Governance and Public Administration

The study focus on the role of the civil servants in the implementation process of social policies. The projects purpose is to study Swedish integration and labour market policies. Issues of how race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality and class are done in the meeting between civil servants and their clients are often absent in research on public administration. The study focuses on, from a race/ethnicity, gender, class and sexuality perspective, how labour market establishment of newly arrived Swedes are made. Empirically, the material will be gathered at institutions that are responsible for the integration of newly arrived immigrants, i.e. employment offices. The project has an intersectional approach and is theoretically framed within gender studies and ethnicity studies. The study also takes it theoretical point of departure in welfare state research and public administration studies. The methods used are participant observation, in-depth interviews and discourse analysis.

Mediation of Migration maps news on migration. We explore their typical form and content, how they are produced and what impacts they have on public opinion and politics. We further compare the Norwegian coverage of immigration with corresponding news in France and USA. The comparative part of the study provides a contrasting background for the Norwegian case, allowing a grasp both of the particular and the typical traits of the Norwegian mediated debate. Finally we examine the role of the news media in the loops of information between Diasporas in Norway and networks in sending countries of migrants, adding to the knowledge of migration flows and the globalization of information.

ADMIGOV takes seriously the principles laid out in the New York Declaration (NYD) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to study how alternative approaches to migration governance can be better designed and put into practice. Rather than proposing a top-down study of existing migration policies, ADMIGOV studies the reality of existing policies and practices on the ground to improve migration governance taking into consideration the principles of the NYD and SDGs. ADMIGOV holds an innovative and broad research design covering the whole migration ‘chain’, from entry through to exit and incorporating key issues such as labour migration, protection needs and development goals. The project includes the study of salient case-study in migration governance, including the Greek islands, Lebanon, and Turkey, to better understand the most important and most problematic processes at play. The project counts on the data of the Danish Refugee Council one of the largest datasets in the world, and aims at generating new indicators of good migration governance, helping the EU put the NYD and SDGs into practice.

Risk and uncertainty are inherent in any decision-making procedure, but while a substantial body of work on the governance of international migration focuses on challenges posed to governance systems, we know remarkably little about the impact of risk and uncertainty on: (i) the cognitive biases of actors within migration governance systems; (ii) the susceptibility of these biases to change; (iii) the relationship between cognitive bias and broader questions of systemic resilience, vulnerability and adaptation and (iv) the similarities and differences in migration governance between major world regions. Each of these is a significant gap in our knowledge of international migration governance. To address this gap this project will focus on the context of decision to ask: what are the causes and consequences of the cognitive biases concerning risk and uncertainty held by actors in migration governance systems? The project will: (i) test the causes and consequences of the ‘frames’ held by actors in migration governance systems, specify the scope for these frames to change and to analyse the likely systemic effects of change on migration governance systems in four major world regions. (ii) develop a comparative regional analysis of the micro-political foundations of migration governance and their implications for system adaptation and change. (iii) significantly advance conceptual and methodological understanding of international migration governance through the use of concepts of systemic adaptation, vulnerability and resilience that bridge behavioural theories of choice with theories of institutional and organisational change. (iv) disseminate the results effectively through a range of appropriate outlets and through engagement with a range of users of the results of this work in academia, policy-making communities, NGOs and the wider public.

ADMIGOV aims to promote an alternative migration governance model. ADMIGOV takes seriously the principles laid out in the New York Declaration (NYD) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to study how alternative approaches to migration governance can be better designed and put into practice. However, rather than proposing a top-down study of existing migration policies, ADMIGOV studies the reality of existing polices and practices on the ground to improve migration governance in line with the principles set out in the NYD and SDGs. This is the unique analytical feature of ADMIGOV. We bring together analyses of migration governance in practice and in key times and spaces and relate these analyses to the key structuring principles of migration governance as laid out in the NYD and SDGs. This is done to better understand the current gaps between principles and practices and in order to provide insights and recommendations for migration governance in the future. ADMIGOV is methodologically unique. We bring analyses from along the migration ‘chain’, from entry through to exit and incorporating key issues such as labour migration, protection needs and development goals. ADMIGOV has chosen several case studies of key times and spaces in migration governance, including the Greek islands, Lebanon, and Turkey, to better understand the most important and most problematic processes at play. Additionally, through the involvement of the Danish Refugee Council, ADMIGOV has access to possibly the largest dataset on migrants on the move today. The 4Mi data of the Danish Refugee Council will give ADMIGOV access to and help us generate more data than a single research team could normally collect. In short, ADMIGOV is designed to combine the analyses of existing policies and practices on the ground in key times and spaces with the wide- ranging 4Mi data to generate new indicators of good migration governance, helping the EU put the NYD and SDGs into practice.

