Suchergebnisse

What is the role of non-state actors in the international politics of labour migration in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries? This paper employs a 'migration diplomacy' framework in order to examine the politics of regional mobility while interrogating the assumed centrality of the state in this process. It focuses on labour migration into the United Arab Emirates and draws on a range of primary sources in order to identify four types of non-state actors that seek to maximise their interests within the workings of Emirati migration diplomacy: public-private partnerships, namely the Tadbeer ('procurement') centres; corporations within the Emirati construction sector; business elites managing subcontracting companies; and, finally, non-governmental organisations and foreign consulting firms. The paper identifies how each of these four sets of actors pursues strategies that are able to strengthen, supplant, or undermine the state's formal migration diplomacy aims. Furthermore, the Emirati case debunks the myth of the state as a centre of power in Gulf migration management via the kafāla ('sponsorship') system. Overall, the paper demonstates how a range of non-state actors can navigate migration management policymaking, thereby underlining the complexity of Gulf migration diplomacy.

How do labor migrants serve as instruments of leverage against countries of destination across the Global South? Although international studies scholars are paying increasing attention to the interplay between power politics and cross-border mobility, scant work exists on the intricacies of South–South migration. This article expands research on migration interdependence by examining the range of strategies available to countries of origin, and the factors that determine their success. The argument put forth is two-fold. First, weaker countries of origin can use two sets of strategies to coerce stronger countries of destination, namely "restriction," the curbing of the outflow of labor migrants, or "repatriation," the forced return of labor migrants. Second, target countries' degree of compliance is determined by their migration interdependence vulnerability, with repatriation being more potent than restriction. We test this empirically by drawing on a variety of primary and secondary sources as we examine how the Philippines successfully coerced the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait between 2014 and 2021. Selected within a least likely research design, the two cases demonstrate how a weaker country of origin may use labor migration as a successful instrument of leverage against two stronger countries of destination. Overall, the article adds a missing component to existing theorization of migration interdependence, enhances existing understandings of cross-border mobility and power politics, and provides original insights into overlooked processes of South–South migration.

This paper examines the legal and policy implications of information asymmetry on foreign domestic workers employed under the Kafala sponsorship system in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Drawing from ethnographic and field-based observations in large GCC migrant destinations – including Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – we investigate the information flows and market uncertainties between five key stakeholders: labor-receiving governments, labor-sending governments, recruitment agencies (subagents), sponsors (employers), and social networks. Several factors contribute to asymmetric information: the lack of bilateral labor agreements and government policy coordination, programs between and among government entities, the absence of labor law for domestic workers, and the laissez faire approach of the labor-receiving government. These sources of asymmetric information create serious market vulnerabilities for the domestic worker population, often resulting in loss of employment and early deportation. The concluding section further outlines policy implications and areas of methodological research on GCC migration.