Recent media attention devoted to the so-called ‘migrant’ or ‘refugee crisis’ — in other words the revelation of difficulties in the functioning of European asylum systems —once again exposed Eurocentric perceptions of migrations and human mobility. Although some academic analyses of the recent ‘crisis’ (as well as previous ones) have unpacked and countered such perceptions (see, e.g., Pallister-Wilkins 2015; Zaragoza Cristiani 2016; Bilgin 2016), this form of Eurocentrism continues to be reflected in a large part of the research on European migration policy. This chapter builds on the existing critique of International Relations (IR) and security studies as being Western- or Eurocentric, contributing to a decentring research agenda on European Union (EU) migration policy and on the EU’s external policy more generally by looking at EU-Morocco negotiations on migration. The purpose is to identify specific ways through which this agenda can be implemented. This chapter also tries to further this agenda by examining how the ideas and suggestions this agenda proposes can converge with research on migration policies and border control, which are precisely concerned with the varying definitions of borders and unequal,
asymmetric mobilities. First, I will examine how the decentring agenda intersects with the study of EU migration policies, including its implications for developing research strategies. Second, I will show how these strategies can be helpful in examining EU negotiations with a neighbouring country, in this case Morocco, and how the study of migration policies offers a particularly useful case for decentring the study of the EU’s external policy.
Decentring the EU’s External Migration Policy: EU Studies Meets Postcolonial Approaches
Since the 1990s, EU studies has been subjected to numerous criticisms that aim to deconstruct the mythologies of European integration, a linear progress towards federalism, or an ‘ever-closer union.’ Several authors have recently underlined the Eurocentrism of EU studies, especially in analysing the EU’s external action, calling for a decentring of EU studies, along with a decentring of the study of the foreign policies of Western countries and IR more generally. These criticisms unpack the different components of the Eurocentrism of EU studies, such as ‘civilizational’ mythologies and ideologies (Bilgin 2004; Fisher Onar and Nicolaïdis 2013), various dynamics of othering (Diez 2004; 2005), and the role of Europe’s self-image (Nicolaïdis and Howse 2002; Cebeci 2012; Patel 2013). They converge with the emergence of greater reflections on Western- and Eurocentric biases within IR and international studies (Hobson 2012). Indeed, some IR scholars aim to decentre the discipline (Acharya 1995; Doty 1996; Tickner 2003; Acharya and Buzan 2010; Bilgin 2010). They have pursued Chakrabarty’s injunction to ‘provincialise Europe’ (2000), and some have thus advocated a postcolonial or non-Western approach to IR (Tickner and Waever 2007; Tickner and Blaney 2012; Tickner 2013) and security studies (Barkawi and Laffey 2006; Bilgin 2010). In a sense, this is comparable to decolonial thinking and Mignolo’s (2000) call for border thinking as a way of critically reflecting on knowledge production from the outside.
From Eurocentric Bias to Questioning Asymmetry in EU Migration Policies
Migration is a central policy for tackling Eurocentrism in EU studies. Migration policies are typically marred by the singular histories different European Member States have with their former empires. Moreover, as argued by Catarina Kinnvall, migration, European integration, and the colonial discourse are tightly intertwined. She writes that, ‘Europe and European integration must be read within the context of colonial and postcolonial globalization, migration and ethnicity. Hence the discourse of European unity and integration cannot be automatically discharged from the core elements of a colonial discourse’ (Kinnvall 2016: 155). Interestingly, migration policy has also been central to the construction of external competences for EU institutions, particularly in the field of Home Affairs; the Directorate General in charge of Home Affairs, officially created in 1999 on the basis of a pre-existing small task force,[1] has used the idea of an ‘external dimension’ of migration policies and home affairs to gain competences (at the expense of the directorates in charge of development or of external relations), as well as funding and personnel over the years. Within the EU narrative, migration policy is central to the construction of ‘external borders,’ exemplifying the historicity and specificity of the borders/migration nexus which is, as Walters (2015) underlines, far from being universal.
