Call for Papers: Power Brokers and their ‘Clients’: Investigating the Relation between Migration Control Practices and would-be Travelers/Migrants Strategies

IPSA/AISP 24th World Congress of Political Science July 23-28, 2016 | Istanbul, Turkey

Submission deadline 7 October 2015
Language: English

Convenor: Dr. Federica Infantino
Chair: Mr. Hugo Bréant
Co-chair: Dr. Federica Infantino
Session: RC32 Public Policy and Administration

The control of international mobility and of the legal departure of migrants has increased in the last decades. State and non-state actors are involved in the management of migrations. Migration control aims at filtering individuals according to normative criteria. However, we know little about the ways in which power brokers and prospective migrants shape such control on the ground. This panel proposes to investigate how migration control on the ground creates inequalities and how inequalities are challenged in the everyday.

We invite communications that focus on the analysis of ‘street-level bureaucracies’ and their daily work of law application. Who are the actors asked to manage migrations in practice? How do the organizational role, personal representations, discretionary power legally framed and the reorganization of tasks (via the cooperation with non-state actors for instance) locally shape migration control? We invite also communications that analyze the recipients of control and their coping mechanisms. Who are those who succeed? Do they conform to the role assigned by the institution? How do they adapt to this « law-in-action » ? Do their behavior disturb the standards of the institution? The panel welcomes also proposals that address the interactions between state practices and would-be migrants strategies. We encourage proposals that build on comparative research design.