The (surprising?) nonchalance of migration control agents

Eule, Tobias Georg

doi:10.1080/1369183x.2017.1401516

Cited by 29 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Compared to the three other logics, pragmatic rationality refers to what border guards ‘can do’—within the structural conditions present and in a situation that requires immediate action—with the means at their disposal. This often involves ‘nonchalance’ (Eule 2018 ) and ‘pragmatic improvisations [as] an expression of their agency within the context of the rules, practices, and roles’ (Maynard-Moody and Musheno 2012 , p. S20). One guard, talking about how they get the necessary information from migrants without having a shared language, frames this situation in words that are common in the literature: ‘Well… you get quite creative.…”

Section: The Rationalities Of Border-control Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shaping migration at the border: the entangled rationalities of border control practices

Achermann

2021

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This article analyses how border guards as members of a state organisation shape the movement of non-nationals into the territory of a nation state. Based on ethnographic fieldwork on the Swiss Border Guard (SBG), it explores the rationalities—understood as stabilised ways of reasoning and acting—that characterise practices within this state organisation. Combining organisational and structuration theory with a street-level bureaucracy perspective allows for a differentiated analysis of the various facets of border guards’ everyday work. Four rationalities of border-control practices are identified and compared: security, humanitarian, cost-calculation, and pragmatic rationality. I argue that, by considering both the specific goals and imperatives of border control and the characteristics of street-level bureaucrats acting within a state organisation, these entangled logics explain the complex and incoherent social reality of border control. More generally, the results contribute to organisational theory by pointing to the importance of taking into account that multiple entangled rationalities structure the practices of an organisation’s members.

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Section: The Rationalities Of Border-control Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shaping migration at the border: the entangled rationalities of border control practices

Achermann

2021

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“…Many member states opposed the further communitarization of asylum policies when they expected that a rise of asylum applications would result (Zaun, ). States often pass the responsibility of refugee admission to other countries by allowing or assisting refugees to transit into neighbouring countries and implementing immigration control leniently (Eule, ; Schuster, ). Overall, there is evidence that countries aim to reduce their individual contribution to the public good and to free ride on the contributions of other countries, resulting in the following assumption:Assumption States perceive refugees as a burden to be minimized…”

Section: Rational Strategies Of States and Refugeesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humanitarian Protection as a European Public Good: The Strategic Role of States and Refugees

Lutz

Kaufmann

Stünzi

2020

J of Common Market Studies

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The surge of refugees arriving in Europe has accentuated the malfunctioning of the common European asylum system: the lack of coordination between nation states and failure in the common protection of refugees were the main outcomes of the so-called refugee crisis. This article builds on the literature on public goods and policy compliance in order to explain the failure of European countries to provide humanitarian protection to refugees. A sequential gametheoretical model serves to demonstrate the strategic interaction between states and refugees in European asylum policy. The analysis demonstrates that although both groups of actors benefit from a functioning European asylum system, they also have few incentives to contribute to the public good. States aim to reduce their individual refugee burden and refugees seek protection in their preferred destination country. The findings suggest that an effective provision of refugee protection requires both member states and refugees to contribute mutually to the public good.

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“…an applicant tells the office that their lawyer advised them not to present any identification documents (D2). As an internal explanatory factor, pragmatism has been shown to play an important role in the daily work of immigration officials (Eule, 2018). Applied to the case study, pragmatism, as an inherent component of economic welfare logic, can result in a quite generous application of ambiguous policies:…”

Section: Variation In Implementation Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The aim of this paper is to systematically explore regional variation in migration policy implementation and investigate the role of an explanatory factor not sufficiently covered by existing literature (Saetren & Hupe, 2018): the role of the level of ambiguity 1 inherent in the regulation itself. It chooses a case study of internal migration control implementation, as states control immigration not only at or outside their borders, but also internally (Brochmann, 1999), and it is especially the implementation of internal migration control that remains understudied (Eule, 2018). This is surprising given that street-level bureaucrats (Lipsky, 2010) regulate access to rights and resources for non-citizens.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ambiguous goals, uneven implementation – how immigration offices shape internal immigration control in Germany

Schultz

2020

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This paper investigates regional variation in migration policy implementation, focusing specifically on the underexplored role of policy ambiguity. It chooses a salient case study of internal migration control implementation: the application of labour market access policies for migrants with precarious legal status in German municipal immigration offices. Studying the implementation approaches of eleven offices within one Land by means of semi-structured interviews with senior officials, the research design allows for drawing inter-agency and inter-policy comparisons. The data provides empirical evidence for the claim that the more conflictive and hence ambiguous a policy, the more importance can be placed on local determinants of implementation. Different logics (economic welfare and regulatory control logic) legitimizing more restrictive or expansive implementation are identified and linked to the broader migration policy context. Moreover, the difficult task of officials to determine applicants' identity clarification effortsa condition for receiving a work permitserves as basis for conceptually distinguishing between collective and individual discretion of street-level bureaucrats.

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The (surprising?) nonchalance of migration control agents

Cited by 29 publications

References 45 publications

Shaping migration at the border: the entangled rationalities of border control practices

Shaping migration at the border: the entangled rationalities of border control practices

Humanitarian Protection as a European Public Good: The Strategic Role of States and Refugees

Ambiguous goals, uneven implementation – how immigration offices shape internal immigration control in Germany

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