It is not surprising then that the literature on European external migration policy is particularly representative of Eurocentric tendencies within EU studies. It has long tended to focus on European actors, be they from EU institutions or from Member States. For example, the notion of ‘external governance’ has been central in explaining migration policies. It has helped show how the EU has tried to export its endogenous security model to neighbouring countries in order to enlarge the scope of its influence without opening its ‘institutional borders.’ The notion of external governance questions the idea of European external policy as the sum of the national foreign policies of Member States (Lavenex 2004). Part of the literature in this field focuses on readmission agreements, which organise the administrative process of deportation by obtaining and regulating the collaboration of origin countries to make it easier to deport undocumented migrants to a third country. Readmission agreements are seen as one of the main tools of the EU’s external action in migration matters. When it comes to analysing negotiations on readmission, a common hypothesis is that the EU’s negotiating ability is limited by how competencies are delegated. However, although analyses through this lens underline the role of internal compromise in defining European external policy, they tend to overlook resistances to EU external policy outside the EU. Such resistance is mainly described as the end result of internal European conflict between Member States and the EU Commission for negotiations with third countries (Lavenex 2006; Coleman 2009). State actors of these countries are only taken into account indirectly, as recipients of the uncertainties of negotiated intra-European decision-making, be it in the field of democratization (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2004) or migration policies (Wunderlich 2010; 2012).
This bias is the consequence of most studies concentrating on official texts produced by European institutions, which typically produce more documentation than institutions from third countries. Interviews are another important source for research. However, the extent in which these interviews are representative of official discourse is rarely clarified. Despite the insistence of the first studies of external governance on sociological reflection (Lavenex and Uçarer 2002), it is often difficult to distinguish between the analysis and the discourses of EU actors (Lavenex and Wichmann 2009). Moreover, the asymmetry in the accessible sources and actors is rarely questioned by those who research EU relations with neighbouring countries.
This relates to one of the main limits when viewing EU external policies through the lens of external governance; the asymmetry of EU relations with surrounding countries is not taken into account as such, although these ‘neighbours’ are mostly less powerful both militarily and economically. Asymmetry is only slightly more prominent in more recent work, inspired by the notion of ‘complex interdependence’ developed in International Relations (Keohane and Nye 1977) and applied to the analysis of migrations through the idea of ‘global governance’ (Betts 2009; 2011) or ‘multi-layered governance’ of migration (Kunz, Lavenex, and Panizzon 2011). Even those that mention asymmetry rarely unpack its meaning, especially the impact of the EU’s domination on surrounding countries. From the domination of economically dependent countries, some former colonies of various Member States, to the complex relationship with Russia, the modalities of the relations with the EU’s ‘neighbours’ are not always the same. Yet domination is most of the time usually implicitly assumed rather than examined.
Asymmetry is also more prominent in studies that underline the externalisation of migration controls and its effects in third countries. Huysmans (2000) has demonstrated how externalisation and securitization go hand in hand. The representation of migrants as potential threats has led to the strengthening of border controls in order to prevent the arrival of undocumented migrants and to the organization of deportations for those who do manage to enter European countries. The term externalisation highlights the domination of European countries and the EU over surrounding countries, which have been pressured into adopting similar securitised norms of migration control (Guiraudon and Lahav 2000; Boswell 2003; Geddes 2005; Guild, Carrera, and Balzacq 2008; Bigo and Guild 2010). Readmission agreements, dealing with deportation procedures, have thus also been frequently described as a case of externalisation (Gabrielli 2008; Coleman 2009). Morocco is an example of this (Elmadmad 2004; Belguendouz 2005). While the analysis of externalisation takes asymmetry seriously, such interpretations also leave little room for the perspective of actors from countries surrounding the EU. They are implicitly understood as submitting to, and carrying out, European demands. In that sense, this literature also remains rather Eurocentric, and cannot fully explain the evolution of EU policies. By overlooking the agency of actors in dominated countries, it neglects their possible influence on negotiations and ultimately on EU policies.
Possible Strategies for Decentring the Study of EU Migration Policies
Migration policies lend themselves well to questioning the asymmetry of IR, which can be a starting point for decentring the study of the EU’s external policies. Several authors have questioned the asymmetry of international relations, and highlighted the agency of so-called ‘origin countries.’ Some have underlined that the governments of emigration states can have their own objectives (e.g., economic), negotiating with destination countries without necessarily taking the lives of migrants into account (Sayad 2004). In the case of Morocco, several studies have shown how the Moroccan State tried to organise the emigration of some of its citizens (Brand 2006; Iskander 2010). Moreover, other studies have showed how emigration countries could pressure destination countries by using migration as a threat in foreign policy negotiations (Teitelbaum 1984). Kelly Greenhill (2000), for instance, analyses the diplomatic use of migration in the world and talks about ‘weapons of mass migration.’ The case of South-North migrations in the Mediterranean has also been analysed from this perspective. Several case studies have considered the positions of third countries, showing how they can sometimes use negotiations to their advantage (Cassarino 2007; El Qadim 2010; Içduyglu and Aksel 2014; Wolff 2014). Jean-Pierre Cassarino (2010), for instance, describes a relative ‘empowerment’ of origin countries when confronted with the EU on the issue of readmission and its manipulation, while Emanuela Paoletti (2010) talks of a ‘migration of power.’ These studies all underline that asymmetrical relations are not fixed, and that sectoral negotiations can question the domination of one party by the other. However, these studies mostly concentrate on high-level negotiations and official discourses. They also present a conception of sending states as unitary and homogeneous, mostly focusing on the ‘interest’ of origin countries without unpacking this concept or opening up the black box of the state.
