The European Union's migration management aid: Developing democracies or supporting authoritarianism?

Abstract

The European Union and its member states have invested billions of euros in migration management programs that purport to promote “good migration governance” around the world. But what is the impact of migration management aid on governance outside of the EU? In this article, we theorise the impact of migration management aid on governance in recipient countries by analysing the key policy areas of intervention. To do so, we focus on the effects of the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa and draw on data collected from policy and government documents, in addition to secondary literature, to understand how migration management aid negatively impacts institutions of governance in recipient countries. While migration management aid may build the capacity of states to monitor borders and prevent irregular migration, we argue that this fails to account for negative externalities including human rights abuses and increased surveillance for migrants and citizens alike.

Re‐spatialising migration governance: From ‘multi‐level’ to ‘entangled’

“…The European Union's policy of externalising its migration controls has had a number of re‐spatialising effects that create further linkages and entanglements between foreign policy, security interests, the EU accession process and migration governance. This has occurred via the shifting and outsourcing of border control practices to third‐party states, but also by their broader geopolitical effects reshaping regional interests around migration (Fakhoury, 2019, 2021; Norman & Micinski, 2022; Zardo, 2022). Processes of externalisation lead to shifts in the relationship between the EU and bordering states – creating constraints and pressures, but also new sources of contention and opportunities to use migration issues as sources of leverage, bargaining and issue linkage in their diplomatic relations with the EU (Adamson & Tsourapas, 2019; Greenhill, 2016; Karadağ, 2019; Micinski, 2022; Tsourapas, 2019).…”