Philosophies of migration governance in a globalizing world

ABSTRACT

International migration is a key feature of globalization. Yet there is no international migration regime that would support cooperation and governance at the global level. This makes for enduring and worldwide migration crises. This article identifies five distinct patterns of migration governance: (1) national/sovereign migration governance, according to which migration is an issue of state sovereignty; (2) global anti-migrant governance, which posits that cooperation and governance exist in practice, but either to control migration (global forced immobility governance) or to exploit migrant labour (global labour exploitation governance); (3) global rights-based migration governance, grounded in human rights and international norms; (4) managerial/developmental global migration governance, which aims at steering migration flows to optimize their utility; and (5) the free (non)-governance of migration, premised on ethical and utilitarian arguments in favour of free movement. The article discusses the implications of this typology for understanding current and future prospects of migration governance.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• governance
• labour
• development
• international organizations
• human rights

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/labour-migration/fair-migration-agenda/lang--en/index.htm

2 See https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/

3 See https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/mouvement_persons_e/mouvement_persons_e.htm

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Antoine Pécoud

Antoine Pécoud is Professor of Sociology at the University of Sorbonne Paris Nord (France), Research Associate at CERI/Sciences Po and Fellow at the Institut des Migrations.