Professor Jean-Pierre CASSARINO has published a new journal article entitled “Beyond the criminalisation of migration: A non-western perspective”

Professor Jean-Pierre CASSARINO, Senior Research Fellow in the ENP Chair of the College of Europe has published a new article entitled "Beyond the criminalisation of migration: A non-western perspective" in the International Journal of Migration and Border Studies.

Moving the debate beyond the criminalisation of international migration begins with taking seriously the measure of its cumulative effects on foreigners as well as on state-citizen relationships in all countries of migration. The drive for criminalisation has gained so much momentum in all countries of migration, be they rich or poor, democratically organised or authoritarian, conflict-ridden or in peace.

Criminalisation is not simply a name for the obvious securitisation of migration policies, or for how the latter have restricted the movement of people across borders. It is a name for a premise that gradually has come to regulate the complex relationships between states and their own citizens (be they mobile or not) as well as the organization of states’ interactions. In this connection, North African countries have learned to talk the talk of migration management and border controls while opening communicative channels with their European neighbours.

However, this article shows that, together with this process of socialisation, rules and practices transferred from abroad have been, as it were, re-appropriated while turning the socialiser (the EU and its member states) into a socialisee. In other words, European actors have become receptive to the diffusion of a counter-narrative from their North African neighbours, at the cost of making their cooperation framework more flexible with a view to addressing North African countries’ empowered agency and preferences.