SCALAR POLITICS AND NETWORK RELATIONS IN THE GOVERNANCE OF HIGHLY SKILLED MIGRATION

ABSTRACT

Recently, migration scholars have started to examine the roles of nonstate actors in migration governance. This is also the case in highly skilled migration, as they try to shape local and national migration policies to attract and retain global talent. This article brings together literatures on scalar politics and policy networks to investigate the roles of nonstate actors in highly skilled migration governance in Norway’s petroleum industry. The article makes three arguments. First, national state actors have clearly delineated the spheres of influence in highly skilled migration policymaking. These boundary-setting practices ensure that the state remains in charge of key domains related to international migration and employment. Second, place shapes the (re)scaling and networking practices of public and nonstate actors. Third, new, nonstate actors have emerged that transcend scalar hierarchies through public-private partnerships. The most influential state actors, however, refrain from these alliances to remain neutral in politically charged issues.

Keywords::

• migration governance
• Oslo
• private actors
• public-private partnerships
• Stavanger

The attraction and retention of highly skilled migrants is a key policy issue in high-income states. These migrants are in high demand in today’s global knowledge economy, as they fill labor shortages and contribute to economic development and innovation. High-income states increasingly give preference to highly skilled migrants, defined as migrants who have completed a tertiary education or have the equivalence in experience (Salt 1997), while trying to limit the admission of low-skilled migrants (Triadafilopoulos 2013). At the same time, employer associations, trade unions, and other nonstate actors try to influence highly skilled migration policy making, developing “bottom-up” initiatives to influence political decision-making processes at the local, regional, national, and/or international scale (Piper 2009).

Neoliberal economic restructuring initiatives have created new territorial, scalar, and networked formations (Miller 2009) and more complex governance regimes (Jessop 1997). These restructuring processes have rescaled the political organization of society, including the “scaling up” of decision-making power from the national scale to supranational institutions, evident in international asylum agreements and attempts by the European Commission to harmonize migration policies for the highly skilled across European Union (EU) member states (van Riemsdijk 2012; Cerna 2013). Decision making is also “scaled down” to regional and local actors who may offer language courses, housing, and job-seeking assistance for immigrants. In addition, migration governance is shifted “outwards” in agreements between receiving states and countries of origin to accept deported citizens (Lahav 2000) and the relegation of state responsibility to private actors.

Most studies of migration governance have focused on institutions and organizations at the national, international, or global scale as key sites of regulation and governance. A reification of these “higher” scales may obscure significant spaces and places of influence at subnational scales (Paul 2005) where actors and institutions can rescale social issues. Thus, “we should not lose sight of how actual practices construct the broader structures that are the focus of grand theorizing” (Leitner 2004, 252). The recent “local turn” in migration governance has responded to this call, examining the integration policies and practices of local governments (Caponio and Borkert 2010; Scholten 2013; Zapata-Barrero et al. 2017). This article investigates the socio-spatial strategies that local and national stakeholders use to influence the governance of highly skilled migration.

Here, I use a case study of highly skilled migrants in the petroleum industry, selected for its high proportion of foreign-born engineers. Norway is the eighth largest producer of oil in the world and the third largest producer of natural gas (Ministry of Petroleum and Energy 2020). In 2015, the petroleum industry contributed over 20 percent of Norway’s GDP and almost half of its exports (Statistics Norway 2015), providing the industry with considerable political clout. The industry’s share of national GDP declined to 8 percent in 2018 as a result of a dramatic drop in global oil prices (OECD 2019). The empirical findings in this article are based on interviews with public and nonstate actors in Oslo and Stavanger, conducted between 2011 and 2013.

This article aims to make two key theoretical contributions to literatures on migration governance and theories of scalar politics and network relations. First, the research combines literatures on scale and networks to investigate the intersections and articulations between scalar politics and network practices of state and nonstate actors in the governance of highly skilled migration. Thus, the study takes up the challenge to develop “complex-concrete analyses that are systemically, reflexively attuned to the polymorphy of sociospatial relations” (Jessop et al. 2008, 392). This analysis helps us better understand the actual practices of scaling, rescaling, and network modes of governance in highly skilled migration. Second, the research refines traditional macrostudies of international labor migration through the inclusion of stakeholders at “lower” geographic scales. Subnational actors rarely are in a position of much power (Peterson 2003), but they can initiate collaborations to “scale up” an issue to national governments or international institutions, or “shift out” an issue to create more inclusive modes of governance (Cohen and McCarthy 2014, cited in Norman and others 2014).

