The transnational state and migration: Reach, flows and Policies

Thomas Lacroix (1)

1 CERI - Centre de recherches internationales (Sciences Po, CNRS)

For long, state building has been addressed as the expression of an exclusive power over a portion of space and population. In recent years, the scholarship moved away from such a conception by regarding state building as an assemblage of multi-scalar public and private actors, beneath and beyond its territorial borders. This paper adds to this conversation by focusing on the way states transform as they engage with migration-induced transnational flows. This paper defines the transnational migration state as the set of policies, concepts and institutions designed to make the most of “profitable” migration-related flows (of people, money, ideas, etc.) while filtering out unwanted ones. Next to the national-level administrations in charge of the management of human, financial and immaterial flows, states seek to extend their reach by rescaling their engagement and relying on a range of private and civil society actors, including local authorities. This paper is a theoretical contribution to the debate on state reconfiguration in a world of globalised migration. It distinguishes and conceptualises two types of migration-related transnational migration states: emigration and immigration states tackling incoming and outgoing flows respectively.

Mots clés: migrations; transnational

Domaines: Science politique

Thomas Lacroix. The transnational state and migration: Reach, flows and Policies. Political Geography, 2022, 94 (April 2022), ⟨10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102571⟩. ⟨hal-03519503⟩