Interrogating and Broadening the Emerging Narrative on Migration Diplomacy : A Critical Assessment

Abstract

As a promising field of inquiry to understand the nexus between migration and foreign policy, migration diplomacy is rich with studies focusing on the agency of countries in the global South, highlighting the effect of power asymmetries, as well as the existence of a wide range of migration diplomacy practices. This article proposes to take these important contributions even further by opening the field to a wider range of theoretical and epistemological approaches. In particular, this analysis highlights the ahistorical nature and eurocentrism of the field and the extent to which it is based on an unrooted conception of power asymmetries. It also calls for a stronger critique of the field’s focus on material interests, as well as the implicit prioritization of states’ interests. The article encourages further research based on the historical colonial/imperial positionality of different actors to highlight both past and current, visible and invisible practices of migration diplomacy.

Introduction

Migration diplomacy emerged in the second decade of the 20th century as a new and timely concept to understand the nexus between foreign and migration policies and concerns. This literature reflects stark and visible recent empirical developments in the politics of migration. The EU–Turkey deal of 2016, whereby the Turkish state agreed to contain migrants and asylum seekers in Turkey in exchange for financial and political goods, gained additional visibility with the subsequent threats, and eventual implementation of Turkey ‘opening its border’ to encourage individuals to cross into Greece and Bulgaria in February 2020. The November 2021 crisis of migrants’ crossings and pushbacks at the Belarus–Polish border (i.e. largely understood as being ‘manufactured’ by the Belarus president to pressure the EU), provides another striking example of the instrumentalization and weaponization of migration by state actors pursuing other foreign policy goals. This practice of instrumentalization, weaponization, and commodification of migration is not new and has been identified and studied by scholars of migration diplomacy. As argued here, these practices, however visible they are, may only represent the tip of the iceberg of a wider range of migration diplomacy practices that tend to operate below the radar of media scrutiny and scholars’ attention alike.

Migration diplomacy is one among many more research agendas at the intersection between migration studies and international relations (IR) (global and regional governance of migration, externalization of migration policies, migration as an instrument of war, emigration and diaspora politics, the migration state, etc.). However, the literature on migration diplomacy distinguishes itself by focusing on inter-state relations, the use of traditional diplomatic tools, and ‘the management of migration as an international issue’. ¹ Adamson and Tsourapas have defined migration diplomacy as ‘states’ use of diplomatic tools, processes and procedures to manage cross-border mobility’. ² They also noted that ‘migration diplomacy can include both the strategic use of migration flows as a means to obtain other aims or the use of diplomatic methods to achieve goals related to migration’. ³ As will be detailed below, migration diplomacy has evolved in the backdrop of important critiques addressed to both the study of migration and international politics. Accordingly, this literature has made several important contributions that have significantly improved our understanding of migration politics by both broadening the horizon and providing a sounder ethical foundation. Worthy of note are the focus on the migration policies of countries in the global South, the attention provided to asymmetries of power, and the identification of a wide range of migration diplomacy practices that provide a sophisticated picture of this phenomenon.

The purpose of this article is indeed to critically assess the progress and contributions made by the literature on migration diplomacy. The first premise of the following analysis is that the different research projects and publications that have centered their analyses around the concept of migration diplomacy constitute an emergent scholarship. The second is that, as a new and relatively contained scholarship, the overall insights from the different individual contributions tend to create a dominant narrative regarding the practice of migration diplomacy. Understanding this literature as a narrative is constructive because it highlights the intertwined relation between knowledge and practice and calls for an analysis of the political role that such a narrative plays in the practice of international politics. The image of scholarship-as-narrative is also creative, in the sense that it calls for an examination of who and what is being left out of this dominant narrative, hence calling for a broader narrative, as well as the identification of alternative narratives. The third premise of this analysis is that the goal of such an analysis is not so much to critique individual contributions (which all operate within their own epistemologies, context, goals, and practical constraints), but rather to contribute to knowledge production by both encouraging existing research to recognize the existence of connected but alternative research projects, and promoting the undertaking of new and innovative research projects engaging with a broadened, plural, and inclusive understanding of migration diplomacy.

Accordingly, this critical assessment is broadly inspired by the insights of different theoretical and epistemological approaches to both migration studies and international politics. In particular, it is broadly inspired by critical theory approaches, especially recent works that have attempted to make more visible the contributions of postcolonial and decolonial works on the study of migration. ⁴ However, within this broader migration studies’ literature, the nexus between migration and foreign policy has not seen the same level of scrutiny and re-reading through the lens of imperial history and coloniality. In turn, this literature can also benefit from a tighter engagement with the concept of migration diplomacy.

The main added value of thinking of migration diplomacy through the lens of postcolonial and decolonial thought revolves around its deep engagement with history, in particular the modern history of colonialism and imperialism (and its continuous varied impacts on the present), its attention to the political role played by knowledge production, and its focus on marginalized, vulnerable and silenced voices. ⁵ This article utilizes these insights to assess the literature on migration diplomacy around five main themes: lack of historical depth, eurocentrism, a narrow focus on tangible interests, unrooted power inequalities, and state-centrism. While some of the critiques used here are evidently derived from postcolonial and decolonial literature, such as the one about eurocentrism, lack of historical depth, and unrooted power inequalities, I argue as well that the focus on tangible interests (as opposed to symbolic interests) and state-centrism are broader critiques that become even more relevant and visible when thinking through the lens of colonial and imperial histories.