I also respond to calls to integrate literatures on scale and networks. Geographers have argued that scale is only one dimension of spatial politics, and they have called for an investigation of the articulations between scale and other spatialities such as networks, territories, and places (Leitner 2004; Jessop et al. 2008). These scholars note that territories, places, scales, and networks are relationally intertwined and mutually constitutive. In order to capture these complexities, Jessop et al. (2008, 394) urge scholars to develop “more complex categories reflecting different types of articulation and disarticulation among these four dimensions [territoriality, place, scale and networks], with the goal of producing thick descriptions and more concrete-complex explanations for given research objects.” This article investigates the articulations and disarticulations of scales and networks, exemplified by highly skilled migration governance.

The article is divided into five parts. The first part discusses scalar debates in human geography, followed by a section on policy networks. The methods are explained in the third part. The fourth section provides a case study of the scalar strategies and network relations of state and nonstate actors in highly skilled migration policy making in Norway. This section analyzes the modes of scaling, rescaling, and network strategies of stakeholders to shape migration governance. The conclusion places these findings in debates about the (changing) role of the state, and the possible emergence of new actors and institutions in migration governance.

SCALAR POLITICS

Hierarchical theories of scale conceptualized scale as different levels of analysis that are embedded within, and often nested inside, larger scales (Sheppard and McMaster 2004). This perspective regarded scale as an “unproblematic, pre-given and fixed hierarchy of bounded spaces in which processes occur” (Leitner 1997, 124). Constructivist scholars have rejected these hierarchical notions of scale, emphasizing that geographical scales are fluid and mutable. They understand scale as a multiplicity of differently structured, tangled hierarchies that operate at multiple, overlapping scales (Brenner 2001).

Scholars of globalization often reify the global as the scale that dominates events and institutions at lower scales (Herod and Wright 2002b). Such studies envision the global scale as the largest scale, and each subsequent scale becomes smaller in size with less decision-making power. Such a hierarchical conceptualization of scale does not pay attention to the multiple ways in which issues are created, regulated, and contested between, across, and among scales (Bulkeley 2005). In fact, scalar hierarchies can be “top-down,” “bottom-up,” or both, and higher scales do not necessarily dominate lower scales (Collinge 1999). In addition, “scalar jumps” are “not always unidirectional, as groups move back and forth through a constant negotiation of the scales of vision, action, and solidarity” (Herod and Wright 2002a, 219).

Sallie Marston, John Paul Jones and Keith Woodward have advocated for geography without scale, preferring nonhierarchical social networks over scalar representations. They assert that “research projects often assume the hierarchy in advance, and are set up a priori to obey its conventions” (Marston et al. 2005, 422). This critique of scalar hierarchies is echoed by Dicken et al. (2001, 90): “Too often, a particular scale (for example, the local) or a bifurcated (for example, global-local) geographical scale of analysis is used in ways that preclude alternatives and that obscure the subtle variations within, and interconnections between, different scales.” In response to these critiques, this article investigates the actual processes of scaling and rescaling in highly skilled migration governance without assuming a hierarchy in advance.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, a shift from government to governance occurred under the influence of neoliberal market ideologies. Privatization initiatives and the liberalization and deregulation of markets were accompanied by a change in governing, involving nonstate actors in the decision-making process. These actors built networks and partnerships that can blur the boundaries and responsibilities between public, private, and voluntary actors (Rhodes 1996). Thus, governance changes the relationships between the state, the market, and civil society (Geddes 2005). The reduced regulatory powers of the government can provide more autonomy and self-governance for nonstate actors (Rhodes 1996). These autonomous “self-organizing, interorganizational networks” (Rhodes 1996) can in certain instances be more effective than government-imposed regulations (Stoker 1998).

The private and voluntary sectors have become more involved in the delivery of services and decision making, taking on responsibilities that were traditionally carried out by public institutions. For example, trade unions, religious groups, voluntary organizations, and professional organizations for lawyers, doctors, and journalists provide services to migrants, using volunteers and/or professional staff. These actors may cooperate with public authorities or circumvent national regulations by providing services to undocumented migrants (Ambrosini 2020). Another example of private sector involvement in migration governance concerns registered migration agents. These professionals provide legal assistance to clients who apply for visa renewals and citizenship. They engage in a dynamic network mode of governance, negotiating their role in relation to state institutions, the legal framework for migration, and their clients (Khan 2019).