In 2015, IOM developed a Migration Governance Framework (MiGOF) to help define what “well-managed migration policy” might look like at the national level. The MiGOF was welcomed by IOM’s Member States the same year. The Migration Governance Indicators (MGI) were developed to assess national frameworks, and help to operationalize the MiGOF. The MGI is a tool based on policy inputs, which offers insights on policy levers that countries can use to develop their migration governance. The MGI is not meant to rank countries on the design or implementation of migration policies, but rather to be a framework to help countries in the assessment of the comprehensiveness of their migration policies, as well as to identify gaps and areas that could be strengthened. The MGI aims to advance conversations on migration governance by clarifying what “well-governed migration” might look like in the context of SDG Target 10.7. Data collection is based on 90+ indicators grounded in the six dimensions of the Migration Governance Framework (i.e., migrant rights, whole of government approach, well-being of migrants, partnerships, mobility dimension of crises, and safe, orderly and regular migration). Each indicator refers to absence, partial or complete presence of a policy or framework. Since 2015, 50 countries have been assessed based on this indicators. A draft Migration Governance Snapshot based on the findings on analysis is then shared with the government counterparts. Countries can use the MGI as a point of departure towards clarifying what “good governance” entails in the context of migration. Additionally, the MGI—once expanded—can serve as a source of a variety of information regarding “best practices” providing countries with institutional design and policy ideas. Initially, countries can use the MGI to develop a holistic understanding of their migration governance structure and identify significant gaps or areas that need to be strengthened. Finally, the MGI methodology can be used by countries when reporting at the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) on their national efforts to achieve the SDGs.

Risk and uncertainty are inherent in any decision-making procedure, but while a substantial body of work on the governance of international migration focuses on challenges posed to governance systems, we know remarkably little about the impact of risk and uncertainty on: (i) the cognitive biases of actors within migration governance systems; (ii) the susceptibility of these biases to change; (iii) the relationship between cognitive bias and broader questions of systemic resilience, vulnerability and adaptation and (iv) the similarities and differences in migration governance between major world regions. Each of these is a significant gap in our knowledge of international migration governance. To address this gap this project will focus on the context of decision to ask: what are the causes and consequences of the cognitive biases concerning risk and uncertainty held by actors in migration governance systems? The project will: (i) test the causes and consequences of the ‘frames’ held by actors in migration governance systems, specify the scope for these frames to change and to analyse the likely systemic effects of change on migration governance systems in four major world regions. (ii) develop a comparative regional analysis of the micro-political foundations of migration governance and their implications for system adaptation and change. (iii) significantly advance conceptual and methodological understanding of international migration governance through the use of concepts of systemic adaptation, vulnerability and resilience that bridge behavioural theories of choice with theories of institutional and organisational change. (iv) disseminate the results effectively through a range of appropriate outlets and through engagement with a range of users of the results of this work in academia, policy-making communities, NGOs and the wider public.

Cybersecurity is one of today's most challenging security problems for commercial companies, NGOs, governmental institutions as well as individuals. Reaching beyond the technology focused boundaries of classical information technology (IT) security, cybersecurity includes organizational and behavioural aspects of IT systems and also needs to comply to the currently actively developing legal and regulatory framework for cybersecurity. For example, the European Union recently passed the Network and Information Security (NIS) directive that obliges member states to get in line with the EU strategy. While large corporations might have the resources to follow those developments and bring their IT infrastructure and services in line with the requirements, the burden for smaller organizations like local public administration will be substantial and the required resources might not be available. New and innovative solutions that will help local public administration to ease the burden of being in line with cybersecurity requirements are needed. For example, cooperation and coordination is one of the major aspects of the NIS and EU cybersecurity strategy. An enabling technology for cooperation and coordination is cyber situational awareness and information sharing of cyber incidents. In this project we propose a cybersecurity situational awareness solution for local public administrations that, based on an analysis of the context provides automatic incident detection and visualization, and enables information exchange with relevant national and EU level NIS authorities like CERTs. Advanced features like system self-healing based on the situational awareness technologies, and multi-lingual semantics support to account for language barriers in the EU context, are part of the solution.

