Spatial shifts in migration governance: Public-private alliances in Swedish immigration administration

Abstract

Non-state actors are increasingly involved in enforcing immigration policies. Of late, there has been growing recognition that greater involvement of non-state actors has contributed to reconfiguring migration governance in a spatial sense. Scalar literature conceptualises the involvement of non-state actors as a move by immigration authorities to use actors beyond the state to enforce immigration policies. Network-inspired analysis, on the other hand, draws attention to attempts by non-state actors to form alliances in order to influence immigration policy. In this paper, we set out to show that other spatial shifts are at play in contemporary migration governance. In order to make sense of these spatial shifts, we advance a reading of migration governance which aims to show how efforts to manage migration are the result of, and result in, strategic attempts by state and non-state actors to enrol others, establish a sense of presence and build relationships of proximity and reach. We provide one example of this, involving an administrative alliance between a Swedish government agency and two intermediary actors in labour migration: employers in the information-technology industry and immigration service providers. By drawing attention to spatial shifts in migration governance such as this, new light can be shed on the ways in which the governance of migration recasts relationships between state and non-state actors.

Re-visiting the ‘black box’ of migration: state-intermediary co-production of regulatory spaces of labour migration

“…The international mobility of IT professionals is predominantly mediated by international mobility units of transnational corporations in countries of origin and destination, the human resources departments of smaller Swedish-based firms and immigration service providers. The latter, which include relocation companies, global accountancy firms and immigration lawyers, sell work permit administration services to transnational corporations as well as small-scale employers (Axelsson and Pettersson 2021). For this paper, we interviewed 21 employers and nine immigration service providers.…”

“…Interactions between state officials and pro-immigration interest groups, Freeman continues, mostly take place away from public view and with limited outside interference. Indeed, the ability to influence immigration regulations partly lies in the capacity to develop close working relationships with state officials (Axelsson and Pettersson 2021;Freeman 1995;Wright 2015). Others suggest that the business community and other organised interest groups campaign strategically in the public realm to popularise demands and exert pressure on governments into changing their labour immigration policies (e.g.…”

“…State actors also regularly invite employers and employer associations to be part of advisory committees, public consultation processes, taskforces, reference groups and a variety of informal fora where immigration policy and administration are discussed (e.g. Menz 2009; Somerville and Goodman 2010), or collaborate closely with employers on the implementation of work permit systems (Axelsson and Pettersson 2021;de Lange 2011). These spaces of public-private communication and collaboration arise around the regulation of migration because in order to manage migration, state and non-state actors often depend on each other (see e.g.…”

“…This view is increasingly challenged by work which suggests that, in the day-to-day management of labour migration, governments often depend on migration intermediaries to 'package' labour migrants in ways that make them governable (e.g. Findlay et al 2013;Goh, Wee, and Yeoh 2017;Xiang 2012), share some of the administrative burden of labour migration schemes (Axelsson and Pettersson 2021;Hernández-León 2021;Xiang and Lindquist 2014) or surveil temporary migrant workers and enforce their return (Surak 2018;Tseng and Wang 2013). However, a nuanced understanding of the regulatory roles of migration intermediaries, beyond their involvement in managing labour migration on behalf of the state is still lacking.…”

“…Based on three moments of regulatory change related to the main flows of migrant labour to the Swedish labour marketwild berry pickers, information technology (IT) professionals and restaurant workersthe analysis outlines two types of direct interaction between state actors and migration intermediaries through which the regulatory spaces of labour migration are co-produced. The first is characterised by close engagement across the state-intermediary divide; this is an engagement that enables some migration intermediaries to influence migration regulations from within (Axelsson and Pettersson 2021). The second involves attempts by migration intermediaries to establish a presence powerful enough to pressure governments into changing labour migration regulations.…”