Under neoliberal governance, the influence of the state on decision making and the delivery of public services has changed. Some scholars argue that the responsibilities of the state have mainly been reconstituted under globalization (Peck and Tickell 1994, 2002). Others have noted that localities gain more influence as the governance of the economy is “scaled up” to the global scale and the regulation of work and social reproduction is “scaled down” to local institutions (Swyngedouw 1997). The rescaling of the state creates new “geographies of governance” (Macleod and Goodwin 1999) that have widened the scope of actors and institutions that are involved in policy making. In addition, these changes in power regimes can open up new spaces of political power for state and nonstate actors.

Kunz et al. (2011) have observed an increasing involvement of the private sector in the governance of international migration flows. They note that the “partnerships between state and nonstate actors is not as much a sign of abandoning sovereignty but more about reasserting or redefining it by creatively extending authority to issue areas traditionally controlled by industry associations, employer unions or manpower agencies” (Kunz et al. 2011, 17). Thus, they argue that these partnerships merely extend decision-making power to nonstate actors rather than removing power from the state.

Civil society actors also influence the governance of migration. These organizations take on responsibilities traditionally carried out by the central state, such as the provision of language courses, housing, healthcare, and employment assistance to asylum seekers and refugees. In a study of service delivery to refugees in Berlin, Burcu Togral Koca (2019) finds that civil society actors oppose as well as reinforce the state’s restrictive stance on refugee assistance. They oppose the state’s restrictive migration policies by creating inclusive spaces of belonging in the city. At the same time, they reproduce the state’s categorization of “deserving” migrants by providing services to persons “worthy of protection” and withholding assistance from those who are not (Togral Koca 2019, 546). In addition, agencies that receive state funding are likely to refrain from criticism of the state’s migration and integration policies.

Some scholars have expressed concerns about a lack of openness and transparency when nonstate actors take over responsibilities from the state. First, the fragmentation of services and reduced central authority make it more difficult to assess accountability (Rhodes 1996; Swyngedouw 2000). Second, self-organizing networks can become autonomous and resist central guidance over time, opening the possibility for “governing without Government” (Rhodes 1996, 667). Third, stakeholders usually work with policy makers outside public view (Freeman 1995), which gives resourceful, powerful actors an advantage over the general public that is less organized and less likely to mobilize around a common goal.

The studies discussed above have identified an increasing role of nonstate actors in the governance and regulation of international migration. This scalar perspective on migration governance, however, provides only a partial understanding of governance relations. Stakeholders also establish network relations that can transcend the scaling of these issues, which will be discussed in the next section.

POLICY NETWORKS

Policy networks may be more efficient governance solutions than hierarchical decision-making models. The benefits of network modes of governance are touted as “more efficient, more flexible, more effective means to assemble resources and actors to complete complex tasks than markets or hierarchies” (Leitner 2004, 234). Policy networks consist of “clusters of actors, each of which has an interest, or ‘stake’ in a given policy sector, and the capacity to help determine policy success or failure” (Peterson and Bomberg 1999, 8). These studies focus on policy outcomes at the national and supranational scale, paying little attention to subnational scales (Leitner et al. 2002).

Dowding (1995) and Rhodes and Marsh (1992) have called for policy-network studies of the meso-level, where interactions between interest groups and government take place. Dowding (1995) has found that “the sub-governmental level was most important for understanding the detail of policy formation and the success of policy implementation.” Rhodes and Marsh (1992) argue that researchers should specify the articulations between scales: “The meso-level concept of policy networks needs to be located in a number of macro-level theories of the state and the articulation between levels of analysis needs to be specified. In other words, policy networks are only a component part of any explanation of the process and outcomes of policy making” (Rhodes and Marsh 1992, 203). However, Rhodes and Marsh do not provide examples of how these articulations work empirically.

Freeman (1995) identified an “organized public,” which consists of interest groups and NGOs, as a potentially powerful governance force. These groups can pool their resources to rally around a common issue and appeal to politicians. Freeman argues that politicians are more likely to respond to the demands of an organized public to maximize their votes than to the general “unorganized” public. While Joppke (1999) has argued that Freeman’s conceptualization of the “organized public” is specific to the United States, the importance of a clearly defined goal and well-organized pressure groups also applies to the European context.

