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91. Migration and Cohesion in Europe: a Challenge, not a Contradiction

Author:
Daniel Vernet Group
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI)
Abstract:
The eighth position paper of the Daniel Vernet Group addresses immigration, integration and cohesion in Europe where migration is often perceived as a threat to cohesion within societies and also among states. In the paper, the Daniel Vernet Group argues that migration and cohesion are not contradictory. However, Germany and France need to develop common approaches in order to encourage the finding of European answers to these challenges.
Topic:
Migration, Immigration, Refugees, Public Policy, and Asylum
Political Geography:
France, Germany, and European Union

92. Ayselin Gözde Yıldız, The European Union’s Immigration Policy: Managing Migration in Turkey and Morocco (Book Review)

Author:
Gül Oral
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
Migration has been an important reason for externalization of the EU’s policies towards nonmember third countries. Throughout the 2000s, the European Union has advanced its efforts for externalization of its immigration policies with the aim of providing security, stability, and prosperity in the neighborhood due to emerging demographic, economic and security problems. The book aims to conceptualize the external dimension of the EU’s immigration policy and its implications for non-member third countries by carrying out a comparative case study for assessing to what extent the EU has achieved to externalize its immigration policy. Accordingly, the author examines why the EU has been forming an external dimension to its immigration policy and how it aspires to impress the immigration policies of non-member countries beyond its borders (p.2). While evaluating the external dimension of the EU’s policy and its implication for transit countries, Yıldız takes into consideration security and development aspects of migration and discusses which of those aspects have become more influential for forming the EU’s external actions and practices.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Migration, Immigration, European Union, and Book Review
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Morocco

93. Disrupted: The Migration Issue

Author:
Katie Washington
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy
Abstract:
This issue focuses on the theme of Immigration, Refugees & Trafficking, which was chosen by our members and supporters. Our contributors challenge the problematic, and often racist, Western-centric approaches to immigration, refugees, and trafficking, and unpack the complex connections between gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality that are embedded in the lived realities of the people impacted directly and heavy-handedly by current foreign policy on the issue. It brings together the voices of academics, practitioners, students, and individuals who are currently living in “perpetual wait” waiting for asylum claims to be formalised. Alongside our written contributions, you will find artwork and poetry engaging with this theme. A feminist foreign policy brings all voices to the table, through whichever medium they choose to express themselves, challenging the academic and un -inclusive paradigm it is embedded in. However, the views and opinions expressed in this issue represent the respective contributors and not CFFP as an organisation; our goal is simply providing a platform for those voices, particularly those that have previously been marginalised, for open discussion and debate. After much consideration, we have recently made several changes to Disrupted, namely transitioning from a print-journal to a digital journal. You will still be able to purchase copies of the journal at our events, but to improve accessibility, we have decided to manage Disrupted primarily online. This means that we can focus our efforts on reaching more people, readers and contributors, and ensuring we are providing a much-needed feminist critique to foreign policy. Thank you for supporting this publication. Disrupted is a volunteer-run CFFP UK project and in alignment with our overarching organisational goals, we are proud to lead the way in making foreign policy more feminist, more transparent, and more intersectional. With your support, we’re amplifying a different and more nuanced conversation that can better inform policy decisions and begin to alleviate global inequality. We hope you enjoy and learn from this journal, but we also urge you to consider contributing to our next issue. From articles to artwork, we are always looking for new contributors and we are eager to hear (and see) new voices and fresh perspectives.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Gender Issues, Migration, Women, and Feminism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

94. The gendered and racialized politics of risk analysis. The case of Frontex

Author:
Saskia Stachowitsch and Julia Sachseder
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Austrian Institute for International Affairs (OIIP)
Abstract:
This article develops a feminist postcolonial approach to risk analysis as an increasingly central security practice in the EU’s emerging border management and security regime. For this purpose, we theorize risk analysis as a sense-making practice embedded within colonial power relations. As such, risk analysis problematizes migrants and migration in gendered and racializedwaysthatmakethemamenabletobordermanagementandother, potentiallyviolentsecuritypractices,suchasdetentions,returns,surveillance, and Search and Rescue. In an exemplary frame analysis of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency’s (Frontex) risk analysis report 2016, we show how conceptualizations of risks and solutions by this key actor are informed by gendered and racialized framings of 1) chaos and violence, 2) exploitationoftheEUeconomicandwelfaresystem,and3)humanitarianism towards 'vulnerable'? migrants. With this study, we seek to strengthen feminist and postcolonial interventions into critical security studies on knowledge, power, and expertise. By conceptualizing risk analysis as political, this article pushes critical security theory beyond understandings of security as socially constructed and towards systematically unpacking the meanings of (in)security as implicated in the reproduction of gendered and racialized power relations.
Topic:
Security, Migration, Post Colonialism, European Union, Feminism, Borders, and Risk
Political Geography:
Europe

