Dear Colleagues,

The debate of the implementation of a common migratory policy vis à vis third country nationals in the EU is a thriving one and one that does not seem to be easy to resolve. Much of the discussion focuses on the notion of ‘Fortress Europe’, defined in the literature as an area that enjoys internal mobility while erecting barriers to entry and stay with respect to non-EU citizens.

The EU's approach to migration faced new challenges with an extraordinary inflow of refugees from Syria in the period 2014–2015, in what came to be known in the literature and mass media (e.g., FT 2015a) as Europe’s ‘migrant or refugee crisis’. As well as a social crisis, the refugee crisis became an institutional one, with the widespread perception that the EU was unable to manage it either in a consistent or coherent way.

The reasons for the failure of the EU to effectively address international migration, what in the literature is called a policy gap, are many and varied. At their core, such factors are inherently related to the structural nature of contemporary international migratory flows, which makes migration an unavoidable phenomenon. This is to the extent that attempts to stop or prevent migration are often counterproductive, with the so-called ‘securitization’ of borders frequently merely ending up increasing irregular migration.

This Special Issue will address international migration to the EU in the globalization era. We welcome contributions on issues related (but not limited) to: the deeper causes of migration (as related to globalization, climate change, conflict, etc.), the policy response (in relation to the securitization debate, policy gaps, the foreign policy of migration, etc.), and the experiences and insertion of migrants and refugees in receiving societies (e.g., in the labor markets of receiving countries).

Prof. Dr. Leila Simona Talani
Dr. Matilde Rosina
Guest Editors

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• international migration
• globalization
• global political economy
• Fortress Europe
• policy gap
• irregular migration
• migrants’ integration
• refugee crisis
• securitization

Title: Silent boosters of the economy - ethnic entrepreneurship among migrant women in Europe
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Title: May I come in? The management of migration flows from the Maghreb to the EU
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Abstract: How do the EU elaborate politics to control migration flows from the Maghreb region? This paper examines to what extent the securitization of migration influences the dialogues established by the European Union and the Maghreb to manage migration flows from this region of North Africa towards the Old Continent. Several factors may increase or decrease irregular migration flows, which are conditions for understanding the outcome. European Board and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX) and the European Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF) are two examples of politics and represent our cases. Then, we highlight European actions to control unwelcome migration, such as the development programs in Africa and the border security. For this study, we will carry out a case study with a theory-testing process tracing to elucidate how securitization of migration and irregular migrations are the conditions that explain the promotion of the dialogues by the European Union with North African countries. Preliminary findings indicate that migration flows continue to happen at the same level, despite efforts against this phenomenon.

Title: Do migrants steal our jobs? The insertion of migrants in the labour markets of receiving countries
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Abstract: One of the most debated issues relating to migration is whether or not migrants steal the jobs to the local labor force and/or decrease their salary. Contemporary scholarship, based on a series of interviews given to the authors by Professors at Harvard, is unanimous in underlying how regular migration represents a positive sum game for the economies of receiving societies. Looking at the long-run impact of immigration on employment, productivity and its skill bias, leading economists conclude that there is no competition between local and foreign workers. Quite the opposite, in fact, is true, with international migration considered as a formidable mean to increase global productivity and income thus creating huge opportunities. This Chapter will address this debate in depth making reference to interviews with leading scholars and relevant data.

Title: Mind the Gap: Migration Policy Failures at times of globalisation
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Title: The great amplifier: climate change, migration and EU responses
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Title: How to keep immigrants at bay and in limbo: An excursus into EU strategies
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Abstract: Immigration has been a priority in the global political agenda for the last three decades. Migration governance, migration management and migration crisis have been the buzzwords of the migration scholars especially in the last ten years. Socioeconomic problems and systemic economic crisis are accompanied by blaming the migrants as scapegoats to shift the focus away from the wrong political and economic decisions taken by the governments, approved by the states. EU has been no exception to these phenomena. Accordingly, this paper investigates different strategies of the EU aiming to hinder, stop and exclude migrants’ movement in/to Europe. These strategies are patterned within both a globalized and Eurocentric understanding of migration based on exclusion: Restriction of numbers, repatriation, “voluntary” and forced return, externalization of migration, stratification of rights and temporariness. In this article, we will examine these global and European policies on immigration control, shedding light on how the EU adopts elements of globalized immigration prevention strategies based at the same time on a strong Eurocentric vision.

