Power Relations and International Migration: The Case of Italy and Libya: POWER RELATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION (original) (raw)

Building upon the scholarly discussion concerning the growing blurring of domestic and foreign policy domains and the changing spheres of competences of states both within and outside their borders, this article focuses on interstate cooperation in the field of migration and international relations.I attempt to answer two interrelated questions:how does collaboration on migration affect the bargaining dynamics between migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries? And specifically,how does the contested process of externalisation of border control practices to third countries influence power relations between the two? Particular attention is paid to the agreements on migration between Italy and Libya, mainly between the late 1990s and 2009,and I examine how the putative process of externalisation of migration policies from Italy to Libya impacts upon their negotiations. I argue that this case of externalisation does not merely consist of a univocal delegation of sovereignty. Therefore I conclude that the theoretical debate is still open, both with regard to the applicability of the externalisation concept to this particular case, and to its broader representativeness. Until the second half of the 1970s, migration 1 policy was treated as a secondary aspect of the political debate in most European countries, and management of migration was dealt with mainly through domestic administrative measures. Since the 1980s, however, migration has become a salient issue on the international agenda. Accordingly, notions of states' power and borders in relation to migration have attracted increasing attention from politicians, media, the public and academics (Geddes, 2000). In particular, a critical question for academics and policy makers regards the authority and capacity of states to control the entry and exit of people over their territory. This reality supplies the three central themes of this article, that is, borders, international migration and interstate relations. In this context, an apparent paradox is observable. The process of boundary construction, in the form of restrictive policy measures and national(ist) narratives, takes place alongside, and is fuelled by, the blurring of the analytical distinctions between 'the inside' and 'the outside'. Rising levels of cross-border mobility seem to coexist with trends that consolidate the state's authority over its territory. The more states and supranational bodies do to restrict and manage migration, the less successful they seem to be (Castles, 2004, p. 205). Likewise, according to the 'gap hypothesis', 'significant and persistent gaps exist between official migration policies and actual policy outcomes' (Cornelius et al., 1994, p. 4). Indeed, few migrant-receiving countries 'have immigration control policies that are perfectly implemented or do not result in unintended consequences' (Cornelius et al., 1994, p. 4). Simply put, states are either unwilling or unable to prevent illegal entry (Gibney, 2004). This paradox has important implications for patterns of collaboration between states. State decisions on, and capacities to control, borders influence not only the magnitude and directionality of international migration, but also interactions between them (Weiner, 1995).