95. Who Owns What? – Free Trade Policies, Migration Management and the Ambiguity of “Joint Ownership”

Author:
Sherin Gharib
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Austrian Institute for International Affairs (OIIP)
Abstract:
The concept of joint ownership has become a buzzword since the 1990s not only in strategies of international organisations, such as the United Nations (UN), the WorldBank (WB) or the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but also in European Union (EU)foreign policy (Ejdus, 2017). Since the launch of the European Neighbourhood Policy(ENP) in 2004 joint ownership has been defined as one of its main principles.Accordingly, the EU states that “joint ownership of the process, based on the awareness of shared values and common interests, is essential. The EU does not seek to impose priorities or conditions on its partners” (European Commission, 2004, p.8). It continues by holding that there “can be no question of asking partners to accept a pre-determined set of priorities. These will be defined by common consent and will thus vary from country to country. The endorsement of these plans by the highest instance of the agreements in place will give added weight to the agreed priorities for action” (European Commission, 2004, p. 8). Thus, EU policies should be set within a partnership relation between the EU, and its counterparts and priorities should be defined by common consent. The EU aims to engage “governments and all leading local stakeholders, including national parliaments” (European Commission, 2010c cited in Jonasson, 2013, p. 47). The importance of joint ownership was reconfirmed within the revised ENP in 2015,where the EU has declared that “differentiation and greater mutual ownership will be the hallmark of the new ENP, recognising that not all partners aspire to EU rules and standards, and reflecting the wishes of each country concerning the nature and focus ofits partnership with the EU” (European Commission, 2015a, p. 2). The goal, as the EUhas claimed, is to increase cooperation with neighbouring countries to an eye-to-eye level and to follow an approach based on “both partners’ needs and EU interests”(European Commission, 2017). The revised ENP again acknowledges the importance of involving relevant members of civil society as well as social partners in consultations(European Commission, 2015a, p. 3). Despite the appearance of joint ownership in several EU documents and its use as an example of an inclusive approach, the definition offered remains quite vague. Thus, it is unclear to what extent governments, local stakeholders, civil society and social partners should co-own certain policies. Whose considerations should count and should joint ownership be operationalised within the decision-making or implementation process?How can the operationalisation of the concept be evaluated? This policy paper critically investigates the EU’s concept of joint ownership. Drawing on two case studies, namely free trade policies and migration management, the paper 7PAPERSIEMed. Who Owns What? – Free Trade Policies, Migration Management and the Ambiguity of “Joint Ownership” analyses the implications and limitations of the EU’s partnership relation with its southern neighbourhood. The paper focuses mainly on the Egyptian, Tunisian and Moroccan cases. Due to the vague definition of “joint ownership” and in order to be able to analyse the two case studies, the paper suggests, based on EU documents, two types of ownership: 1) governmental ownership and 2) societal ownership. Using this conceptualisation, the paper analyses the involvement of different stakeholders and the main beneficiaries of EU free trade policies and migration management. It argues that there is a lack of governmental as well as societal ownership within the two EU tools, Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements (DCFTAs) and Mobility Partnerships (MP) as it is mainly the EU that sets priorities, norms and standards to be adopted by partner countries. Government representatives and civil society actors from Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPCs) perceive their relationship with the EUas asymmetric rather than based on an eye-to-eye level (personal communication with Tunisian and Egyptian officials and civil society actors, 2016-2017). The perceived reluctance to fully engage MPCs – government officials and social actors – in the implementation of EU policies has led to their growing mistrust of the EU. If ownership is applied at all, then it is often reduced to a state-centric approach even though the EU is rhetorically attached to the inclusion of actors going beyond the government. The lack of “societal” ownership becomes evident as consultative mechanisms suggested and applied by the EU to include grassroots organisations have in most cases no implications for policy-drafting processes. Thus, there seems to be a gap between what the EU refers to in official documents and the implementation on the ground. In this case, both MPs and free trade policies might exclusively serve the interests of the government and linked elites in the region – this depends on their ability to “own” certain policies rather than addressing the needs at the grassroots, such as poverty reduction or the creation of job opportunities. In this respect, the legitimacy and sustainability of EU policies is at risk (Ejdus, 2017;Dworkin & Wesslau, 2015). The paper proceeds as follows: the first part investigates the concept of ownership,illustrates several dimensions of its ambiguity, and analyses the EU’s operationalisation of the concept. Subsequently, the paper sheds light on the limits of ownership in the realm of free trade policies in general and DCFTAs in particular.The following section investigates the concept of migration management and MPs. The analysis is based on primary and secondary literature review as well as interviews conducted by the author with Egyptian and Tunisian officials and civil society actors, as well as with EU representatives in 2016 and 2017.
Topic:
Migration, Regional Cooperation, and Free Trade
Political Geography:
Europe, Tunisia, and Mediterranean