The starting point of this critical article is that the literature on migration diplomacy represents an important, needed, and promising field of inquiry. Accordingly, each of the following sections starts with a recognition of the significant contributions of the field on a particular aspect. The critique ensues, highlighting the particular narrative that is often unintentionally constructed through this aspect of the literature, and the problematic ethics associated. The discussion then proposes ways to address the highlighted problem. Finally, each section ends with suggestive examples of the kind of analyses that can be integrated or produced to further our understanding of migration diplomacy.

The following analysis is based on the review of the literature on migration diplomacy. Defining the contours of such a literature is an exercise fraught with limitations. Migration diplomacy falls under a broader set of research agendas concerned with the intersection between migration and international politics. Early works in the late 1970s have attempted to conceptualize the connections between migration and foreign policy, with a particular focus on the role played by the United States and the dynamics of the Cold War. ⁶ In the post-Cold War era, different research agendas falling under the same umbrella have emerged: security and migration, ⁷ securitization of migration policies (and its implications for IR), ⁸ Europeanization of migration policies, ⁹ externalization of European policy, ¹⁰ the role of policies directed toward diasporas and emigrant communities, ¹¹ etc. ¹² While the concept of migration diplomacy is indebted to all these different fields, the specific term of migration diplomacy seems to have been coined by Thiollet in her 2011 piece, where she discusses the role played by migration as a form of indirect, informal diplomatic tool, that has for effect to facilitate integration among Arab states, in particular in the Gulf countries. ¹³ The increased interest in migration diplomacy seen in the last decade can also be linked directly to Greenhill’s 2010 book Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy. ¹⁴ Even though she does not use the term ‘migration diplomacy’, her analysis demonstrates empirically how migration (usually the threat of opening the door to mass migration) has been used with relative success by some states since 1953 to extract foreign policy benefits. Combining the insights of the concept of ‘Weapons of Mass Migration’ together with insights from the politics of diaspora and emigration countries, Adamson and Tsourapas write in 2019 the most comprehensive and elaborate attempt at mapping out migration diplomacy as a concept: that piece provides both a recognition of migration diplomacy as a research agenda and a solid foundation on which to pursue further the inquiry. ¹⁵ All in all, over 30 publications using the term of migration diplomacy in the core of the analysis have been written since 2011: the following sections will present some of the important contributions, limitations, and proposed way forward.

History: Recovering Historical Depth

One way to think systematically about the value of a scholarship, including what is left unsaid, is to pay attention to how much it is grounded in history, as well as the underlying assumptions of how this history is conceptualized (especially how it conceptualizes – often implicitly – the concept of modernity, that underpins most modern social science). Too often, works in political science or IR take the present as the main point of reference, hence providing an understanding of both normal and exceptional processes that are disconnected from the broader history of human and social experience.

The media coverage of instances of manipulation of refugee flows to pressure neighboring countries in recent years tends to present it as an ‘unprecedented’ event. ¹⁶ To an important extent, the literature on migration diplomacy is a corrective to that. By linking current instances of migration diplomacy to past ones, scholars are able to enrich and deepen the conversations along the ‘new–old patterns’, ‘normal–exceptional instances’, and ‘conjunctural–structural factors’ surrounding migration diplomacy. As highlighted by Greenhill, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko’s use of coercive engineered migration in 2021 into EU countries bears striking similarities with the actions of Pakistan toward India in the 1960s or East Germany toward West Germany in the 1980s. ¹⁷

Nevertheless, the large majority of migration diplomacy publications situate their analysis exclusively in the post-Cold War context, while some provide a historical background that goes back to the end of World War II or the end of World War I. Overall, the role that migration diplomacy played in the period preceding the 20th century remains untouched. The absence of further historic coverage is justified, at times, by the genealogy of the concept used. For instance, Maley, in his historical overview of refugee diplomacy, really starts his analysis in the 1920s, as this is when the term ‘refugee’ makes its appearance in international law. ¹⁸ İçduygu and Üstübici start their analysis in the late 1950s because they are interested in Turkey–EU relations, and have to start when European integration begins. ¹⁹ Other sets of limitations can be more empirical: Greenhill engages in a comprehensive analysis of different cases of instrumental use of migration for foreign policy purposes. Her universe of cases includes 64 instances going back to 1953. ²⁰ Here, it is the availability of systematic data that conditions her starting point.

While these temporal limitations can be explained for individual pieces, the problem arises when as a whole, the literature paints a picture that implicitly identifies the emergence of migration diplomacy as a 20th century phenomenon. While it is possible that this type of migration diplomacy appears only together with the generalization of the (nation)-state system throughout the 20th century (i.e. when migration policies is reorganized around the norm of fixed and filtering borders, and when diplomacy becomes mostly a matter of inter-state relations), this should be investigated further. What policies toward mobility existed before the 20th century? Did such policies play a foreign policy role? Did they constitute a different type of migration diplomacy? When can we trace back the first occurrences of the types of migration diplomacy practices that we see in the 20th century? Have migration diplomacy practices evolved since the advent of the (nation)-state system? How are migration diplomacy practices tied to specific orderings of the international? Postcolonial studies have highlighted the long arm of imperial and colonial histories into the present, long after the formal demise of the colonial empires. The proposed solution here is to provide analyses that link the current use of migration in the foreign policy arena with other functionally similar practices in the past. This will allow deconstructing the impression of ‘novelty’ or of ‘normality’ that is often assumed in these studies. Especially when looking at the specific modern past of imperial and colonial powers that tend to be eluded in even historical accounts of the international, we can reach a more comprehensive understanding of the role that migration has played in the international arena, and better evaluate the ruptures and continuities that explain the present. As discussed below, it can also help identify some invisible aspects of migration diplomacy, such as the norms embedded in the system that tend to favor hegemonic powers.