The decentring of the study of migration policies could be furthered. In this respect, the postcolonial critique of IR, security studies, or EU studies all underline the need for useful research strategies in developing a different, renewed, and less Euro- or Western-centric research agenda. Meera Sabaratnam (2011) has, for example, identified six possible ‘decolonising strategies for the study of world politics.’ They range from historical and historiographic analysis, often favoured in postcolonial studies, to questioning the presumed psychology of IR subjects, which usually tends towards a rationalist subjectivity, implicitly understanding states as reified identities. Similarly, studies of EU external policy also point to the steps necessary for pursuing a decentring agenda. In order to ‘provincialise’ Europe (Chakrabarty 2000), we are told we must truly engage with others (Fisher Onar and Nicolaïdis 2013). Moreover, they underline the entanglement of this research agenda with normative and ethical concerns (Bilgin 2010; Rutazibwa 2010). These calls have laid out an agenda for research that would ‘envisag[e] other countries and regions as centres of their own geostrategic and geopolitical concerns, while recognizing that legacies of a more Eurocentric era may inflect, for better or for worse, upon actors’ perceptions and preferences to this day’ (Fisher Onar and Nicolaïdis 2013: 296). Nevertheless, this agenda remains, for the time being, largely programmatic. Case studies that explore EU policies in neighbouring countries, including through fieldwork with non-EU actors, rarely dwell upon the meaning of doing so. This is either because the main question they ask concerns the implementation of EU policies (as is the case in the literature on external governance, for example) or because they are mainly interested in deconstructing the labels used by the EU in these external policies.
Here I want to review and explore the strategies that proved useful in my own research on decentring the study of EU-Morocco negotiations on migrations. While it is clear that migrants and their role in shaping these policies should also be taken into account (Mezzadra 2004), my main concern here is with the dynamics of state-to-state relations when these relations are asymmetric. First, I use a strategy closely related to what Sabaratnam (2011: 789) calls ‘pluralising the various potential subjects of social inquiry and analysing world politics from alternative subaltern perspectives.’ This is also what Fisher Onar and Nicolaïdis (2013) call for when they speak of engagement with others. While this is a corollary to another strategy Sabaratnam (2011: 787) identifies, which consists in ‘deconstruct[ing] … the West as the primary subject of world history,’ it involves concentrating on different actors, namely non-Western ones. In practice, this involves pluralising sources, be they written, oral, or of other types, as well as a strong commitment to interpreting and understanding a variety of ways of thinking. It also involves an effort to understand other viewpoints as well as values and subjectivities — and, in some cases, also language skills. This allows for a deeper questioning on the functioning of asymmetric relations, since engagement with these ‘others’ gives the possibility of envisaging agency and dynamics of resistance that would otherwise not necessarily be visible. Ethnographic approaches and the study of practices can be particularly useful in this endeavour (Côté-Boucher, Infantino, and Salter 2013).
Second, as Sabaratnam (2011: 793) notes, decolonising IR requires trying to displace ‘the rationalist, masculinist subjectivity/psyche attributed implicitly to states’ relations with each other … with one that is more complex, situated, affective and particular.’ This anthropomorphic idea of the interests of states is also very prominent in the study of migration policies and negotiations. These interests are often defined relative to political and economic stakes, which usually underlie explanations of migration and border policies in the North. However, concentrating on the discourses and practices of state actors in the South reveals different considerations, where more complex, affective, and moral considerations are put forward. While this does not mean that such considerations are not part of political decisions on migrations in so-called ‘destination countries’ (Fassin 2005), they are more readily put forward as parts of the legitimate rationale of migration policies in so-called ‘origin countries.’ In the same way border thinking encourages us to accept a broader understanding of what knowledge means (Mignolo 2000), decentring the analysis of migration and border policies forces us to envisage different, contending rationales for apprehending human mobility.
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