Global Economic Governance Programme

The Global Migration Governance project was established in 2008 in order to foster scholarship and debate on the international politics and global governance of migration.

The project has three core objectives:

• to address the gap in International Relations scholarship on international migration by examining the international politics and governance of migration.
• to explain the incoherent and fragmented nature of global migration governance in comparison to other trans-boundary issues such as trade and the environment.
• to assess the prospects for developing a coherent multilateral architecture regulating states’ responses to international migration, and develop a vision for a politically-feasible and human rights-based global migration governance.

The project is based with the Department of Politics and International Relations and the Global Economic Governance Programme. It also has collaborative links to the Centre for International Studies (CIS) and the Centre on Migration, Politics and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford. It acts as a central focus for wider work within Oxford’s various migration research centres for work on the international politics of migration. The project is generously funded by the MacArthur Foundation.

Research Questions

Through primary fieldwork in Southern Africa, West Africa, the Maghreb, Central America, South-East Asia, Europe, and Australasia, the project will attempt to address four research questions, each of which attempt to explain a particular type of variation in global migration governance and all of which relate to emerging debates in International Relations.

1) Explain variation in regional cooperation on migration
Most institutionalised cooperation in migration is regional or inter-regional. In some parts of the world it is more developed than in others. By examining different types of regional cooperation in the developing world, the project will examine what explains differences in the nature and scope of institutionalised cooperation in different regions. It will explore hypotheses about the role of regional hegemony, issue-linkage, interdependence, and external influences, for example, by examining regional cooperation in Southern Africa, West Africa, Central America, and South-East Asia. Answering this question has important policy implications because it will highlight the conditions under which regional and inter-regional cooperation on migration can be developed.

2) Explain variation in how different states choose to create or work through different international institutions in order to address migration
Global migration governance comprises a diverse tapestry of formal and informal institutions at the regional, inter-regional and global level. This begs the question of how states choose to create or work through different institutions when faced with multiple and competing options. This question is particularly important in a North-South context in which some states may have more options for institutionalised cooperation than others. In the context of the wider IR literature on institutional choice, forum-shopping, and regime complexity, this question will explore variation in different states’ institutional strategies. It will explore hypotheses about the role of ministerial politics, domestic politics, inter-state power, and issue salience in determining which institutions states work through and when. Answering this question has important policy implications because it will highlight the conditions under which states will choose to work through formally institutionalised cooperation and when they are likely to prefer to work unilaterally, bilaterally or informally through ‘dialogues’.

3) Explain the emergence of substantive issue-linkage between migration and other issue-areas (development, the environment and trade) and the impact of these linkages on migration politics
Migration is not an isolated issue-area. It is cross-cutting and inter-connected with a range of other policy fields. The relationships with other issue-areas – such as development, trade and the environment – are not just material but also ideational. They acquire policy significance at different times, and shape the politics of migration. This question seeks to examine how ideas about inter-connections emerge. By drawing upon the wider literature on issue-linkage, it will explore hypotheses about the role of epistemic communities, institutional design, and material relationships in shaping the emergence of, for example, the ‘migration-development nexus’ and its impact on global migration governance.

4) Explain variation in different states’ ability to influence global migration governance
A neglected question is: what does ‘power’ mean in the context of the international politics of migration? What determines a state’s ability to influence global migration governance? Through exploring the perspective of developing countries in global migration governance, this question will examine a range of hypotheses about what determines state influence on global migration governance including GDP/capita, whether a state is primarily a receiving/sending country, and leverage in other issue-areas. Answering this question has important policy implications for developing countries because it may highlight ways in which relatively less powerful migrant sending countries can nevertheless influence global migration governance.

Activities and Outputs

The project began on 1 January 2008. The section below provides a thematic overview of the main activities and outputs of the project during its first year.

Primary Research: July-September 2008
Interviews were conducted in Geneva, New York, and Washington DC as part of the process of mapping global migration governance. The interviews were mainly with the different international organizations working in the area of migration.

• In Geneva, interviews were held with senior staff at IOM, WTO, UNHCR, ILO, OHCHR, NGOs, and states’ permanent missions to UN and WTO. A roundtable discussion was also held with senior staff members at IOM Headquarters.
• In New York, interviews were held with senior staff at UNDESA, UNDP, UNFPA, UNITAR, the IOM liaison office, the UNHCR liaison office, and the staff of the UNSG’s Special Representative on Migration and Development.
• In Washington DC, interviews were held with senior staff at the World Bank, the US State Department, and the Migration Policy Institute. A roundtable discussion was organized with senior staff working on migration at the World Bank.

Two-Day Workshop in Oxford: 3-4 October 2008
A project workshop was held at the GEG as part of the process of mapping out global migration governance. The workshop invited experts in different areas of international migration to each consider the same three questions in relation to different areas of migration: low-skilled migration; high-skilled migration; irregular migration; environmental migration; lifestyle migration; travel; internal displacement; refugee protection; human trafficking and smuggling; diaspora; remittances; and root causes. Contributors included Professor Susan Martin (Georgetown), Professor Rey Koslowski (SUNY), Professor Phil Martin (UC Davis), Christiane Kuptsch (ILO); Dr Caroline Oliver (Cambridge); Professor Stephen Castles (Oxford), Dr Franck Duvell (Oxford), and Dr Nick Van Hear (Oxford). The workshop brought together all of Oxford’s migration centres as well as the other MacArthur-funded academics working on IR and Migration, Susan Martin and Rey Koslowski. It involved the participation of policy-makers from governments and international organizations including the US State Department, ILO and UNHCR. The workshop will culminate in the publication of an edited volume entitled Global Migration Governance (to be submitted to Cambridge University Press).

• Global Migration Governance Project Workshop: Agenda

‘Refugees in IR’ Seminar Series: October-December 2008
A central aim of the project is to encourage scholarship within mainstream International Relations on migration. Forced migration represents a meaningful starting point for this broader aim. It is particularly useful to begin by analysing the refugee regime in order to analyse global migration governance because it is the most longstanding and institutionalised part of global migration governance. It therefore provides a wealth of empirical material that is not available in other areas of migration.

The ‘Refugees in IR’ seminar (jointly convened with Professor Gil Loescher) was co-sponsored by the RSC, COMPAS, the IMI, and CIS within Oxford. It provided another opportunity for collaboration across the migration centres in Oxford, and the chance to enhance the public visibility of the project. The series invited some of the top IR scholars in the world to consider the relevance of their wider work to issues of forced migration. Contributors included Professor Jack Snyder (Columbia), Professor Michael Barnett (Minnesota); Professor Andrew Hurrell (Oxford), Professor Andreas Hasenclever (Tuebingen), Professor Sir Adam Roberts (Oxford), Professor Amitav Acharya (Bristol), and Dr James Milner (Carleton). An edited volume based on the seminar series, entitled Refugees in International Relations, is expected to be published by Oxford University Press in 2010.

Seminar schedules:

• Hilary Term 2009
• Michaelmas Term 2008

More information can be found on the Migration Events page.