An example of such an analysis would be a rewriting of the history of migration diplomacy in the Middle East. In Migration Diplomacy in the Middle East and North Africa, Tsourapas included a historical chapter. ²¹ This chapter revolves around four periods to understand ‘migration and the state in the modern Middle East’ [emphasis added]: the colonial period, the postcolonial period (1940s–60s), the oil boom period (1960s–80s), and the period of de-Arabisation (1980s–today). The first section, ‘the colonial period’ is of particular interest for this analysis to connect the practices of today to practices rooted in the colonial past. In that short section, Tsourapas presents a history of mobility through the different Islamic empires, for conquest, trade, religious, or educational purposes. It also mentions emigration rooted in communal strife or deteriorating economic conditions. A deeper engagement with the history of migration diplomacy during the colonial period in the Middle East could include in the analysis many more key aspects. Broadly speaking, it should cover the migration policies of the colonial rulers (or mandaters) or the late ‘modern’ practices of the Ottoman Empire (and its neighbors). While there is a mention of the successive waves of Jewish immigration into Palestine, there is no discussion of how this migration, after World War I, is tied to British imperial interests during World War I and then to British rules and regulations in the mandate for Palestine. For example, Jewish immigration into Palestine justified, and was later further encouraged by, the Balfour declaration, in part to enlist Jewish support in the War effort and possibly also to reduce Jewish populations in the United Kingdom. But it also contradicted other British interests tied to the Arab revolt against Ottomans, and the related promise for an independent Arab state. Migration in the area seems to be accomplished in the lineage of population movements in British settler colonies in the previous centuries, which was considered a ‘norm’ for imperial expansion. A similar story can be told about the settlement of Europeans across different colonies, in particular French people in Algeria, and the accompanying displacement of the local population. While a deeper investigation of the role played by foreign policy in the motivation and justification of such voluntary and forced mobility policies is warranted, it is possible to affirm that both the settlement of French citizens and the forced marginalization of local populations were seen as advancing the French empire foreign policy framed as a ‘civilizing’ mission. In parallel, the politics of sedentarization of nomadic populations across the whole Middle East in different geographical areas, by either the Ottoman Empire or colonial authorities, ²² should be discussed as another tool for ensuring better control over conquered territories and for symbolic positioning and competition toward other ‘civilized powers’. This analysis could also highlight the massive displacement of population that accompanied the retraction of the Ottoman Empire throughout the 19th century, and the expulsion of Muslims from (European) neighboring countries together with the expulsion of Christian/Jewish populations from Ottoman lands (often depicted as a by-product of the rise of modern nationalism and a necessary process for the creation of the modern state system). ²³ The continuation of these practices in the 20th century is detailed in the following section of Tsourapas’ chapter on the ‘postcolonial period’ (including a mention of the exchange of population between Greece and Turkey in 1923). This practice of exchange of population was fairly common at the time and had become a ‘normal’ tool of foreign policy by the first half of the 20th century, defended as a means to create homogenous hence secure states. The explicit linkage between these earlier and later practices could be enlightening to understand the broader history of migration diplomacy.

Worthy of note here is a recent uptake of publications on the imperial and colonial legacies of migration policy practices, especially revolving around the concept of ‘migration state’. ²⁴ The recent book Understanding Global Migration edited by Hollifield and Foley ²⁵ dedicates a part on the ‘postcolonial’ migration state, including insights on migration practices in South Africa, the Arab Gulf, the Middle East, and North and West Africa. Another part is articulated around the concept of ‘postimperial’ migration states, including both a discussion on Europe and on Turkey. These sections engage in a relatively strong historical analysis, looking at the impact of the history of colonies and empires on migration practices today. Klotz’ focus on the concept of Imperial Migration States is particularly promising here in helping to think about how both postimperial and postcolonial states emerged out of a single imperial migration state (her main example is the British empire) and created connected histories and geographies. ²⁶ While most of these analyses focus on the domestic aspects of migration policy, a similar analysis drawing out specifically the foreign policy aspects (migration diplomacy) of these practices could be particularly fruitful.

Eurocentrism: Moving Beyond the Agency of the Global South

The second line of critique regarding contemporary scholarship is the tendency to present eurocentric accounts of international politics. On that particular front, the literature on migration diplomacy presents a certain level of awareness and willingness to remedy the eurocentric tendencies of the field of migration policies. As mentioned before, one of the strengths of migration diplomacy is that it tends to highlight the agency of states in the global South. In 2013, İçduygu and Üstübici concluded that migration diplomacy is a better and more important analytical concept than the concept of Europeanization because it highlights the agency of Turkey (as opposed to the one of European countries). ²⁷ Indeed, the literature on Europeanization and externalization of migration, two prolific areas of research at the intersection of migration and foreign policy, even when critical of Europe, tends to focus exclusively on the agency of Europe (and the United States to a lesser extent).

