downplays the push factors and
ignores important role of migrant social networks.

10. Emerging finding 3
• Climate change is a problem, but it’s for the
future…
When asking how causes and effects of migration might
change in the future, CLIMATE CHANGE emerged as a
driver.
“You’re going to have climate. Clearly, the effects of
climate change will become a big driver of migration”

11. Climate Change, driver for the future…
• Interesting because:
1. There is evidence that environmental issues
already play a role, but these are only
projected in the future by policy makers
2. This is indicative of an inertial and reactive
tendency in migration governance, a difficulty
of planning ahead, also due to uncertainty of
the consequences of certain actions

12. • Overall we see:
Reactive tendency that overfocuses on pull
factors and lacks of capacity to be proactive
and anticipate the unfolding nature of
drivers of migration.

13. • So how are these elements reflected in the
development of an European External
Migration Governance in the Mediterranean?

14. • My focus on the European side comes from
progress of research so far…
• By external migration governance however, I
include all EU and non EU actors, governmental
and non governmental, that impact on the
shared management of Mediterranean
migration.

15. Migration governance and crisis
• Developments of the migration governance in Europe
have followed perceptions of being vulnerable to
oubreaks of migration crisis.
• This vulnerability linked to perception of migration as a
security problem, from the early 1990s onwards.
• Developments followed this line…

16. Between the short and the long term
SHORT TERM
Reactive tendency
Focus on immediate results
Bilateral approach with TC
Narrow focus
External Migration governance as a
negotiation processes
LONG TERM
Proactive tendency
Focus on long term
Multilateral inclusive processes
Comprehensiveness
External migration governance as a
joint shared effort

17. The short term approach
• The approach evident since the early European
migration governance developments in the 1990s
• Linked to the perception of crisis, outbreak of mass
influx. In Europe, this risk was seen as coming from
the East.
• Resulted in a security based reactive tendency

18. • The "ease" of migrating often seen as a pull
factor, a driver of migration:
– Big focus on smuggling as a driver of migration
– Critics of search and rescue, ie. Mare Nostrum
– Emphasis on return measures as deterrent for
future migrants
– Externalizing border control

19. • External relations in this light carried out as
negotiation:
"It is frustrating to see, but the reality is that
external relations of migration are seen as a
this for that, a pure negotiation of
international relations"
• No space for developing common understanding
of causes of migration, resulting in keeping
diverging positions.

20. The long term approach
• Since early 2000s, a well documented clash between
reactive migration governance and call for
comprehensiveness.
• Following the lead from the UN as well, development of
the root causes approach.
• Most notably at EU level, Home Affairs vs DEVCO, NEAR,
External Action…

21. • Changing the perspective on causes of
migration:
– More emphasis on push factors
– Poverty, inequality, instability…
– Push for creating regional dialogues, processes and
platforms to jointly discuss migration management
issues (EUROMED, Rabat, Khartoum, Valletta).

22. An unresolved dispute
• In interviews it appeared very clearly how this clash is
still present today
• It also emerged how very different conceptions on the
causes and consequences of migration are held by
different actors in different institutional contexts

23. • This becomes even more evident when
reaching out externally:
"When we deal with partner countries, it is evident that we
have different sensibilities…a very different understanding
to the problem, to migration, to borders. It is quite hard to
reach common solutions in these circumstances"

24. Conclusions
• 3 things have emerged:
1. The importance of understandings of migration as
drivers of governance.
Strong link between this and the way actions in
governance unfold.
Great divergence has been found between different actors,
leading to a polarization between short term reactive
measures and long term comprehensive action plans.

25. Conclusions
• 2) The status quo bias
In light of new challenges, tendency to look back within the
frame of the same institutional setting. Despite new ideas
are brought forward, they largely fit within this dichotomy,
evidencing how the uncertainties of new proactive
measures lead to relying on the status quo as a risk averse
strategy.

26. • 3) A long history of cooperation
Despite criticized for ripening little successes, 25 years of
Mediterranean integration have led to developing avenues
for cooperation.
Strong need to use these spaces to develop shared
understandings of the underlining systems that drive
migration (social, political, economic, environmental),
before devising a list of deliverables and solutions.

27. • For more information, please
visit www.migrationgovernance.org
or write to: luca.lixi@sheffield.ac.uk
• The research leading to these results has received funding
from the European Research Council under the European
Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) /
ERC Grant Agreement n. 340430