Statham and Geddes (2006) studied newspaper coverage of asylum policies in Britain to investigate whether collective action of an “organized public” can influence migration policies. They conclude that a relatively autonomous elite (in this case the state) rather than an organized public makes decisions in asylum policy. They also find that the state takes a restrictionist stance on asylum policy. This finding opposes Freeman’s (1995) claim that policy makers take a more liberal approach to immigration than the general public. In the governance of highly skilled migration, which is less politically charged than asylum policy, the “organized public” is more likely to have an influence. But this article will show that the state retains its decision-making power in this issue area.

Somerville and Goodman (2010) studied changes in migration policies in the United Kingdom between 1997 and 2007. They found that policy networks influenced economic migration policy, while asylum and integration policies were strongly led by the state. They note that policy networks are influential when they have proximity to policy makers, resources, and a coherent ideology in regards to policy outcomes. In the case of economic migration policy, stakeholders pooled their resources and rallied around a common policy goal, namely the liberalization of economic migration. The authors conclude that nonstate actors at the local and national level influenced economic migration policy making, countering the elite-driven perspective. In other arenas of migration, policy making still predominantly takes place at the national scale where the government retains its decision-making power.

METHODS

The empirical findings are based on fieldwork research conducted in Oslo and Stavanger in 2011, 2012, and 2013. The two cities house petroleum-related companies that depend on highly skilled migrants to fill labor shortages. Oslo, Norway’s capital on the east coast with a population of 690,000, is the center of national-level political decision making. Stavanger is Norway’s “energy capital,” located on the southwest coast where the oil and gas industry developed in the early 1970s. The city developed into an international center for oil production and innovation. Stavanger is Norway’s third-largest metropolitan area after Oslo and Bergen, with 143,000 inhabitants (Statistics Norway 2020).

Norway is an attractive destination for immigrants. It has consistently topped the rankings of the United Nations Human Development Index and offers a comprehensive welfare system for its citizens and permanent residents (Esping-Andersen 1996). Norway remains committed to the universal provision of welfare services despite increased financial pressures on the welfare state (Geddes 2005). However, Norway’s labor market is currently less attractive for petroleum engineers due to declining activity and weaker demand from the petroleum industry (Norwegian Petroleum 2020).

The author conducted 38 in-depth, semistructured interviews with representatives of employer organizations, trade unions, Chambers of Commerce, business development offices, and a tourism board, public servants in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration, organizers of and presenters in conferences on highly skilled migration, and representatives for immigrant organizations and international schools (see Table 1). Informants were selected using the following four criteria. First, governance actors were identified in peer-reviewed journal articles on highly skilled migration and migration governance. Second, Internet searches were conducted using keywords (in Norwegian and English), including “highly skilled migration/global talent/human capital/recruitment,” “Norway/Norwegian,” “barrier/hurdle,” “oil and gas/petroleum industry,” and “recruit*/attract*/retain engineers.” Informants were identified in newspaper articles, reports, and websites that emerged in these searches. Third, informants were identified at four conferences held between 2011 and 2013 that discussed how Norway could attract and retain highly skilled migrants. The author engaged in informal conversations about highly skilled migration governance and recruited study participants. Fourth, during interviews, the author asked informants to recommend actors who were involved in the governance of highly skilled migration.

Table 1 Study Informants

Actors	Predominant scale of influence	Governance tools
4 public servants in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs	National	Policy making
2 public servants in the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration	National	Policy making
7 representatives for 2 trade unions	National	Lobbying
3 representatives for Abelia, the Business Association of Norwegian Knowledge- and Technology-Based Enterprises	National	Lobbying
2 representatives for the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association	National	Lobbying
2 representatives for the Chamber of Commerce in Oslo	Local	Facilitate networking; lobbying
1 representative for the Chamber of Commerce in Stavanger	Local	Facilitate networking; lobbying
1 representative for the tourism organization Greater Stavanger	Local	Networking
2 representatives for international schools; 1 in Stavanger and 1 in Oslo	Local	Networking
2 leaders in Oslo Technopole (now Oslo Business Region)	Local	Lobbying; promote Oslo as a knowledge city
3 employees for Knowledge Oslo	Local	Lobbying; promote Oslo as a knowledge city
President of the Oslo International Club	Local	Lobbying; promote highly skilled migration
1 representative for Norway International Network	Local	Networking
2 organizers of conferences on highly skilled migration	Local	Lobbying; promote highly skilled migration
5 presenters in conferences on highly skilled migration	Local	Promote highly skilled migration

The interview questions addressed collaborations, partnerships, and other networking strategies among stakeholders in highly skilled migration and examined the (re)scaling of highly skilled migration issues in Norway. The data collected from interviews and conferences was coded for actors in highly skilled migration, and their use of scalar politics and networking strategies to influence its governance at the local and national scale (Cope 2010).