Title: Turkey's Policy Response to New Influx of Migrants
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Abstract: Turkey has been a hot spot for the migrants since the Syria crisis and since 2011 it has been a host for 3.7 million refugees. In migration literature, Turkey has been considered as a transit between Europe (Global North) and other countries of the Global South. Although Turkey’s response to refugees from Syria has been in order over the last decade, Turkey has been witnessed an influx of irregular migrants from Afghanistan following the withdrawal of US forces in 2020-2021. Turkey has received an influx of irregular and male dominated migrants from Afghanistan over 15 years; nonetheless there is a sharp rise in this number in 2019. Scholars highlights that Turkey has been an attractive migration hub for Afghanis and other ethnic due to its pull factors for migrants (e.g., hybrid elements of modernisation and Islam economic opportunities). Over two decades, Turkey has been transmitting its soft power in Afghanistan via non-state and state organisations; Afghanis have been attracted to move to Turkey. Over the last three years, Turkish government de juristically pushes back refugees according to state documents as a response to domestic response of Turkish citizens who do not want ‘refugees’ in their ‘home country’. On the other hand, Turkey has been also employing rent-seeking benefits of irregular migrants as a cheap labour. Therefore, it is crucial to decipher this contradictory position of Turkish state with respect to the new influx of irregular migrants on the axis of cheap labour; soft power transmission and appealing to protection demands of Turkish voters.

Title: Does climate change affect the migration into the EU?
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Abstract: Environmental shock migration is a pressing phenomenon that became prominent with the con-tinuous emergence of natural disasters and climatic shocks worldwide. In order to cope with these various disasters or shocks, people choose to migrate either internally, internationally, perma-nently, or temporarily; the paper named this phenomenon as environmental-shock migration. To interpret this critical phenomenon holistically, this paper will analyze the impact of natural dis-asters and climatic shocks on migration and discuss a relevant phenomenon known as return migration, one of the main resulted types of shock migration. A comprehensive literature review will be provided to tackle the work of previous scholars and identify the gaps required to be studied in the future.

Title: Integration Practices for Migrants; A comparison between Northern and Southern Regions in Italy
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Title: The bipartisanship of contemporary policies on irregular migration: lessons from Italy
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Title: Immigration, identity and otherness: The Northern League and the EU (1992—2022)
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Abstract: The Northern League, the right-wing ethno-regionalist party founded in 1992 by Umberto Bossi, had as its main aim that of promoting and preserving Northern identity and “interests” against “Rome”, which is to say agaist the central State. Under the leadership of Matteo Salvini, the League underwent what this paper frames as “an identitarian turn”- the focus of its public discourse and action shifting towards the issue of immigration – which involved rebranding itself as a nationalist, rather than regionalist, political actor. Immigration being the core of its new political course, the Lega – once a one issue, niche political party - repositioned itself as a mainstream populist party highly critical of “diversity” within a supposedly homogenous country. In this new phase it became increasingly critical of supra-national institutions, particularly the EU, singled out as a threat to popular sovreignity. The debate on immigration represents since then tha main terrain of clash with the EU. This essay aims at tracing back the main turns in the League-EU relationship through the analysis of legislation on citizenship and immigration. It aims at unveiling the normalisation of institutionalised exclusion of foreigners in Italy, the criminalisation of “otherness” and the links between security and immigration. At the same time, it attempts to highlight the populist approach towards the EU, perceived and portrayed as a expression of the corrupted international elite threatening the national right to self-determination.

Title: The Great Amplifier: Climate Change, Migration, and EU Responses
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Highlights: climate-change as an amplifier of other migration drivers climate-change affecting the sustainability of donors' responses if not duly taken into consideration in development programs and in migrants' return and reintegration programs.