In the shadow of fortress Europe? Impacts of European migration governance on Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia

Abstract

This article analyses European integration's effects on migration and border security governance in Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia in the context of 'governed interdependence'. We show how transgovernmental networks comprising national and EU actors, plus a range of other participants, blur the distinction between the domestic and international to enable interactions between domestic and international policy elites that transmit EU priorities into national policy. Governments are shown to be 'willing pupils' and 'policy takers', adapting to EU policy as a pre-condition for membership. This strengthened rather than weakened central state actors, particularly interior ministries. Thus, in a quintessentially 'national' policy area, there has been a re-scaling and re-constitution of migration and border security policy. To support this analysis, social network analysis is used to outline the composition of governance networks and analyse interactions and power relations therein. ARTICLE HISTORY

Decoupling and Teaming up: The Rise and Proliferation of Transnational Municipal Networks in the Field of Migration

“…While this local turn constitutes an important departure from the “methodological nationalism” that previously characterized migration studies (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002), it fails to capture the complex interplay between actors and institutions positioned at different levels and in different places that characterizes migration governance today. Recognition of refugee status and subsequent integration in a region like Europe, after all, involves an amalgamation of international, regional, national, provincial, and local actors ranging from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the European Asylum Support Office to local mayors and nongovernmental organizations (of international, transnational, national, and local origin) and private companies (to whom key services in this field are increasingly outsourced) (Geddes and Taylor 2016). In terms of their normative commitments, these actors operate in a situation of legal pluralism, with frequently overlapping or contradictory international, European, national, and local laws and regulations (Michaels 2009).…”

Conclusions

“…While securitisation through control of risky objects can be considered as one of the key features of securitisation of migration, the development of broadly understood walls can be defined as the key instrument for gaining and securing this control. The prominence of risk-driven securitisation indicated that the future of the EU's common approach to migration lies in the "fortification of Europe" (Geddes & Taylor, 2016;Zaragoza-Cristiani, 2017). The concept of "Fortress Europe" had been well known before 2015 (Bermejo, 2009;Caviedes, 2004), but the framing of the "migration crisis" has increased its relevance among the EU policy actors, embedding this idea in the policy discourse and even significantly moving it beyond the EU borders.…”

‘Street-level’ agents operating beyond ‘remote control’: how overseas liaison officers and foreign state officials shape UK extraterritorial migration management

“…Several scholars address the policy adaption of transit and source states in response to persuasion techniques, diplomatic pressures and financial incentives by powerful states, and the European Union (Lavanex and Ucarer 2004;Flynn 2014;Geddes and Taylor 2015;Nethery, Rafferty-Brown and Taylor 2012). However, few study the reverse relationship: how demands by transit and source states shape destination states' policies and practices.…”