La mobilité globale fait aujourd’hui partie de la texture sociale de la mondialisation et des relations internationales. Elle est à la fois une cause et une conséquence de la mondialisation et les réponses des institutions politiques nationales et internationales sont un enjeu clef de l’analyse de la gouvernance et des transformations sociales à l’échelle globale. Elle est un des points de tension de la modernité politique à l’échelle nationale et internationale. En s’intéressant tout à la fois aux organisations internationales, aux politiques migratoires nationales et régionales des Etats, aux modes d’organisation des espaces de vie des migrants et des réfugiés et aux dynamiques sociales transnationales de structuration de la mobilité, on observe le phénomène migratoire sous plusieurs angles et à différentes échelles. Les chercheurs impliqués dans ce projet ont choisi de privilégier une démarche empirique associée à un effort de systématisation qui emprunte à la science politique, à la sociologie, à l’anthropologie et à l’économie politique. Ils ont aussi choisi de lier leurs objets de recherche fondamentale à des enjeux politiques et sociaux immédiatement contemporains et à s’ancrer dans une réflexion scientifique sur l’action publique nationale et internationale, ses normes et ses principes vis-à-vis de la mobilité. Ce projet a pour vocation de donner une description précise de la mobilité et de ses dynamiques politiques et sociales, notamment en s’intéressant à l’observation empirique des pratiques des acteurs de la gouvernance de la mobilité (Etats, organisations internationales, migrants, réfugiés, réseaux). Il a pour objet d’élucider les représentations à l’œuvre dans ces pratiques, les dispositifs normatifs, idéologiques et identitaires qui les structurent. Le premier axe de ce travail concerne les pratiques et les représentations de la gestion de la mobilité en politique internationale. Il a pour enjeu la mise en questionnement de la notion de gouvernance globale de la mobilité, incluant migrations économiques et flux de refugiés. Les organisations internationales, leur interaction avec les acteurs non gouvernementaux de la politique des migrations internationales et des flux de réfugiés sont au cœur d’un dispositif politique qui est à la fois fait de discours et de pratiques. Le deuxième axe de ce projet observe les enjeux politiques de la gouvernance régionale des migrations dans deux espaces différenciés mais fortement marqué par leur contexte régional, l’Europe et le Moyen Orient. Il s’agit de déterminer la place de l’Etat dans la gouvernance de la mobilité à l’échelle régionale notamment dans le cas européen entre la fin du vingtième et le début du vingt-et-unième siècle. La « gouvernance » oscille entre intégration et « retour de l’Etat » dans la gestion des migrations internationales notamment avec la crise économique et financière, et on étudie les manifestations de cette « réaction souverainiste » sur la mobilité des personnes. Le troisième axe de ce projet s’attache à l’étude ethnographique des lieux de vie des réfugiés, les camps en ‘intéressant aux transformations sociales à l’œuvre dans ce espaces sociaux transnationaux institutionnalisés. Il s’intéresse notamment aux modes de gouvernance mise en œuvre par les acteurs humanitaires dans des contextes de conflits ou de crise et à l’autonomie (agency) des populations concernées et analyse celle-ci à travers la structuration et la matérialité des espaces de relégation et/ou confinement des réfugiés à l’échelle globale. Le quatrième axe de ce projet présente un dispositif prospectif qui vise à décrire les dispositifs contemporains les plus visibles de limitation de la mobilité –les murs et explorer des scenarii politiques d’ouverture des frontières et de libéralisation de la mobilité. Il constitue un complément et un prolongement théorique de l’ensemble des connaissances et analyses déployées dans le cadre de ce projet.

In our part of the project (Work package 6) will investigate the responses given to migration at different scales. It aims to provide an in-depth understanding of responses provided by actors ranging from urban to rural contexts, from transnational city-city collaborations to local community initiatives. Local scale is one of the first spaces where migration needs to be governed. Cities different than governments include networks of public and private sector leaders and institutions that include citizen initiatives, trade unions, private companies and universities, among others. A multi-scalar approach will be implemented by examining three different types of cases (1) The case of urban-rural development in Sweden, via international migration, (2) The case of local migration ecosystems in Northern Italy, (3) The case of Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, (4) The case of transnational collaborations and social innovations. By engaging in multi-scalar case studies, the aim is to cover both official and unofficial responses to the so called “refugee crisis”, emphasizing the role of the local authorities in facilitating (or hindering) the application of national policies on reception, redistribution and inclusion/exclusion of newcomers as well as the increasing role of communities and innovations in shaping the migration response by also showing opportunities. These areas, with the potential benefits of interdisciplinary research, will seek synergies between the following two goals; SDG Goal 9 on building resilient infrastructure as well as Goal 11 on inclusive cities. By doing so, we will inform policy making in these areas and potentially contribute to the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The MIGGOV seeks to break new ground in the analysis of international organizations (IOs) as key objects of study in the broader research field of international migration governance and of international governance more generally. The key questions are: to what extent, how and why do IOs impact upon and shape international migration governance in the absence of a global migration regime. In order to address these questions the project shifts the focus from international governance as a (changing) structure to international governors as sources of agency and to the outcomes that flow from interactions between various agents. As most international migration governance takes place under conditions of uncertainty about future migration scenarios, this project will specifically explore the issues of the production and the use of expert knowledge by IOs striving to impact upon international migration governance. The project will study the involvement of eight IOs in migration governance in Central Asia, which has been selected for analysis because it has so far escaped the attention of scholars despite evidence of multi-layered migration governance in the region. The project will specifically look at four Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan that share many similar features, but also exhibit some distinct political and socio-economic differences that make them highly relevant objects of study. The focus on Central Asia is also justified by the strategic importance that many international actors, including the EU, ascribe to the region. In addition to the Central Asian regional case study and intra-regional comparisons, the MIGGOV will produce overarching comparisons with the EU’s ‘Eastern Neighbourhood’. The project addresses topics on which the EU has called for further research in its 2013 Work Programme, namely those within activities 8.3 ‘Major trends in society and their implications’ and 8.4 ‘Europe in the World’.