96. Global Perspectives on Humanitarianism: When human welfare meets the political and security agendas

Author:
Ninna Nyberg Sørensen, Sine Plambech, Paolo Cuttitta, Gioconda Herrera, Ulla Dalum Berg, and Sealing Cheng
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Concern about the politisation of humanitarian principles and action is not new. As conflicts and emergencies have become ever more complex and the desire to hinder derived effects of cross-border movements by just about any means possible has intensified, humanitarian organisations and the work they do have nevertheless attracted increasing critical scrutiny, both within the organisations as well as from various external quarters including both governments and academics (albeit on different grounds). The Report ‘Global perspectives on humanitarianism: When human welfare meets the political and security agendas’ is based oncomprehensive research undertaken in Europe, Latin America and Asia. It takesissue with various questions and dilemmas emerging from humanitarian relief practices. Can you avoid political instrumentalization when reducing harm withoutchanging the structures that produce harm in the first place (e.g. poverty, war or insecurity)?What happens to humanitarianism when those in need of protection have different perspectives on the kinds of interventions that would relive them from suffering (e.g. access to asylum and work rather than food provisions)? And what critical lessons can be learned from exploring the wider effects of rescuing migrants from high-risk journeys as part of the governance of global migration? Apart from an introduction to humanitarianism in the context of global migration and refugee movements, the report consists of three individual case studies focusing on respectively humanitarianism enacted on the maritime EU border in the central Mediterranean; a variety of recent state-defined migration crises in Latin America deriving from Cuban, Haitian and Venezuelan mass migrations combined with massive forced return movements of nationals deported from the United States and Europe; and, finally, the tensions between asylum seekers and the organisations that pledge to assist them in Hong Kong. Together, the contributions raise important questions of the directions humanitarianism may take during moments defined as ‘crisis’.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid, Migration, and Refugee Issues
Political Geography:
Asia, South America, and Latin America

97. From Bodies to Borders: Human trafficking, migration, and gender in the Danish media 2010-2019

Author:
Sine Plambech and Maria Brus Pedersen
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
In recent decades, news media all over the world have increasingly covered the issue of human trafficking. Human trafficking is a notoriously complex subject involving migration, border politics, gender, consent, agency and morality. Yet, simplistic ideas and framings of human trafficking often end up shaping broader understandings of human trafficking in policy and the public sphere. This report is written by DIIS Senior Researcher Sine Plambech and journalist Maria Brus Pedersen. The aim is not only to provide insights into the framing of human trafficking in the Danish media, but furthermore to serve as a learning tool for journalists covering human trafficking. An analysis of this type has not been undertaken in Denmark before and thus provides the reader with new insights into the evolution of how the Danish media framed human trafficking from 2010 to 2019. The report has three main findings: First, the framing of human trafficking in the Danish media has changed significantly over the past decade, from mainly covering human trafficking solely as a matter of prostitution and a human rights issue for women in 2010 to becoming an issue of migration with security and legal implications in 2019. As such there has been a development away from a focus on women’s ‘bodies’ to a focus on ‘borders’ and migration politics. Secondly, in comparison to 2010, today the media more commonly describe the trafficking of men to forced labor and human trafficking generally to other sectors than prostitution. Yet, the framing continues to be significantly gendered. Though identified victims of trafficking in Denmark are most usually migrants, the men are framed primarily as migrant workers in exploitative situations, whereas the women are described as victims of trafficking. This gendered framing derives primarily from the perspective that prostitution is victimizing by default and is not seen as a kind of work. Thirdly, despite the more nuanced framing, a simplistic sensationalist language still risks dehumanizing and overshadowing the complexity of human trafficking. In particular, this is because it is the media, rather than those who have been identified as victims of trafficking, who use these terms to describe their situation, as some of the journalists also confirmed. The report has a number of suggestions for journalists covering issues of human trafficking, some of them being; Be cautious with language. There is often a difference between the language used by politicians and NGOs and the language used by migrant workers to describe their situations. Sensationalist language like ‘prostitutes’, ‘sex slaves’ and ‘meat markets’ are loaded terms that contribute to marginalization and stigmatization. Migrant workers are not only victims of trafficking, they have agency in respect of their own migration trajectories: the one does not exclude the other. Human trafficking can be used as a yardstick for many different political agendas: consider which agendas you might be contributing to. Consider using counter narratives, activist reporting and investigative journalism as these approaches contribute to expanding our understanding of human trafficking.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Migration, Media, Borders, and Human Trafficking
Political Geography:
Europe and Denmark