Both works from Norman and Tsourapas highlight the goal and importance of focusing on the mechanisms of migration and foreign policymaking in non-Western, and/or non-liberal democratic (often semi-authoritarian) regimes. ²⁸ So do explicitly or implicitly almost all of the publications on migration diplomacy. ²⁹ And it is indeed refreshing to read in this literature analyses of migration policies in Egypt, ³⁰ Morocco, ³¹ China, ³² Moldova, ³³ Ethiopia, ³⁴ Cuba, ³⁵ etc. For example, one of the main contributions of Tsourapas’ 2017 piece on migration diplomacy in Gaddafi’s Libya is to complement (and rectify) Bett’s analysis of the role played by issue linkages in migration diplomacy: in Bett’s analysis the assumption is that only Northern countries (or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) engage in issue linkage, whereas, in Tsourapas’ analysis, countries in the South are also well-equipped (albeit differently) to engage in substantial issue linkage to further their migration or foreign policy interests. ³⁶

However, I would argue that this effort to overcome eurocentrism remains somewhat insufficient. Mostly because, with a few exceptions, almost all publications using the term migration diplomacy, have focused on migration ‘couples’ ³⁷ or ‘corridors’ that include either the United States or the EU (or a European country). The EU remains a prominent source of interest: more than half of the publications selected for this paper analyze a country in relation to the EU. Most are specifically about the EU–Turkey relations, in part due to the EU–Turkey refugee deal of 2016 and its aftermath. To a lesser extent, Morocco is also over-represented, and so is the Middle East and North Africa as a whole. This is a logical response to recent prominent empirical developments in the field of migration diplomacy, but it also foreshadows other migration couples, or migration regions, where studying the mechanisms of migration diplomacy could provide further analytical leverage.

Even in Greenhill’s Weapons of Mass Migration book, which has a universal and comprehensive scope of 64 separate cases, the analysis ends up selecting qualitative case studies on couples that associate a Western country (either the United States or Europe) and another country. ³⁸ This is justified by her early findings that highlight how illiberal regimes are particularly well-situated to exert pressure over liberal regimes, and generally succeed in generating gains from them. Accordingly selecting cases with an illiberal–liberal countries dyad is meaningful to illustrate her point. These dyads happened to also represent a South–North countries dyad. And thus, unintentionally, this analysis contributes to creating an image where studying a country in the global South is relevant only if it affects a country in the global North. Freier et al’s. recent study on refugee rent-seeking in the global South also focuses on global South countries’ strategies toward countries or institutions from the global North. ³⁹

Accordingly, there is a need for more research on cases of South–South migration diplomacy. The literature on migration studies in the global South has seen a recent uptake both in the additional attention provided to the South (through past and new research projects) and in the theorization of migration politics in the global South ⁴⁰ and South–South ⁴¹ migration patterns. Examples of this scholarship include the work of Klotz on South Africa, ⁴² Abdelaaty on migration politics in Kenya, ⁴³ Hoffmann on Iraqi Migrants in Syria, ⁴⁴ Freier on migration in Latin America, ⁴⁵ Paliwal on India’s responses to conflict-generated migration, ⁴⁶ and many more. As for the literature on colonial histories and migration discussed above, there is great potential in thinking through these research projects as cases of migration diplomacy by teasing out more systematically the foreign policy implications of these cases.

A promising example of how to bring these studies into conversation with migration diplomacy can be found in the works of Fiddian-Qasmiyeh within the ‘Southern Responses to Displacement’ project, aiming at turning the projector on the ways in which states from the South have long developed and implemented responses to displacement. A prominent example derived from her research revolves around Cuba’s policies toward Sahrawi and Palestinian refugees through a scholarship system to provide free education. ⁴⁷ It is clear that such a program presented obvious foreign policy benefits to the Cuban state. While Cuba has been somewhat included in analyses of migration diplomacy, it has been through the prism of sending ‘boat people’ to the United States. ⁴⁸ Including Cuba’s foreign policy toward refugees in Southern countries, discussing the Cuban use of the normatively loaded concept of ‘humanitarian’ approach toward forced migration and contrasting it to European, or American, or Turkish normative humanitarian approach toward refugees would maximize our understanding of migration diplomacy.

Another way to think about how to explain and remedy the eurocentrism of the migration diplomacy literature is to move beyond the focus on migration couples. It might be interesting to research the extent to which the kind of migration diplomacy that powerful actors engage in (the United States, Europe) is happening in multilateral frameworks, as opposed to the typical bilateral framework we have long associated with the term diplomacy. ⁴⁹

Beyond multilateralism, the South–North migration corridor focus of migration diplomacy scholarship can be complemented by analyses of regionalism. Already important work has been done on regional politics and migration diplomacy in the Middle East, most notably in the Gulf region. Starting with the works of Thiollet, ⁵⁰ further works by Malit and Tsourapas (at times together) have contributed to an understanding of migration diplomacy around a non-Western center, this time the oil economies of Gulf states, and the kind of migration practices they engage in with other countries in the Middle East or outside of the Middle East (Philippines, India, Pakistan, etc.). ⁵¹ Similar analyses that engage with the scholarship on regional governance in other regions of the world (such as South Asia, Southeast Asia, Western Africa, Southern Africa, etc.) could provide a fruitful contribution. Latin America appears as an obvious place where to expand the empirical analysis of migration diplomacy. On the one hand, there is a strong and complex system of regional governance on migration (Cartagena Declaration, the Inter-American Human Rights System, MERCOSUR) ⁵² : such a regime can be analyzed as a locus of the practice of diplomacy where different actors’ interests and bargaining strategies can be tracked down, and in turn compared with other regional regimes (such as the European or African ones). On the other hand, the (evolving) ideological divide throughout the continent leads to ‘Cold War’ like attitudes toward refugees where refugees will be more or less welcomed based on the ideological closeness with the state of origin: this is particularly evident with the displacement of Venezuelans fleeing the Maduro regime who have received a more positive reception in right-leaning states (e.g. Colombia, Ecuador) compared to their left-leaning neighbors (Nicaragua, Bolivia). ⁵³

