Authoritarianism and the Drivers of Migration Governance in the Middle East

• In Event: The Global Governance of Migration: Competing Theories, Comparing Regions

Abstract

Recent scholarly interest in migration governance on regional and international levels has yet to take into account how regime type may affect processes of cross-border mobility management. In an effort to address this analytical gap and to enrich the literature on migration governance in the non-West, this article engages in a most-similar comparison of four North African Arab states’ policy-making (Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco) that draws on Arabic and non-Arabic primary and secondary sources. It establishes the importance of securitization of cross-border mobility across the Middle East, as migration states develop a range of policies towards their citizens’ migration driven by the contradictory pressures of economic and political imperatives. Drawing on Hollifield’s work (2004), the paper argues that migration governance in the Middle East is characterized by an illiberal paradox: if a state does not expect economic gains from cross-border mobility, it is more likely to securitize its emigration policy; otherwise, it is more likely to securitize its diaspora policy. The paper sheds light on Arab states’ extraterritorial authoritarian practices, while sketching out a novel area of research on the security dimension of regional migration governance.

Author

• Gerasimos Tsourapas, University of Birmingham