Paper Titles & Abstracts

Over the last fifteen years there has been an almost exponential growth in the number of international initiatives aiming to deal with global migration 'challenges' in the absence of a global migration regime. Many 'old' and 'new' international donors - mostly individual states, but also such regional actors as the European Union (EU) - have paid closer attention to migration-related issues in various regions, whereas many international organisations (IOs) - even those that do not necessarily have any specific migration-related focus - have become increasingly involved in the governance of migration all over the world. The paper asks how, why and with what effects international organisations (IOs) impact upon international migration governance in Central Asia in the absence of a global migration regime? The core idea informing this project relates to the conceptualisation of international governors as: 'authorities who exercise power across borders for purposes of affecting policy. Governors thus create issues, set agendas, establish and implement rules or programmes, and evaluate and/or adjudicate outcomes'. These activities contribute to global governance, which is taken to denote a complex structure of power relations between various governors (states, IOs, NGOs, etc) seeking to impact on migration policy-making either globally or regionally, which is secured mostly by influencing governments in destination and transit countries. Consequently, the project is focused on the outcomes that flow from interactions between various agents and their capacity to affect the type and form of migration policy pursued in four Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. To achieve its objectives, the project will study involvement by eight IOs in migration governance in the four case countries. One of the selected IOs is the EU - a leading development donor in Central Asia whose coordinating role seems to be crucial for success of migration-related initiatives in the region.