Migration management is a concept that proposes regulatory transparency in dealing with the realities of international migration. Migration management reduces the complexity of related regulation to make it more intelligible, to govern in a depoliticized, technocratic way, and to ensure the movement of globalization. In the absence of an international migration framework, however, migration management faces competition from the securitization and liberalization of migration. For migration management to endure, it must rely on the material application of its interpretations enabled by institutions. To understand the evolution of migration management from interpretation to application within the International Organization for Migration (IOM), this book notes three moments, its emergence, its organisation and its engagement From the early 2000s to 2018, this key institution in migration governance notably expanded its role and activities to include migration management.
This book’s approach blends cultural political economy and critical discourse analysis to examine the evolution of a concept allowing for the interaction of the production of meaning, social actors' capacity for action, structuring of the institutional context, and government technologies. Based on an analysis of IOM meetings and documents, the author reveals how various international civil servants, diplomats and experts have formulated, disseminated, applied, or contested migration management.
The study of this concept helps to understand IOM's transformation and its role in the constitution of a new migration governance, following the adoption of the Global Compact for Migration in 2018.
