The Cart before the Horse? The Coordination of Migration Policies in the Americas and the Neoliberal Economic Project of Integration

In: Review of international political economy: RIPE, Band 6, Heft 4, S. 469-493

Abstract

The coordination of migration policies is generally understood as a mechanism for improving the management of migration flows in response to new migration challenges or to pressures by public opinion in receiving countries. The analysis of the Regional Conference on Migration (RCM) offers another interpretation. Such coordination among countries of North & Central America is not so much about controlling flows as a mechanism through which specific patterns of social & spatial relations are being locked into the region. The coordination of migration policies in the RCM constitutes an effort to manage the mobility of capital & labor in an orderly manner. In addition, the coordinating effort serves to (1) attribute specific responsibilities to states, & (2) depoliticize the issue of migration. Such developments fit neatly with the neoliberal project of integration, with the imposition of particular state-society relations onto the various countries involved. 4 Tables, 47 References. Adapted from the source document.