Labour Migration Policy in Russia: Considerations on Governmentality

Abstract

The authors argue that Russian migration policy reflects the functioning of contemporary Russia's entire bureaucratic machine. The bureaucracy's Soviet‐era governance techniques on the one hand and the material interests of particular pressure groups on the other, shape the manipulation of immigration regulation that has occurred since the early 2000s. Therefore, attempts to liberalize migration regulation, i.e., to simplify the legalization of foreign workers, have always been incoherent, accompanied by reservations and limitations. Additionally, Russian actions are riddled with conflict between ‘geopolitical’ and domestic policy rationales. The authorities’ occasional attempts to use immigration regulation as a foreign policy tool acquire primarily symbolic value in the ‘domestic political market’ rather than serving any instrumental purpose. The effort to enhance Russian influence in the post‐Soviet space through the ‘reintegration project’ (Eurasian Economic Union) collides with the goal of national labour market protection, since integration entails the removal of barriers to labour movement.

Escaping a migrant metropolis

“…As a result, many non-Russian migrants seeking legality are forced into illegality, often by employers, landlords or different sorts of middlemen Kuznetsova 2016, 1017; see also Malakhov and Simon 2018;Urinboyev 2017). Moreover, in the racial order of the post-Soviet Russian national discourse, migrants from Central Asia are not only racialized as the Muslim Other but often rendered synonymous with migrant 'illegality' (Brednikova and Tkach 2012, 39; Teper and Course 2014).…”

Knowledge, Power, and Trust: The Role of Experts in Russia’s Migration Regime

“…Migration scholarship often describes Russia's political response to largescale immigration as 'messy and paradoxical' (Light 2016: 2), excessively complicated and non-transparent (Malakhov, Simon 2018), 'full of inconsistent and conflicting tendencies' (Heusala 2018: 431), 'overly restrictive' (Cook 2013: 98) and shaped by 'high levels of corruption' (Round, Kuznetsova 2017: 3). For most of the literature, the contradictory character is an expression of an authoritarian, patrimonial and populist state.…”

Has immobility been left behind in migration regulatory infrastructures?

“…Drawing on the concept of regulatory infrastructures (Lin et al, 2017; Xiang & Lindquist, 2014), immobility (Schewel, 2020) and ‘left behind’ (Biao, 2007), this study is set out to determine how the state of migrant origin approach the ‘left behind’ population in rural areas. There is considerable research on the role of migration policies in host countries for migrants from Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian countries (see Malakhov & Simon, 2018; Reeves, 2013; Round & Kuznetsova, 2016; Urinboyev, 2020), the role of international organizations in migration governance in Kyrgyzstan (Korneev, 2018) and return migration (Thieme, 2014). However, there is a gap in the literature on the role of Kyrgyzstan's state policies towards outgoing labour migration and the left‐behind population.…”