Finally and interestingly, the problem of resilient eurocentrism identified in this section does not solely happen despite a focus on the global South agency, but also because of this very focus: the migration diplomacy literature might unintentionally create a dominant narrative where migration diplomacy is something that only countries from the global South engage in. Indeed, what is missing is the explicit discussion of how countries of the global North also engage in migration diplomacy. Migration scholars attempted to correct a literature that seemed to indicate that Northern states used foreign policy for migration purposes and that Southern states were the passive recipient of these practices. But implicitly, their analysis of the agency of Southern states frames a narrative of ‘northern states engage in externalization while southern states engage in migration diplomacy’. One option to counterbalance is to translate the literature on externalization and outsourcing of migration policies into the language of migration diplomacy and include it in the same analytical framework, that is, to make the case explicitly that externalization is one type of migration diplomacy. Even more important, there is a need to analyze how the migration diplomacy of both sides of the interaction are co-constituting one another. For example, it is the EU’s attempts at externalizing its migration and border control policies to neighboring states that have opened the door to the functionally equivalent policy of refugee rent-seeking on behalf of states targeted by externalization policies. In that sense, both the EU and countries such as Turkey and Jordan are co-responsible for the commodification of refugees that ensues and the associated ethical violations. Recognizing these shared responsibilities can help create a more balanced narrative of migration diplomacy.

Beyond Material or Tangible Interests: The Power of Symbols, Norms, and Status

One of the main strengths of the literature has been the ability to identify a wide range of practices of migration diplomacy. The article ‘Migration Diplomacy in World Politics’ skilfully articulates a multitude of practices. These can be differentiated based on the set of policy tools available to states depending on their positionality in the migration journey: whether they are receiving, transit, or sending migration states. They can have different goals: ‘to expel, deport, or transfer individuals or groups citing internal security concerns’, ‘to achieve economic benefits’ or ‘to achieve public diplomacy aims’. Finally, migration diplomacy strategies can be articulated within a ‘relative gain’ framework (typically a zero-sum situation) or an ‘absolute gain’ one (typically a win-win). ⁵⁴ This distinction between relative versus absolute gain approaches parallels the discussion of coercive and cooperative practices discussed below.

Despite the wealth of analytical insights here, the third level of critique I address to the migration diplomacy literature concerns its tendency to conceptualize diplomacy mostly as bargaining for tangible gains. This critique is not derived only from a critical IR perspective, as both liberal and constructivist IR have articulated similar criticisms. Rather it is a reflection of a realist bias in the literature. As explicitly stated by Adamson and Tsourapas, their analysis ‘draw[s] heavily on realist approaches in international relations, [to] outline how the interests and power of state actors are affected by their position in migration systems according to whether they are migration-sending, migration-receiving, or transit states’. ⁵⁵ Alhorn had already articulated criticism of this heavy reliance on realism, leading to a narrative on migration diplomacy that overly relies on structuralist and rationalist accounts. ⁵⁶ Given the nature of other research projects done by Adamson and Tsourapas that demonstrate a wide range of epistemological approaches, ⁵⁷ it seems that this realist conceptualization of migration diplomacy was to provide a ‘first cut’ on the theorization of migration diplomacy, calling in turn for additional perspectives on the concept.

While early works had emphasized the coercive nature of the threat of sending migrants, ⁵⁸ Tsourapas had already presented an important corrective by highlighting that migration diplomacy should encompass both coercive and cooperative practices. ⁵⁹ States engaging in migration diplomacy could engage in blackmailing (as President Erdogan in Turkey did with the use of threat to open the door to migrants going into Europe several times since the 2016 EU–Turkey refugee deal) or they could engage in backscratching (as Jordan and Lebanon did to bargain with the EU and secure sources of funding). But even in this broadened conception of both coercive and cooperative migration diplomacy, the gain expected to be engendered by migration diplomacy is one that is tangible, typically a ‘material interest’. In practical terms, that would mean some economic benefits (grant or trade agreement), an institutional benefit (membership in an organization), or aid (military or humanitarian). Sometimes it might be about the process (opening rounds of negotiation) rather than the end realization of the goal. But the assumption is that there is a tangible interest that can be satisfied (and often measured and evidenced).

At times, the publications on migration diplomacy recognize that there are more than simply material or tangible aspects at stake. Mentions of ‘discursive and material’ aspects, or ‘symbolic’ gains occur occasionally. As quoted above, Adamson and Tsourapas make room for the possibility of ‘public diplomacy aims’, both for the exercising of soft power and for cultural and symbolic reasons. Ideology plays a role in the recognition of refugee status by the United States during the Cold War depending on the type of regime they fled from, Egypt under Nasser used the emigration of highly skilled Egyptian workers as a means to promote pan-Arabism. ⁶⁰ Seeberg and Völkel highlight how migration diplomacy was ‘a potent tool for authoritarian regimes to improve their internal and external image’ [emphasis added]. ⁶¹ But these insights are often presented as secondary to more tangible direct benefits that are prioritized by states. Greenhill, in her book focusing on the coercive aspects of migration diplomacy, highlights that one of the reasons why migration diplomacy is efficient is because it inflicts a symbolic cost on the target state, which she coins ‘hypocrisy cost’: ‘symbolic political costs that can be imposed when there exists a real (or perceived) disparity between a professed commitment to liberal values and/or international norms, and demonstrated state actions that contravene such a commitment’. ⁶² While recognizing the role played by symbols here on the cost side, her analysis, however, assumes that on the benefit side, there has to be something tangible bargained for.