The following sections analyze the ways in which public, private, and voluntary actors engage in the governance of highly skilled migration. In particular, they examine these actors’ scalar politics and network relations at the local and/or national scale and the salience of place in these practices.

CONFERENCES TO PROMOTE Highly SKILLED MIGRATION

The attraction of highly skilled migrants to Norway was an often-discussed theme during the time of this research. In fact, six conferences were held between 2011 and 2013 to discuss how Norway could make itself more attractive to global talent. All six conferences were held in Oslo, the seat of the national government and various organizations that promote the interests of highly skilled migrants. While the issues discussed at these conferences are also relevant to other regions in Norway, the location of Oslo can be explained by proximity to national-scale interest organizations and decision makers. The conferences enabled organizers to establish horizontal and vertical networks, “scaling up” their political agendas to national decision makers and “shifting out” their networks to local stakeholders with similar goals (Cohen and McCarthy 2014). The conferences also provided political-opportunity structures through the mobilization of local and national actors (Piper 2009).

One informant explained the challenge of attracting highly skilled migrants to Oslo as “(p)eople love Paris. You don’t get that here. You do not just love Oslo” (interview with Norway International Network, an organization for highly skilled, foreign-born workers). And another informant remarked that “Norway is not a magnet for foreign labor. It’s still cold” (interview with the employer organization Abelia). The conferences addressed how the country’s and city’s attractiveness could be enhanced, and discussed the institutional barriers that highly skilled migrants experience in Norway.

Conference organizers used their existing networks and established new partnerships with local and national actors to enhance their political influence. For example, the Oslo Chamber of Commerce partnered with the employer organization Abelia and the Norwegian Research Council (NFR) to commission a report on highly skilled migration. Thereafter, they organized a conference in June 2013 to present the findings (Oslo Chamber of Commerce 2013). This public-private partnership enhanced the legitimacy of the project. The partnership also provided the NFR an opportunity to extend its influence in the recruitment of highly skilled migrants, an issue area traditionally controlled by private actors (Kunz et al. 2011). The involvement of the NFR opened up a communication channel between nonstate actors and a government agency concerned with human capital-related issues.

The conferences also provided organizers an opportunity to develop a common agenda for highly skilled migration. A representative for Norway International Network explained how this played out in the organization of the Oslo Global Mobility Forum. “[We developed a] unified mandate what we expected from Norway. How they [policy makers] can contribute to make Norway a better country, a more attractive country … . They [highly skilled migrants] have great potential but they are not spoken for. No one communicated their voices to politicians” (interview with Norway International Network). The conference enabled the immigrant organization and other stakeholders to “scale up” the concerns of highly skilled migrants to the attention of national policy makers. The organizers were able to do so as they had proximity to policy makers, pooled their financial and organizational resources, and created coherent goals (Somerville and Goodman 2010).

INCENTIVES TO ATTRACT HIGHLY SKILLED MIGRANTS

One of the key obstacles to attracting highly skilled migrants to Norway is the country’s high taxes (Iacono 2019). To address this issue, several stakeholders lobbied for tax breaks for highly skilled migrants. In a response to a letter submitted by the employer organization Abelia in 2011, Hanne Bjurstrøm, then-Minister of Labor and Social Inclusion, stated that the same tax rules should apply to foreign-born and Norwegian workers (Bjurstrøm 2011). A similar answer was provided by Norvald Mo, an employee in the same ministry, at a highly skilled migration conference in Oslo. He responded that “(w)e cannot give tax relief for a particular group. Should PhD students who came to Norway to take a degree have a better pension than others who come here?” (Oslo Chamber of Commerce 2013). It is evident in these responses that tax breaks for highly skilled migrants were nonnegotiable. The ministry did not want to give preferential treatment to “elite” immigrants, which could be attributed to the Nordic welfare state’s ideals of equal access and opportunity for all (Esping-Andersen 1996).

