“Shifting in” state sovereignty: social policy and migration control in Costa Rica

Abstract

This paper challenges the globalist claim that nation states lose sovereignty to normative frameworks of international human rights with regards to their migration policy. In contrast, the analysis of the interplay between migration and social policy in Costa Rica shows that states may find inventive ways to maintain control over its migration policy and remain central in the granting of social rights to immigrants and their actual access to social policy. Indeed, Costa Rica has shifted in its migration control, by giving the country’s emblematic and praised social security and healthcare institution, the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social, a pivotal role in immigrants’ regularization process, thereby creating barriers to healthcare benefits for immigrants. As such, the state remains central in processes of social integration, while citizenship and migratory status continue to be key determinants for immigrants’ access to national welfare benefits.

Keywords:

• social policy
• migration policy
• sovereignty
• integration
• citizenship

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Eduardo Domenech, María Mercedes Eguiguren, Juliana Martínez Franzoni, Shiri Noy, Max Spoor, Philip Williams and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on previous drafts of this paper, as well as Karla Venegas Bermúdez for her valuable research assistance. Furthermore, the author gratefully acknowledges support from the Zeit Foundation’s Settling into Motion Program, the Institute of Social Studies – Erasmus University Rotterdam, and the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales of the University of Costa Rica.

Notes

1. Costa Rica has not signed the C97 ILO Convention concerning Migration for Employment, of 1949, the C 143 ILO Convention concerning Migrations in Abusive Conditions, and the Promotion of Equality of Opportunity and Treatment of Migrant Workers, both of 1975; nor the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, of 1990 (Bolaños, 2009).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Koen Voorend

Koen Voorend, PhD Candidate, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. P.O. Box 29776, 2502 LT, The Hague, The Netherlands. Associate Professor, Institute of Social Research, University of Costa Rica. Ap. Post. 49–2060, Ciudad Universitaria “Rodrigo Facio,” Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica