The impact of externalized migration governance on Turkey: technocratic migration governance and the production of differentiated legal status

Abstract

The article highlights international dimensions of the emergence and transformation of migration policies in Turkey from the early 2000s onwards, including the context of the Syrian displacement, which made Turkey the top refugee hosting country in the world. While the transformation of migration governance in Turkey has widely been discussed, the effects of externalization on Turkey have remained focused on foreign policy and Turkey-EU relations. Only recently has the research explored the socio-legal implications of migration governance in terms of the emergence of categorizations leading to differentiated inclusion of migrant groups. The article establishes the historical and conceptual link between technocratic responses to externalization dynamics and the emergence of differentiated legal status. The article argues that measures of externalization brought a technocratic approach to migration governance. As a result, the complex, controversial aspects of the externalization process, such as the production of differentiated legal statuses amongst migrant communities with protection needs, have so far been overshadowed.

Held at the gates of Europe: barriers to abolishing immigration detention in Turkey

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Turkish Migration Policy from the 1960s Until Today: What National Development Plans Tell Us

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Held at the gates of Europe: barriers to abolishing immigration detention in Turkey

“…This population is detainable in Turkey in part because they are perceived as a threat in Europe. To challenge immigration detention in Turkey it is therefore necessary to address the exclusionary logic of externalisation which govern multi-faceted levels of 'precarious inclusion' (Rytter and Ghandchi 2020) into Turkish society (Baban, Ilcan and Rygel 2017;Üstübici 2019).…”