Final Report Summary - MIGGOV ('Knowledgeable' Governors of Uncertainty?<br/>International Organisations in the Absence of a Global Migration Regime) MIGGOV – PROJECT SUMMARY MIGGOV aimed to break new ground in the analysis of international organizations (IOs) as key objects of study in the broader research field of migration governance and of global governance more generally. The project also aimed to analyse Central Asia – a region that has experienced large migration flows, but has not been to the fore in analyses of global migration governance. Key Research Objectives:(1) To overcome the existing academic emphasis on international structure and instead prioritize the agency of international organizations in global migration governance. (2) To ask what IOs deploy to impact migration governance. (3) To shift the predominant scholarly focus from the study of how ‘objective’ migration challenges influence migration polices to the study of production and use of expert knowledge by IOs. (4) To enrich the studies of international migration governance through comparative analysis of the ways in which various international migration governors compete in the production of knowledge and in influencing migration governance outcomes in Central Asia. (5) To construct a new typology of IOs and relate it to existing theories on global governance. Key training objectives (career development of the fellow):(1) Improvement of scientific expertise and research skills. (2) Enhancement of project management skills and acquisition of complementary competences on substantive, organizational, and financial aspects of project management. (3) Development of publication strategy and outreach activities. Key knowledge transfer/ dissemination objectives:(1) Publication of a monograph with a leading publishing house and articles in leading international peer-reviewed journals. (2) Launching of a project website. (3) Communication and dissemination of the research results with relevant stakeholders, such as IOs, governmental officials of large international donors, local NGOs, media. (4) Promotion of governors-oriented research programme among scholars in the EU and beyond. (5) Developing contacts with colleagues from other UK universities and cooperation with leading research institutes and think tanks dealing project-related issues. (6) Teaching a module integrating project results at the University of Sheffield.Summary of the work performed since the beginning of the project:Research: The fellow went on a number of research trips to Moscow (Russia), Astana and Almaty (Kazakhstan), Dushanbe (Tajikistan), Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Brussels (Belgium). This resulted in a significant number of interviews carried out with staff of several international organisations selected for the project (IOM, ICMPD, the EU, OSCE, IFRCRCS, UN Women, UNODC, the World Bank, ACTED) as well as with staff of UNHCR, UNICEF, UNDP, state civil servants and various independent experts on migration issues in Central Asia and Russia. The fellow also participated in several stakeholder meetings at various locations both as a passive observer (for project data collection) and as an invited speaker (to disseminate research results). The fellow conducted important desk research, including the study of founding and mission documents, communications and research publications of the relevant international organisations. The fellow gathered and analysed rich data on migration-related projects sponsored and/or implemented by various international organisations in Central Asia, as well as on local and international experts involved in these projects. Dissemination: The fellow has presented research results at more than twenty international academic conferences and workshops, as well as at five stakeholder seminars in the EU, the USA, Central Asia and Russia. Moreover, the fellow has taught a module on global migration politics, integrating MIGGOV research results, at the Department of Politics (University of Sheffield, UK). The project has already resulted in seven publications that appeared as individual or co-authored book chapters and journal articles, one more individual article is currently under review, two more co-authored articles are being prepared for submission to leading international peer-reviewed journals. The book contract has been signed with Palgrave and the final manuscript of the book "International Organisations and Migration Governance: Migration Policies in Central Asia" based on MIGGOV project will be submitted to the publishing house in August 2016. The project website: http://olegkorneev.net/miggov/ Main research results and their potential scholarly and societal impact: The project’s results can advance theoretical and empirical work on migration governance and global governance more generally. Beyond the previous scholarly and policy discussions of global migration governance mostly focusing on the phenomenon of governance as a structure, this project has examined agents of authority and change. MIGGOV has developed the concept of global migration governors and emphasized the need to develop new understandings by focusing specifically on one category of governors that are involved in processes of transformation of migration policies all over the world – IOs. The project, thus, has set a new research agenda for further research and policy-oriented debates about the role of IOs in global migration governance. More specifically, the project has argued that attention of both scholars and policy-makers should be directed towards multiple activities of various referent and non-referent IOs generating and sustaining new governing practices in the field of migration. The role of many non-referent IOs involved in migration governance is often unnoticed. The project has shown the significance of the relationships built among these various governors linked to specific aspects of migration policies or to combinations of these policies. MIGGOV has demonstrated that most global migration governance takes place under conditions of uncertainty about future migration scenarios and has specifically explored the issues of the production and the use of expert knowledge by IOs striving to influence migration governance. Explorations of IOs’ reliance on legitimacy, knowledge, expertise, as well as material resources can provide us with important contextualised insights on migration governance outcomes. Furthermore, the project has shown that discussions of global migration governance mostly disregard local dynamics and that attention to the role of IOs on the ground can help correcting this mistake. Simultaneously with growing regionalisation and fragmentation of migration governance, we are now witnessing parallel diffusion of approaches and best practices due to IOs’ global involvement. Therefore, by closely examining “local” activities of IOs and comparing them with IOs’ “global” initiatives, we can understand how IOs impact on global migration governance bottom-up through their contribution to convergence of migration governance in various regions of the world. Finally, the project has shown that in the absence of an overarching global migration regime, international norms vary depending on those IOs – governors – that actually transport, transfer and translate them to the local reality. This diversity of governors and of the ideas that they promote has its negative externalities. Multiple migration governors, significant overlaps and contradictions in their activities, the lack of proper and sustainable coordination, the growth of competition, and, finally, divergent governance agendas promoted by IOs create multiple – often divergent – understandings of migration governance standards and best practices among recipient governments. Multiple governors contribute to the emergence of multiple versions of global migration governance. In policy terms, this might be a major challenge for development of coherent and sustainable approaches to migration governance around the world. However, it can also be a way to escape the need to follow the way of universal agreements based on the lowest common denominator.Results of this research can benefit the following target groups:(1) academic users doing research on international/global governance, migration politics and policy, international organizations (IOs), political production and use of expert knowledge, the European Union, Eastern Europe and Central Asia by: overcoming the existing academic emphasis on international structure and instead prioritize the agency of IOs; answering the neglected question of how international migration governors articulate their activities and strengthen their positions in the field; uncovering the issues of production, use and dissemination of expert knowledge by IOs. (2) major international development donors (individual states, such as the UK, and regional organizations, such as the EU) and IOs dealing with migration issues by providing them with insights on pitfalls in the design and implementation of migration governance/management projects and on the major problems and opportunities of international coordination/cooperation in the field. (3) local actors in developing countries of Central Asia (government officials, staff of local NGOs, academics) by increasing their access to knowledge. Beyond the immediate research results and their dissemination, the implementation of the MIGGOV project has increased European competitiveness and produced long-term synergies thanks to the sustainable cooperation established between the fellow and his colleagues in the UK, other EU Member States and non-EU universities and research centres.MIGGOV project website: http://olegkorneev.net/miggov/
