The Role of Narratives in Migration Policy-Making: A Research Framework

Abstract

While debates on migration policy often revolve around rival values and interests, they also invoke knowledge claims about the causes, dynamics and impacts of migration. Such claims are best conceptualised as 'policy narratives', setting out beliefs about policy problems and appropriate interventions. Narratives are likely to be more successful where they meet three criteria: they are cognitively plausible, dramatically or morally compelling and, importantly, they chime with perceived interests. Increasingly, such narratives are also expected to draw on expert knowledge, although knowledge is often deployed to legitimise particular actors or preferences rather than to enhance the cognitive plausibility of the narrative. The series of articles in this issue explore how narratives are developed, codified, revised and diffused in policy debates and policy-making. We hope that they contribute not just to understanding migration policy, but also to wider debates on the role of ideas and knowledge in public policy.

Gender, Migration and Development: Can Advocacy Groups Be More of a Hindrance than a Help?

“…Advocacy groups linked to stated policy commitments to advance equality for particular groups are well positioned to put high profile pressure on government to deliver on their commitment. For government, demonstrating that they have done so will appeal to their wider constituents and help to legitimize policy choices (Boswell et al 2011). We argue that in some instances a circular logic emerges; government funding of these advocacy groups becomes evidence of a commitment to equality, and this maintains the focus on procedure rather than substance.…”

Converging logics? Managing migration and managing diversity

“…This means that rather than focussing on the (effects of) policy actions proposed, I will look at the ways in which visions and programmes are introduced, narrated, and justified through linguistic devices (Shore and Wright 1997). This approach has some overlap with the policy narrative approach in migration policy-making, proposed by Boswell, Geddes and Scholten (2011), but has a wider scope by referring to broader ideas rather than focussing on (the function of) cognitive content.…”

“…In Fabian Georgi's words, migration management 'is presented as a kind of apolitical politics, as rational management of technical problems' (Georgi 2009, 82 [translation by the author]; cf. Boswell, Geddes and Scholten 2011;Geiger 2013). Anna…”

Toward an agenda for placing migrant hometown associations (HTAs) in migration policy-making discourse in Ghana

“…Resonating from this submission are two key elements, namely the fact that: (i) discourse denotes policy ideas and values and (ii) it is interactive in nature and involves communication. Boswell et al (2011) recommended policy narratives 1 , emphasizing the importance of policy expertise and research in shaping migration policy-making. This paper is an attempt to contribute to the interactive part of the discourse on the Ghanaian migration policy making.…”

“…While existing scholarship on migration policy does not emphasize the role of discourse, this paper considers it important because it allows various stakeholders in the migration field to make contributions for effective migration policy. A key area requiring the attention of migration policy makers is policy narratives as suggested by Boswell et al (2011) which in the framework of this paper is not to make claims about the causes and dynamics about migration but to call for infusion of empirical work in the migration policy-making process/discourse ( Figure 1). …”