In a presentation at the Global Mobility Forum conference in Oslo in 2012, State Secretary of Labor Gina Lund mentioned that “(w)e will not run into unhealthy competition for taxes. We want people [in Norway] to live on equal terms.” She added that it was not the government’s responsibility to recruit highly skilled migrants to Norway (Lund 2012). In these remarks, the state secretary clearly established the values, norms, and motives for action (Freeman and Kessler 2008), and delineated the legislative and regulatory realms of the state and its power to enforce these rules (Stoker 1998). Lund and other representatives for the ministry were not willing to negotiate on incentives to attract highly skilled migrants, thus enforcing the limits to scale (Jessop 2009).

PROCESSING TIMES FOR RESIDENCE PERMIT APPLICATIONS

During the time of this research, the hiring of employees from outside the EU was often delayed due to long processing times for residence permit applications. The employer organizations Abelia and its parent association, Confederation of Norwegian Enterprises (NHO), “scaled up” concerns from their members to the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI), using their policy networks and lobbying expertise to gain access to national decision makers (Rhodes and Marsh 1992; Koopmans et al. 2008).

A representative for Abelia met annually with the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) to discusses bottlenecks in immigration regulations and to make recommendations for improvements (interview with Abelia). Similarly, the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association, the employer organization for oil and supplier companies, worked with NHO to request shorter processing times for residence permits (interview with the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association). Their demands were especially powerful when the organizations presented the hiring problems of international companies, emphasizing their importance for the national economy (interview with the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association). The scalar politics (to “scale up” the processing time issue to national decision makers) and network relations (among the employer organizations and with UDI) empowered the organizations to instigate change.

In response to the complaints about the long processing times, UDI established a user group to elicit feedback on its services. Invited company representatives met several times a year to discuss migration-related issues (interview with UDI). This initiative provided employers direct access to national decision makers. However, this model was exclusionary in two ways. First, only representatives for large, well-known companies were invited, providing access for “elite” members (Statham and Geddes 2006). Second, group members were privileged by their location in Oslo, as companies located in other municipalities were not invited. The exclusivity of the user group is a reflection of structural inequalities in access to and influence in government policy making (Rhodes and Marsh 1992), and illustrates the benefits of proximity to decision makers (Somerville and Goodman 2010).

CITIES’ ROLES IN ATTRACTING Highly Skilled Migrants

Cities have started to play an active role in the recruitment of highly skilled migrants to enhance the city’s economy and international reputation (Moretti 2012; Musterd and Gritsai 2013; Plöger and Becker 2015). Glick Schiller and Çaglar (2011) and Glick Schiller (2012) have conceptualized this interaction as a mutually constitutive relationship: cities shape the lives of highly skilled migrants, and these workers can enhance the national, international, and global positionings of cities through their social and professional networks. In these cases, the cities use scalar politics and network practices to elevate the reputation of their city nationally and internationally.

During the time of this research, the city of Oslo was developing a branding strategy in collaboration with the nonprofit regional development agency Oslo Business Region. The initiative aimed to improve Oslo’s reputation as a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship (Oslo Business Region 2015). The city of Oslo also established a Knowledge Oslo (Kunnskap Oslo) network with institutes of higher education and independent research institutes. The network members discussed, among other things, how the institutions and the city could attract more highly skilled migrants. These branding efforts, however, may not be sufficient as some highly skilled migrants select their destination based on professional opportunities rather than place attractiveness (van Musterd and Gritsai 2013; van Riemsdijk and Wang 2017).

In Stavanger, the Greater Stavanger Tourism Board collaborated with local and regional actors to rebrand the city as the “energy capital” of Norway. This rebranding initiative reflected Norway’s transition to renewable energy and an effort to distance Stavanger from its reputation as the “oil capital” (interview with Stavanger Chamber of Commerce). The city and the region also profiled themselves as attractive to highly skilled migrants, as reflected in a relocation guide that described the Stavanger and Haugesund region as “an attractive hub for competent, international employees” (Stavanger Chamber of Commerce 2014, 3; for an analysis of city branding in Stavanger, see van Riemsdijk 2017).

In response to pressure from the Stavanger Chamber of Commerce, acting on behalf of local petroleum companies, the city government made an exception for children of highly skilled migrants. National regulations for kindergarten matriculation stipulated an application deadline and required children to start school in August. Children of highly skilled migrants who arrived later had to wait until the following August to start kindergarten. The city government agreed to reserve several seats for immigrant children during the school year to accommodate newcomers (interview with Stavanger Chamber of Commerce). In this case, the Stavanger Chamber of Commerce and the petroleum companies created a successful policy network as they had proximity to local decision makers, pooled their resources, and presented a coherent ideology (Somerville and Goodman 2010).