Taking cues from the literature on norms in IR, I argue that there is a need for a broader understanding of migration diplomacy, one that does not simply focus on bargaining for tangible gains, but also thinks more broadly about states’ interests, and the importance states give to intangible gains such as status, recognition, moral standing, and reputation. The place that states have in social hierarchies of the international order plays a central role in states’ foreign policy, especially for states conceived in the middle or lower range of this hierarchical construct. ⁶³ What types of symbolic gains are actors of migration diplomacy trying to gain? What types of norms are being established or challenged when migration diplomacy is exerted?

In practice, this means that there is a need to think beyond the concept of ‘negotiation’ as the main platform where diplomacy occurs. ⁶⁴ Rather, one should think more generally about ‘interactions’ between the different actors. Additionally, this analysis should not only be about real interactions but also include imagined interactions, that are based on subjective impressions. In particular, when looking at this issue from the lens of coloniality, there is a need to center the analysis on the ways in which the ‘gaze of the West’ or the ‘gaze of the international’ operates and conditions action in migration diplomacy.

In the search for symbolic gains, the case of Turkey is particularly revealing. Earlier works have highlighted how the need to get recognized as a normative power on the international scene has played a powerful role in the posture and decisions taken on migration by Turkish authorities (if not one ridden by inconsistencies and paradoxes). ⁶⁵ Fine has highlighted how this quest for symbolic rewards in migration diplomacy is articulated much deeper in the Turkish bureaucracy, and something that actors in international organizations can use strategically to derive specific behaviors from Turkey. ⁶⁶ A similar logic leading to a reverse immigration policy paradox was identified by Arcarazo and Freier in the case of Argentina, Brazil, and Ecuador. ⁶⁷ As mentioned above, work on Palestinian and Sahrawi refugees also indicated that a country like Cuba may have used refugee programs as a means to derive status and recognition among other ‘anti-imperialist’ actors. ⁶⁸ These examples from the global South point to the importance of understanding how states’ positionality in the hierarchical power structure (mostly derived from coloniality) can lead to different types of migration diplomacy behaviors, and the particularly important role played by symbolic rewards from states suffering from a deficit of power and/or legitimacy.

Another important point that the literature on norms in IR can help us identify is the fact that the interests of the powerful and hegemonic powers are often reflected in the dominant norms of the international system. Accordingly, business as usual (in bilateral or multilateral forums) means the furthering of the interests of the dominant actors, which operate diffusely and invisibly. Less powerful states, if they want to further their own interest, need to do so in a manner that is typically (although not necessarily) more disruptive, hence visible. Such disruptions are easier to identify and analyzed by scholars. This is coloniality of knowledge in action. But they are only one side of the coin. How non-tangible interests of dominant powers are furthered by the routine operation of the international system (including in the realm of migration) should also be scrutinized at the same level. An illustration of such an analysis can be found in Betts’ article on ‘International Cooperation in the Refugee Regime’, where he shows that they are two main principles at the core of international refugee law: asylum and burden-sharing. However, given that most displacement happens in the global South, the norm that affects most countries of the South (asylum) is the one that is strongly embedded in a normative and legal framework (around the principle of non-refoulement), but the one that would impose more obligations on countries of the North (burden-sharing) happens to be the one associated with a weak normative and legal framework. ⁶⁹ The difference in the level of institutionalization and legalization of these two principles is the outcome of a long and diffuse process of norm and law making done multilaterally by actors with different interests and means of leverage. As such, it is a form of migration diplomacy mostly controlled by countries in the North that involves more than one simple act of negotiation, i.e. one that was reiterated over time. Such form of migration diplomacy goes a long way in helping legitimize states in the global North while challenging states in the global South.

Accordingly, new research questions are needed to better understand the way certain norms regarding mobility policies have become embedded in the current international system (i.e. creating and controlling borders) in ways that benefit certain states more than others. It would make visible the role that diffuse diplomatic practices by more or less powerful actors play in shaping these norms. It would also highlight how certain norms have changed over time (i.e. slavery) and what this might mean for some of the other norms that are taken for granted today. It would provide tools to more easily deconstruct the hegemonic discourses through which dominant states nowadays legitimize their migration policies, in ways that less powerful states cannot. The consequences of power asymmetries for migration diplomacy practices are further discussed in the following section.

Understanding the Impact of the Roots of Power Asymmetries

Beyond highlighting a wide range of practices, the literature on migration diplomacy has also hypothesized different factors explaining the occurrence of a type of migration diplomacy used. As mentioned earlier, Greenhill has advanced regime type (liberal or illiberal) to explain migration diplomacy ⁷⁰ and Adamson and Tsourapas have highlighted migration positionalities (country of sending, transit, and/or receiving) as being important factors. Explicit as well in their analysis is the role played by power asymmetries (sometimes because there is a level of correspondence – and, at times, analytical conflation – between illiberal, sending, and weaker states).

