NGOs and West European Migration Governance (1860s until Present): Introduction to a Special Issue

Abstract

Social and political scientists are involved in an extensive but inconclusive debate about the role of international nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) in European migration governance. The European Union (EU) and NGOs work under the assumption that NGOs are crucial to migration governance and yet the role of NGOs is not clear. The EU has invested time and money in its attempts to involve NGOs more actively in migration governance, but it does so without much knowledge of how ngos in the past have influenced migration governance, and thus with no idea if the current investments are worthwhile. In this article, which is the introduction to the special issue on this subject, we take a closer look at the NGOs involved in West European migration in the period from the 1860s until the present day in order to understand the changing role of NGOs in migration governance in Europe. Providing moral, logistical and expert authority in a purportedly impartial way, NGOs have added a dimension to migration governance that states cannot replicate. As a result, the number of NGOs has gradually increased and at times their influence has become significant. However, in providing a chronology of the involvement of NGOs in migration governance, we show that their influence on migration governance policies and practices has not been linear. During some windows of opportunity (e.g. in the immediate years following the First and Second World Wars and the Cold War), NGOs became more prominent and effective, while at other times (e.g. the 1930s), their importance waned. The presence and capacity of NGOs to contribute to migration governance depended on whether states, and increasingly after 1945, intergovernmental organisations such as the UN, needed them to further their own interests or to fulfil a role that they could not play.

Policy Advocacy and NGOs Assisting Immigrants: Legitimacy, Accountability and the Perceived Attitude of the Majority

“…The research findings correspond to the notion of the NGOs' legitimacy (claims) as derived from 'moral' and 'procedural' accountability, democratic representation and-to some extent-social empowerment (Atack 1999). While talking about legitimacy and legitimation, Schrover et al (2019) pointed at expert, moral and logistical authority that according to them enables NGOs to play a role in policymaking. The first one means that NGOs know the rules and laws, and have access to statistics.…”

El rol de las organizaciones no gubernamentales en la respuesta a la migración venezolana en Colombia

“…El rol del Estado y las ong en la migración contemporánea se ha abordado especial, aunque no exclusivamente, desde la sociología, el derecho y la ciencia política. La ciencia política, por su parte, ha valorado la contribución de las ong al fortalecimiento de la gobernanza de los asuntos migratorios (Jóźwiak et al, 2018;Bobes, 2017;Schrover et al, 2019;Semprebon et al, 2022), mientras abren espacios de cooperación con el Estado. Esto ocurre por medio de su asistencia en el reasentamiento (Gisselquist, 2020), y en la recolección y divulgación de información (Korneev & Kluczewska, 2018;Chun et al, 2020).…”

Migrants and Refugees in Europe

“…Civil society organisations (CSOs), conceived here as formal as well as informal social groups with an internal organisational structure and regularity of operations (Salamon et al, 2003), play an active role in labour integration and cover a wide range of services or roles; they assist migrants, refugees and asylum seekers (MRAs) in their entry to the labour market, increase their linguistic and working skills, and help them to deal with problematic situations (Greenspan et al, 2018;Ruiz Sportmann and Greenspan, 2019), extending the provision of services concerning the labour market integration offered by the state (Matikainen, 2003;Sunata and Tosun, 2018;Mayblin and James, 2019;Vandevoordt, 2019). CSOs might be involved in collective actions by participating in decision-making processes and advocating for the rights of MRAs (for example, Jaworsky, 2016;Rother and Steinhilper, 2019;Schrover et al, 2019). Moreover, CSOs are involved in public, political and legal advocacy (Garkisch et al, 2017).…”