Both cities were also facing a shortage of seats in international schools. At the time of this fieldwork research, Stavanger had two private schools and Oslo one, offering classes in English at the primary, secondary, and high school levels. Various nonstate actors tried to increase the number of seats in the schools. In response to this demand, the city of Oslo opened a public international school in 2016. In an interview, Education Counselor Tone Tellevik Dahl emphasized the opportunity for Norwegian-born children to enroll. “[The school] is open for all students in Oslo and there is no requirement that one should be able to speak English before one starts in the first grade” (NRK 2016). Dahl’s remarks acknowledged the importance of equal access and opportunity for all, as did the Ministry of Labor and Social Inclusion when it rejected tax breaks for foreign-born workers.

NETWORK GOVERNANCE AT THE LOCAL SCALE

As discussed above, various public and nonstate actors are trying to shape the governance of highly skilled migration at the local and national scale. An actor that stands out in its scalar and networking strategies are the chambers of commerce in Oslo and Stavanger, as these organizations have become key nodes in the local and national governance of highly skilled migration. It can be argued that the chambers’ socio-spatial strategies at the local scale reflect a new mode of network governance that involves both public and nonstate actors (Bulkeley 2005). These local networks are more flexible than national networks and may be more efficient because they are easier to coordinate and to adapt to local conditions (Collinge 1999; Leitner et al. 2002).

The Oslo Chamber of Commerce (OCC) initiated several public-private partnerships to promote highly skilled migration to Norway. The OCC cofunded the publication of a guide for new arrivals in Oslo and commissioned a report that investigated how Norway could become more attractive for highly skilled migrants (Oslo Chamber of Commerce 2013). The report and a launching conference were cofunded by six regional chambers of commerce, Abelia, and the Research Council of Norway (NFR). In these endeavors, the OCC acted as a network node, connecting public and private actors, pooling resources, and driving the agenda for highly skilled migration at the local and national scale.

The governance of highly skilled migration in Stavanger was more locally oriented compared to Oslo. The Stavanger Chamber of Commerce (SCC) worked with local private and public actors to improve the conditions for highly skilled migrants. In these cases, the SCC also acted as a network node by creating a local public-private partnership to improve the reception and retention of highly skilled migrants in the city. The SCC had meetings with six human resource managers for large oil companies to discuss challenges that highly skilled migrants faced in the city. The key obstacles identified were housing shortages, high taxes, establishing social networks, and spouses’ difficulties with finding employment (interview with SCC).

To address these challenges, the SCC created a network with the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprises Rogaland (NHO), the trade union LO Rogaland, the Norwegian labor and welfare administration NAV EURES, greater Stavanger, Rogaland county, and the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association. They met several times a year to improve the recruitment and retention of highly skilled migrants (interview with SCC). The chamber created an information guide for foreign-born workers, and the chamber’s relocation agency INN worked with NAV EURES to offer job-training courses for spouses (interview with SCC). The chamber also distributed a newsletter with local events and organized English-speaking events to help foreign-born workers establish social networks. As the chamber’s representative explained, “We are the spiders who spin the [social] webs” (interview with SCC). In this case, the SCC is the node that joins various actors in its networking “web.”

The local network mode of governance in Stavanger is more efficient and more flexible than national command and control systems of regulation (Peck and Tickell 2002). Since the network members have clearly defined goals and political clout, they can exert considerable political pressure on local policy makers (Somerville and Goodman 2010). The effect of their advocacy efforts depends, however, on the political volatility of the issue that is being discussed.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

This article has examined the ways in which state and nonstate actors shape the governance of highly skilled migration at the local and national scale. The findings show that highly skilled migration remains led by the state. Norwegian state institutions establish and enforce regulations for highly skilled migrants, thus maintaining state sovereignty and enforcing the limits to scale in migration-related matters (Jessop 2009).

Here, it has shown that nonstate actors play key roles in the governance of highly skilled migration at the local and national scale. They are involved in the recruitment of highly skilled migrants, the promotion of Norwegian cities as knowledge hubs, and they demand attention for residence permit processing times, tax breaks, and enrollment in kindergarten and international schools. While promoting the needs of “elite” migrants, their efforts are mediated by the importance of equal access and opportunity in Norwegian society (Esping-Andersen 1996).