Indeed, the literature as a whole is well aware of the asymmetry of power between the different states engaging in migration diplomacy. Greenhill conceptualizes ‘Weapons of Mass Migration’ as a weapon of the weak. ⁷¹ Betts, whose analysis is centered around power asymmetries between states, is also often referenced. ⁷² Not only is the literature aware of the structural inequalities that characterize the actors, but they also highlight the impact that state’s power positionality has on the types and means of migration diplomacy. ⁷³

While the recognition of the impact of power inequalities and their impact is a welcome feature of this literature, another potential consequence of the realist bias in the existing migration diplomacy literature is a tendency to overlook the explanatory power of the origins of these inequalities. The historical origins of power inequalities can typically be traced back to the emergence of the modern state system in the context of European imperialism. Without a contextually informed historical awareness of the roots of inequalities (in particular as they are perceived by the weaker side), the current inequalities are normalized and accepted as is. However, states in the global South tend to have a heightened awareness of this particular colonial and imperial past, which informs how they interact with powerful states. The motivation of weaker or rising powers to challenge the supremacy of the West is not simply one to catch up and become powerful, but also one rooted in the eagerness to correct a historical injustice. It is also rooted in an existential postcolonial ‘quest for legitimacy’, ⁷⁴ as states need additional efforts to establish their credential as states. Such historically grounded grievances and concerns are important to understand contemporary diplomacy in general and migration diplomacy in particular. ⁷⁵

Accordingly, taking seriously the origins of power asymmetries as a source of motivation for states’ behaviors then and today could be done by using the analytical framework proposed by Zarakol in her After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West, ⁷⁶ that is, starting with the positionality of state actors as they emerged in the modern international system. This could inform different priorities for states based on these positionalities, possibly oriented around the binary of ‘legitimizing’ the international system versus ‘challenging’ it. The migration literature has identified different states who have challenged the Western discourse of being liberal countries of migration (Turkey, Brazil, Argentina), ⁷⁷ states that have changed their policies toward migration as they aimed at deflecting international criticism (Turkey, Morocco, Jordan, Syria), ⁷⁸ and states that have proposed alternative norms to inform migration policies (Turkey). ⁷⁹ (Former) dominated states can use migration policies as a means to gain prestige, status, and attempt to deconstruct the invisible hierarchies that structure the current international system. In particular, it would be interesting to connect the perceived location of states on imagined international hierarchies to specific types of migration policy-related behaviors on the international scene.

While the migration diplomacy literature has hypothesized regime type, power asymmetries, and migration positionalities (country of sending, transit, and/or receiving) as being the main factors explaining different types of migration diplomacy, I argue that the positioning of the state in the history of imperialism (as well as the way it is perceived and remembered by said state) is an additional key factor to understand migration diplomacy.

Migration Diplomacy and Methodological Nationalism

The fifth and final theme of interest here to evaluate the migration diplomacy literature is the one of state-centrism. State-centrism can mean different things in different contexts. On the one hand, migration diplomacy has been conceptualized by Adamson and Tsourapas as being state-centric by design: ‘migration diplomacy refers to state actions and investigates how cross-border population mobility is linked to state diplomatic aims [. . .]. While globalization has diminished the monopoly of the sovereign state in world politics, the state is still the main actor in the regulation of cross-border mobility and is likely to continue being so’. ⁸⁰ They continue by citing Torpey and the claim that modern nation-states have a monopoly over the legitimate means of movement (even if they are not the only actors). ⁸¹ In that sense, the migration diplomacy literature is distinct from the literature on the global governance of migration that focuses on the role played by multinational non-state actors.

On the other hand, there have been several attempts by different authors to highlight the role played by non-state actors. Thiollet’s original analysis covered non-state actors’ political roles, including migrants’ and refugees’ activism. ⁸² Malit and Tsourapas highlighted the role played by sub-national non-state actors such as the construction sector and business elites, in the design of the migration diplomacy exerted by the UAE toward countries of origin. ⁸³ Kutz and Wolf discussed the role played by urban entities and local authorities. ⁸⁴ Alejo analyzed how migrants themselves, or rather migrant associations, were also key actors influencing the ultimate state interaction with others in the realm of migration. ⁸⁵ At a multinational level this time, Maley discussed the refugee diplomacy exerted by individual UNHCR commissioners. ⁸⁶

While serving as important counterpoints to the mainstream migration diplomacy literature, these analyses do not challenge the methodological nationalism at the core of migration diplomacy. Nor do I disagree with Adamson and Tsourapas’ affirmation that methodological nationalism is a necessity given that the goal of migration diplomacy literature is to understand the patterns and manners in which migration is used in diplomatic frameworks between different states. What is however a source of concern is the fact that migration diplomacy tends to pit states’ interests against one another, in a manner that normalizes such interests. While these interests are relative (i.e. EU member states’ interests vs. Turkey’s interests), they focus on other states’ interests. What would be helpful here is a more systematic delineation of non-state individuals and groups’ (migrants, refugees, displaced populations, host communities, etc.) interests and an analysis of how they fare in relation to states’ interests. That would allow for a more insightful and disruptive approach to the social construction and academic recognition of states. This would go a long way in the project of recasting the modern state as a product of coloniality and interrogating the centrality of its interests. The issue, therefore, might not be so much about the unit or level of analysis, nor so much about whose agency is at stake, but rather about interests, lived experience, and who best represents the interests of specific communities and individuals.

