Shaping migration at the border: the entangled rationalities of border control practices

Abstract

This article analyses how border guards as members of a state organisation shape the movement of non-nationals into the territory of a nation state. Based on ethnographic fieldwork on the Swiss Border Guard (SBG), it explores the rationalities—understood as stabilised ways of reasoning and acting—that characterise practices within this state organisation. Combining organisational and structuration theory with a street-level bureaucracy perspective allows for a differentiated analysis of the various facets of border guards’ everyday work. Four rationalities of border-control practices are identified and compared: security, humanitarian, cost-calculation, and pragmatic rationality. I argue that, by considering both the specific goals and imperatives of border control and the characteristics of street-level bureaucrats acting within a state organisation, these entangled logics explain the complex and incoherent social reality of border control. More generally, the results contribute to organisational theory by pointing to the importance of taking into account that multiple entangled rationalities structure the practices of an organisation’s members.

Reimagining Otherness, Recreating the Public Space: Public Administration and the U.S.-Mexico Border

“…US official border enforcers treat those who reside in the borderlands or cross daily for work or school differentially on the basis of categorizations related to class and race, overly delaying and forestalling transit for some and speeding it up for others (Heyman, 2009b;Martínez et al, 2013;Núñez & Heyman, 2007). Discretionary judgment can play a crucial role in either humanizing or dehumanizing administrative practices toward others, especially those who (per their legal status in respect to the State) remain invisible and silent, hence most vulnerable (Achermann, 2021;Antony, 2019;Coulter et al, 2020;Grace & Roth, 2021;Heyman, 1999aHeyman, , 2000Núñez & Heyman, 2007). In that sense, the border operates as a value laden entity that filters entrants depending on their nationality, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class markers for the sake of perpetuating economic value differentials (Kearney, 2004).…”

Bureaucracies Under Judicial Control? Relational Discretion in the Implementation of Immigration Detention in Swiss Cantons

“…We analyzed the web of relationships in which the cantonal bureaucrats deciding to detain are embedded at the level of law implementation and how these relationships affect their decisions. We assert that the analysis of bureaucrats' discretionary practices must consider their profiles and bureaucratic habitus (Affolter, 2021;Alpes & Spire, 2014); their organizational socialization (Borrelli, 2021;Oberfield, 2012); their legal, social, political, and organizational environment (Achermann, 2021;Buffat, 2015); and the social mechanisms affecting individual behaviors and perceptions of what decision is possible to make in specific circumstances (Miaz, 2017(Miaz, , 2019.…”

“…Thus, in this article, the exercise of discretion is not seen as a "free choice" within the framework and limits set by legal rules because "individual 'free choice' may be already, collective, ordered, routinised and structured by phenomena other than the law itself" (Campbell, 1999, p. 80). Hence, we argue that discretionary practices must be analyzed considering their legal but also social, political, and organizational environment (Achermann, 2021;Buffat, 2015), as well as the social mechanisms that guide and constrain individual behaviors and perceptions (Miaz, 2017(Miaz, , 2019.…”

“…Decision-makers’ interdependent relationships with these actors vary from one canton to another but directly shape the workload of immigration bureaucracies and the way they use their discretion regarding immigration detention. This implies that, while initially aimed at enforcing removals, cantonal use of immigration detention is also marked by other rationales (see C. Achermann, 2021), such as reducing expenses or fighting criminality, mixing both punitive (sanctioning illegality of stay) and preventive (crime control) logic (Campesi, 2020; Campesi & Fabini, 2019; Rezzonico, 2020).…”