The article identified new modes of network governance that include public and private actors at the local and national scale (Bulkeley 2005). This is illustrated by, for example, the public-private partnership between the OCC, Abelia, and NFR. The inclusion of NFR in the OCC’s network lent legitimacy and prestige to the report and conference on the recruitment of highly skilled migrants to Norway, and garnered attention at the national scale. The influence of this network, however, was rather small. The NFR was only one of several government agencies with a stake in highly skilled migration, including the Ministry of Labor and Social Inclusion and the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI). These network modes of governance may be more effective and efficient than the traditional hierarchical decision-making models of state institutions (Leitner 2004).

“Bottom-up” access to decision makers and inclusion in national policy networks does not necessarily confer decision-making power. UDI invited Abelia, NHO, and company representatives to share their experiences with highly skilled migration policies, but did not necessarily act upon their recommendations. Overall, the agency retained final decision-making power in policies that affected highly skilled migrants and employers, thus reinforcing the limits to scale (Jessop 2009).

Proximity to national decision makers shapes the scalar politics and networking strategies of stakeholders in highly skilled migration. Oslo has hosted several conferences that discussed how Norway could become more attractive for highly skilled migrants, and stakeholders located in the capital city were most likely to organize and attend these meetings. Representatives for large companies were invited to speak alongside politicians and government officials. These arenas provided personal access to decision makers and the possibility to help shape highly skilled migration regulations, depending on the political volatility of the issue.

Stakeholders in Stavanger relied more on local decision makers to attract and retain highly skilled migrants. The Stavanger Chamber of Commerce created autonomous “self-organizing, interorganizational networks” (Rhodes 1996) in which public and nonstate actors collaborated to find local solutions to highly skilled migration-related issues. The network members exerted considerable political influence due to the financial importance of the petroleum industry in the city.

The scalar politics and networking strategies of stakeholders are shaped by the sociopolitical context in Norway, including its small population size (5.3 million) and its strong tradition of cooperation between the government, employers, and trade unions in labor-related issues. This tripartite system provides employer organizations and trade unions the opportunity to shape labor-related decisions. Access to government officials is likely to be more restricted in more hierarchically organized and more populous states (Klijn 1996).

Norway’s slowing economic growth and related rise in unemployment may affect public opinion on highly skilled migration to Norway. A decline in global oil prices since 2014 has negatively affected Norway’s economy, which is closely tied to the petroleum industry (Norwegian Petroleum 2020). While highly skilled migration is currently believed to contribute positively to national competitiveness and innovation, future inflows of highly skilled migrants may be construed as competing with local labor forces. In addition, the refugee “crisis” has evoked nativist responses that may affect the acceptance of highly skilled migrants. It may become more difficult for nonstate actors to influence decision making at the local and national scale when opposition to international migration increases.

Scalar strategies and network relations are likely to change over time (Klijn 1996) as the needs and priorities of stakeholders shift in response to systemic changes. At the start of this project, employers demanded faster processing times for residence permit applications and easier access to UDI representatives. Once these demands were met, the employers’ interests shifted to the promotion of Norway as an attractive country for highly skilled migrants and addressing the practical needs of these migrants. These shifting agendas and outcomes may contribute to the rescaling of migration issues and changing network compositions, depending on the agendas, resources, policy networks of the stakeholders involved, and the willingness of state actors to accommodate the needs of highly skilled migrants.

I would like to make four recommendations for future research. First, I recommend longitudinal studies of the allegiances and power struggles among stakeholders. These studies would capture the changing roles of actors and institutions in the governance of highly skilled migration. Second, it would be beneficial to study highly skilled migration governance in other states to identify context-specific governance forms. Third, I recommend studies of other sectors that are involved in highly skilled migration policy making. The petroleum industry is characterized by a close cooperation between business and the state. The division between state and industry may be more pronounced in other sectors, contributing to different scalar and networking strategies to influence decision makers in highly skilled migration. Fourth, a study of stakeholders at the supranational scale would broaden and deepen our understanding of highly skilled migration governance. Combined with a network perspective on migration governance, these studies would enhance our understanding of scalar politics and network relations in international-migration governance.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank David Kaplan and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. The article was written during a research stay at the Centre for Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford. I thank my colleagues at COMPAS, and Martin Ruhs in particular, for their feedback on an earlier version of the manuscript. Matt Cook, Ben Todd, Jaylyn Johnson, and Alana Burnham provided research assistance.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation [1155339]; Royal Norwegian Embassy in Washington, DC [Travel grant]; Norwegian Center for International Cooperation in Education (SIU) [Travel grant]; University of Tennessee, Office of Research.