One possible route to do so is to investigate and include in our analysis the perspective of migrants and refugees themselves on the processes of migration diplomacy. This is being done by Fiddian-Qasmiyeh in her work on refugees’ conceptualization of Southern-led humanitarianism to uncover the ways in which refugees have conceptualized, negotiated, and resisted programs designed for them. ⁸⁷

Beyond the methodological tool of revealing refugees’ own perceptions, Fiddian-Qasmiyeh’s approach also highlights the need to further unpack ‘humanitarianism’ as a discourse of foreign policy that sometimes silences more than it empowers refugees. Turkey’s discourse of humanitarian and ‘generous’ approach toward Syrian refugees has been used instrumentally as a means to project a positive image on the international scene while creating a form of dependency of Syrians toward Turkish authorities (on whom they depend for keeping their temporary protected status, for access to local services and for arbitrary access to Turkish citizenship) that left Syrians in situations of limbo and vulnerability. ⁸⁸

Another way to re-center non-state interests in the analysis is to investigate and evaluate migration diplomacy as a form of governmentality. Kutz and Wolff, as well as Norman, have shown how Moroccan migration diplomacy aims at diverting attention more than addressing the challenge of migration, and by doing so, ends up being used as a tool to reinforce the regime in place at the expense of the involved communities of migrant and host populations ⁸⁹ (see also a similar analysis by Tsourapas on Egypt). ⁹⁰ Highlighting the effects of migration diplomacy on, typically, the instrumentalization and securitization of migrants, and the impacts these have on the interests and well-being of affected individuals and communities should remain at the center of future research projects.

Finally, an important way to critically re-engage with the issue of methodological nationalism is to question the very advent and thriving of the literature on migration diplomacy. Why did this scholarship emerge at this specific historical juncture? It seems obvious that the striking developments mentioned at the beginning of this article (many of which revolve around Turkey, the EU, and its periphery) have prompted this specific interest. This, in turn, raises the question of what function the scholarship on migration diplomacy has. To borrow Cox’s terminology, ⁹¹ is it a form of problem-solving theory? If that is the case, the scholarship on migration diplomacy seems to shed light on a central problem: the issue of the liberal migration paradox as developed by James Hollifield. It is indeed possible to think of the core paradox facing liberal states at the turn of the 21st century as: ‘How can state manage the flows [of human mobility] in light of the fact that there are strong economic pressures for openness and strong political, legal, and security pressures for closure?’. ⁹² It is clear that by the 21st century, both migration scholars, practitioners, and elected officials have reached a heightened awareness of this dilemma, and turning migration into a foreign policy issue (mostly through externalization, but not only) has been seen as an expedient and ‘lesser evil’ form of migration policy. In turn, states of origin or transit have understood opportunistically and pragmatically the potential benefits they could derive from this new practice. By analyzing, and providing a more sophisticated appreciation of the different types of migration diplomacy, are scholars solving problems? If yes, whose problems? States? Northern states? Southern states? Migrant communities? On the other hand, if scholars of migration diplomacy are engaging in critical theory, then which aspect of the prevailing order is being criticized? There is no single answer to these key questions, but rather this section is a call for scholars to be more self-reflexive as they engage with the scholarship of migration diplomacy.

Conclusions

The preceding analysis has highlighted a number of areas of strength that characterize the scholarship on migration diplomacy. It is a scholarship that has developed a sophisticated understanding of the different ways in which states use migration for foreign policy purposes or foreign policy for migration policy purposes. It has hypothesized regime type, power asymmetries, and migration positionalities (country of sending, transit, and/or receiving) as being the main explanatory factors. It has provided the framework of bargaining and coercion to understand the potential and limitations of issue linkage. By doing so, it has focused on the agency of countries in the global South and highlighted the effect of power asymmetries. In passing, it has elevated the public discourse on migration diplomacy that tends to focus on simple images of the unprecedented use of migration threats in international politics by contextualizing and broadening the discussion. However, this analysis has also presented a number of critiques, roughly articulated around five themes: the lack of historical depth, the remaining eurocentrism, the narrow focus on tangible interests, the lack of attention to the origins of power asymmetries, and the implications of methodological nationalism. These different critiques intersect, as they highlight a scholarship that tends to present a narrative where states’ interests and power asymmetries tend to be normalized, and where the migration diplomacy practices of states of the global South tend to be made very visible and exceptionalized (mostly by keeping invisible or separate functionally similar practices by states of the global North). Possible solutions to these issues include the need to bring together histories of empires and colonies within the analysis of migration diplomacy; the need to look at South–South migration diplomacy, as well as regional migration diplomacy practices; the need to reframe existing scholarship on externalization within the framework of migration diplomacy to better understand the entangled migration diplomacies of Southern and Northern states; the need to include considerations for symbolic, normative, and status or recognition-based goals in the strategic calculation of migration diplomacy; the need to look at the existing material, discursive and normative architecture of the world order to understand how past practices of migration diplomacy are structuring the migration diplomacy practices of today and privilege certain actors over others; the need to take seriously the politics of resentment of historically disadvantaged states to understand how their perceived positionality affect their migration diplomacy behaviors; the need to de-naturalize states’ interest in the analysis and re-center individual and communities’ interests (whether best served by states or not); and finally, the need to be self-reflective as to the type of scholarship we are engaging with and the political implications of our analyses.

The good news is that most of the agenda suggested above calls for building bridges with existing publications and research projects, often by integrating and reframing insights from these connected scholarships. On this note, it is important to reiterate that many of the scholars involved in migration diplomacy are already addressing some of the critiques presented here through related research projects or in their conversations with other scholars. One of the main challenges of this exercise was indeed to delineate the supposed contours of migration diplomacy when the scholarship is already tightly connected with scholarship on the migration state, migration policy in the global South, diaspora diplomacy, global governance of migration, etc. There are also a number of close concepts that naturally connect with the issue of migration diplomacy such as ‘border diplomacy’ or ‘mobility diplomacy’. Clearly, the concept of diplomacy is one that is very relevant to understand the politics of different mobility patterns in the 21st century, and one that calls for further research and critical assessment of these scholarly endeavors.