Reframing coercive engineered migration theory: Ceuta and the Western Sahara

Álvarez-Miranda, Berta; Brey, Elisa

doi:10.1080/13629395.2023.2293417

Reframing coercive engineered migration theory: Ceuta and the Western Sahara

Álvarez-Miranda, Berta ¹
Brey, Elisa ¹

1 Department of Applied Sociology, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Revue:

Mediterranean Politics

ISSN: 1362-9395, 1743-9418

Année de publication: 2023

Pages: 1-22

Type: Article

DOI: 10.1080/13629395.2023.2293417 GOOGLE SCHOLAR Accès ouvert editor

D'autres publications dans: Mediterranean Politics

Objectifs de Développement Durable

Résumé

By opening the gates on the border to Ceuta in May 2021, Morocco explicitly engaged in coercive engineered migration (CEM) to establish a tradeoff of sovereignty claims over the Spanish exclave city and the Western Sahara territory. In this article, we test Greenhill’s theory on why stronger liberal democratic states yield to this strategy by weaker autocratic states against the public debate in Spain on how the government devolved the migrants and relinquished the future of its ex-colony in the desert, with evidence from the mass media, official documents and personal interviews. We offer an alternative conceptual model for CEM by critically recalibrating factors within her domestic account and shifting the focus to geopolitical considerations. We argue that externalization of border control has tended to blur expected differences among political regimes, reducing the risk of ideological polarization and hypocrisy costs, typical of democracies according to theory, and leaving fear of swamping of hosting resources as the main domestic explanation of successful CEM across regimes. It has embedded border control in multiple issue-linkages, increasing the leverage of countries of origin and transit in the multi-scalar international tapestry of migration diplomacy.

€ Voir financement

Information sur le financement

Financeurs

NORFACE
- 462-19-110

Références bibliographiques

10.1093/isp/eky015
Affaya, N., & Guerraoui, D. (2006). La imagen de España en Marruecos. Fundació Cidob.
Álvarez-Miranda, B. (2018). Los españoles ante la inmigración: Apuntes de Opinión Pública. Funcas.
Álvarez-Miranda, B. (2019). La prelación de la inmigración como problema del país. Panorama Social, 30, 157–170. https://www.funcas.es/articulos/la-prelacion-de-la-inmigracion-como-problema-del-pais-opinion-publica-y-encuestas-2019-n-30/
10.1162/016228803322761973
Barreñada, I. (2022). Breve historia del Sahara Occidental. Catarata.
10.20901/pm.59.2.06
10.1080/14650045.2012.660579
10.1111/anti.12148
10.1177/0969776414541136
Cassarino, J. P. (2022). An Unsettling Déjà-Vu. European Papers, 7(1), 79–85.
Cassarino J. P. & Del Sarto R. A. (2018). The governance of migration and border controls in the European-North African context. MENARA Working Papers 2018/13.
10.7557/13.1468
Castan Pinos J. (2009b). “Building fortress Europe?” Centre for international border research. Working Paper 18 .
10.1016/j.polgeo.2020.102184
10.1016/j.polgeo.2023.102911
Coller, X. (2005). Estudio de casos. Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS).
10.1080/13629390500124283
10.1111/anti.12337
10.25267/Paix_secur_int.2022.i10.1806
10.1177/0268580914537848
Ferrer-Gallardo, X. (2008a). Acrobacias fronterizas en Ceuta y Melilla. Documents d’Anàlisi Geogràfica, 51, 129–149. https://ddd.uab.cat/pub/dag/02121573n51/02121573n51p129.pdf
10.1016/j.polgeo.2007.12.004
10.1177/0969776413508766
Ferrer-Gallardo, X., & Gabrielli, L. (2018). Estados de excepción en la excepción del Estado. Icaria.
10.1080/1369183X.2020.1680115
10.1177/233150241600400402
10.1007/978-981-10-0050-8_3
10.1111/imig.12566
10.1080/03932729.2019.1670481
González Enríquez, C., & Rinken, S. (2021). La opinión pública ante la inmigración y el efecto de VOX. Análisis del Real Instituto Elcano, 33. https://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/analisis/la-opinion-publica-ante-la-inmigracion-y-el-efecto-de-vox/
10.7591/9780801458668
Greenhill K. M. (2021 June 1). Morocco ‘weaponized’ migration to punish Spain. The Washington Post .
Greenhill, K. M. (2022). When migrants become weapons. Foreign Affairs, 101(2), 155–165.
10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.103673
Guía, A. (2014). The Muslim struggle for civil rights in Spain. Sussex Academic Press.
Heath A. & Richards L. (2018). How do Europeans differ in their attitudes to immigration?. OECD Social Employment and Migration Working Papers 222 .
Heller, C., & Pezzani, L. (2016). Ebbing and flowing: The EU’s shifting practices of (non)assistance and bordering in a time of crisis. Near Futures Online, 1. https://nearfuturesonline.org/ebbing-and-flowing-the-eus-shifting-practices-of-non-assistance-and-bordering-in-a-time-of-crisis/
Hollifield, J. F. (1992). Immigrants, markets, and states: The political economy of postwar Europe. Harvard University Press.
10.5334/ujiel.322
10.25253/99.2021232.14
10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034
10.11130/jei.2007.22.4.852
10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.02.006
Korvensyrjä, A. (2017). The Valletta process and the Westphalian imaginary of migration research. Journal for Critical Migration and Border Regime Studies, 3(1), 191–204.
Lahav, G., & Guiraudon, V. (2000). Comparative perspectives on border control. In P. Andreas & T. Snyder (Eds.), The wall around the West (pp. 55–77). Rowman & Littlefield.
10.1177/0010836704047582
10.1093/poq/nfw005
10.1080/23340460.2019.1683463
Limam H. & Del Sarto R. A. (2015). Periphery under pressure: Morocco Tunisia and the European Union’s mobility partnership on migration. EUI Working Papers 2015/75 .
10.1080/14650045.2015.1025384
López Sala, A. M. (2020). Keeping up appearances. Dubious legality and migration control at the peripheral borders of Europe. In S. Carrera & M. Stefan (Eds.), Fundamental rights challenges in border controls and expulsion of irregular immigrants in the European Union (pp. 25–42). Routledge.
10.21670/ref.2006048
Martín Corrales, E. (2002). Marruecos y el colonialismo español (1859-1912). Bellaterra.
10.1111/ajps.12089
10.15581/010.22.28376
10.1080/00045608.2013.857547
10.1080/13629387.2020.1800206
10.1177/0197918319895271
Otazu, J. (2021). Los tres jaques del rey de Marruecos. Catarata.
10.1080/13629387.2011.532588
10.4000/remi.14591
Planet, A. (2002). La frontière comme ressource: le cas de Ceuta et Melilla. In J. Césari (Ed.), La Méditerranée des réseaux (pp. 267–281). Maisonneuve et Larose Française.
Ribas-Mateos, N. (2005). The Mediterranean in the age of globalization. Transaction Publishers.
Rodríguez Jiménez, J. L. (2015). Agonía, traición, huida. Crítica.
10.1080/1350176042000248089
10.1093/jrs/fex038
10.1080/13629387.2021.1917122
10.2139/ssrn.4541019
10.1080/01436597.2017.1350102
10.1111/jcms.13211
10.3751/59.4.14
10.4467/20801335PBW.21.042.15702
10.1057/s41311-018-0158-9
Zolberg, A. (1997). The great wall against China. In J. Lucassen & L. Lucassen (Eds.), Migration, migration history and history: New perspectives (pp. 111–121). Peter Lang.