98. The European Union as a Security Actor: Perspectives from the maritime domain

Author:
Jessica Larsen
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
In the light of the EU’s recent initiative to step up its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) framework, a new DIIS report by Researcher Jessica Larsen examines the role of the EU as security actor in the maritime domain. The report analyses the EU’s maritime security operations so far undertaken under the CSDP, the counter-piracy operation ATALANTA in the Indian Ocean and the counter-smuggling operation SOPHIA in the Mediterranean Sea. The report finds that the EU filled a range of roles at sea, in particular as a: first responder, because the EU established operations ahead of other more obvious security actors, such as NATO and the US broad responder, because the EU applied its characteristic integrated approach of combining military and civilian policy instruments to address the security issue legitimate responder (to some extent), because the EU was able to use its political and diplomatic arm to establish bilateral agreements that sought to ensure the rule of law in operations and engage regional state authorities While the EU has pursued a comprehensive role in addressing maritime crime, the report argues that the EU on a strategic and operational level is neglecting a range of geopolitical tensions currently playing out in various maritime domains. The report argues that the EU needs to acknowledge this more explicitly. As the EU seeks to step up its common security and defence policy, the report calls for dedicated analysis of and decision-making about how the EU as security actor wishes to face this development and position itself in the maritime domain on both strategic and operational levels.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Defense Policy, Migration, and European Union
Political Geography:
Europe and Denmark

99. Latin America's Evolving Migration Crisis: Venezuelans flee accelerating collapse

Author:
Ninna Nyberg Sørensen and Cesar Castilla
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Venezuela is facing a deep economic, political, and social crisis, with acute shortages of food, medicine and other basic goods. Over 3.4 million Venezuelans, a tenth of the population, have left the country, presenting Latin America with an unprecedented migration crisis. However, diaspora engagement in humanitarian efforts could also be part of the solution to the crisis. RECOMMENDATIONS ■ The exodus illustrates increasing difficulty distinguishing between voluntary and forced migration. To overcome barriers in accessing protection and social services, migrants and refugees must be granted legal status in receiving countries. ■ The migration crisis is politicized by many actors. Supply routes for vital humanitarian assistance are needed, but historical experiences should warn against the use of military force or other forms of intervention. ■ UN efforts to complement humanitarian help with development assistance to poorer reception areas should be supported. Ways to connect the Venezuelan diaspora to ongoing humanitarian and future development efforts directed at Venezuela should also be pursued.
Topic:
Migration, United Nations, Economy, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
South America, Latin America, and Venezuela

100. EU Pressure on Niger to Stop Migrants is Reshaping Cross-Border Economies: From migrants to drugs, gold, and rare animals

Author:
Hans Lucht and Luca Raineri
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Though the four-by-fours with migrants still leave regularly for Libya, there’s little doubt that EU driven anti-migration efforts in the Agadez region of Niger has been a blow to the local cross-border economy. POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS ■ EU interventions in Niger have had an unintended negative effect on the safety of migrants. It’s therefore important to maintain focus on rescue missions in the desert. ■ Europe must ensure that conflict and context sensitivity remain paramount as well as promoting alternative development opportunities and good governance. ■ National, local and traditional authorities should continue to avoid conflicts linked to natural resources, including gold, uranium, pasturelands and water, by promoting transparency and participatory decision-making.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Migration, Poverty, Border Control, European Union, Inequality, Fragile States, and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa, Libya, North Africa, and Niger