Scale in motion? Rethinking scalar production and border externalization

This paper signals how border externalization can inform geographical debates about scale and in turn, foster research on how scale intersects with recent forms of border and migration control. It interrogates what scales are being produced and struggled over, pointing to the contingency of scalar work in border externalization, specifically through the EU Migration Routes Strategy. Debates on scale and changing borders are worked through to arrive at the notion of “itinerant scale”, in order to highlight a very distinct spatial imaginary and implementation of border work. Instead of sitting at the edges of nation-states, staying in designated places for long, or pushing through some sort of region imagined as a buffer or frontline, borders are envisioned and designed to be mobile devices and reiterated along shifting migratory routes. This complex scalar production unfolds through a mix of policies, cartographies, surveillance infrastructures and atypical institutional agreements, reaching and acting simultaneously at local, national and regional levels, aiming at the management and contention of suspicious bodies on the move.     

More than just experts for hire: A conceptualization of the roles of consultants in public policy formulation

Consultants are increasingly a part of public policy formulation, and their policy involvement draws extensive interest in research and public debate. However, there is a gap in how we think about their formulation role: they are often conceptualized as a type of expert, while their actual interaction with and contribution to policy formulation is much more varied. This paper develops a conceptualization of consultants' formulation roles. It demonstrates that rather than just informing policy formulation, consultants take multiple roles and interact with policymaking and makers in multiple ways. Using a policy network/subsystem distinction and a substance/process distinction as the main axes for analysis, the paper develops four role categories: (1) experts and knowledge brokers, in which consultants provide policy advice and analysis; (2) seeing for the government, in which they construct a picture of the policy field; (3) legitimizers and validators, in which they provide symbolic capital to policy; and (4) channels for stakeholders' policy preferences, in which they manage deliberation and synthesize actors' policy preferences. The paper provides much-needed clarity on how consultants engage with policy formulation and policymakers and forwards our understanding of how consultants exert their policy influence.     

Riding Routes and Itinerant Borders: Autonomy of Migration and Border Externalization

Despite technological upgrading of borders at the edges of Europe, “Fortress Europe” continues to fail as an effective means of controlling irregular migration. As a consequence, European states are restructuring their border regimes by externalizing migration management to non‐EU countries beyond the border and creating new programs and policies to do so. Autonomy of Migration (AoM) offers a distinct way for thinking about border control mechanisms and goals of managing mobility. AoM does not read this off‐shoring of borders through the lens of centralized and coordinated state powers, but develops an autonomous gaze that supplements these institutional readings of apparatuses of capture with a view that takes as its starting point the ways in which border architectures, institutions, and policies interact with and react to the turbulence of migrant mobilities. By engaging current EU externalization policies, this paper illustrates the shifting relationship between border control and mobility.