Competing Interests and Construction of Migration Policies in the Eastern Neighbourhood of the European Union

• In Event: 479 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Migration

Abstract

This paper focuses on the construction of migration policies in the EU neighbourhood. While realist accounts insist that nation-states are rational actors and policies are based on their needs and interest-based calculations, the constructivist arguments, promoted by World Society theory, emphasize the impact of global political culture on shaping policies of social entities.

On the example of migration policy-making in the EU neighbourhood post-Soviet states, this paper applies the World Society theory and (a) exposes the extent to which migration policy-making in the EU neighbourhood region is globally constructed rather than driven by contextual geo-political factors, and (b) explains how the world political culture shapes policy-making issues and penetrates vertically into agendas of nation-states and supranational entities, at times even moulding and legitimating competing interests as “mutually beneficial” for populations that adopt these policies.

I argue that migration policies are highly standardized despite diverging geopolitical interests of these nation-states. Population control migration models are promoted under the global cultural theme of economic progress and are highly individual-centred in content.

Author

• Shushanik Makaryan, Pennsylvania State University