CALL FOR PAPERS – 2023 ECPR General Conference

PANEL: Friends, foes or both? Civil society actors and city governments in the battleground of EU migration policy

Panel chairs: Chiara Milan & Federico Alagna, Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy

 

Panel proposal for Section ‘International Migration: Actors, Policies, and Practices’ endorsed by the ECPR SG Migration and Ethnicity

Over the last few years, the role played by civil society actors (CSAs) and city governments in EU migration governance has been increasingly discussed, in both academic research and policy fora.
Building upon a flourishing literature on the topic, this panel aims to explore the relationship between these two social and political actors. In particular, acknowledging that their interaction can range from full cooperation to overt antagonism, we intend to cast light on the factors that explain the different types of relationship between CSAs and cities, and to explore the impact that the interplay between the two has in the field of migration governance.
We therefore welcome contributions that address questions such as: Which exogenous and/or endogenous conditions create favourable opportunities for cooperation between civil society and municipal actors? Which conditions are more conducive to contentious and confrontational interaction? Which factors contribute to generating an impact of said actors on migration governance? In addressing such questions, we are particularly interested in contributions that explore the role of migration politicisation, party politics, border proximity and policy arenas.
Lying at the intersection of migration, social movement and urban studies, this panel welcomes both theoretical and empirical contributions from the wide spectrum of the social and political sciences, and which adopt diverse methodological approaches. By looking at the relationship between CSAs and city governments from different analytical and methodological angles, we aim to disentangle the complex role that civil society and municipal actors play in the battleground of EU migration policy.

 

You can contact the panel chairs (chiara.milan@sns.it, federico.alagna@sns.it) for further information and/or to submit an abstract (max 500 words).

 

Deadline: 24 February 2023