Abstract
Migration was prominently set on West African political agendas with Europe’s increasing pressure for cooperation since the 2000s. Notwithstanding, we have hardly any insights about how politicized migration is in that region, how West African policymakers frame migration and why. Relying on newspaper data, we analyse the politicization and framing of migration in the Gambia from 2009 to 2020. This small West African state with very high emigration to Europe is a good case study to verify the so-called ‘regime effect’ in migration policymaking because it underwent a democratic transition in 2016. The analysis shows that the transition to democracy did not lead so much to a policy change, but to a change of migration politics on the most salient sub-issue: cooperation on forced return with migrant-receiving states. We show that democratization led to a clear multiplication of national and international claims-makers on this topic, polarizing policy positions for and against cooperation, and a diversification of justification frames. The paper shows how democratic policymakers in the Global South, differently from autocracies or Western democratic states, struggle with creative and diversifying justification frames to cater the needs of both international donors and electorates.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 638-657 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Territory, Politics, Governance |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Given the high rate of emigration from the Gambia, remittances constitute a substantial part of gross domestic product (GDP; 22%) (IFAD, ) and a more important source than overseas development assistance (ODA; 18%, also in 2017) (World Bank, ). The Gambia is the second country in Africa with the highest reliance on remittances for GDP, just after Liberia (31%) (IFAD, ). These remittances are used to feed families, start businesses and support community-based initiatives. After the 2016 regime change, there was a significant increase in financial support from the EU to the Gambia. As a result of the revived policy and political dialogue between the EU and the Gambia, the EU has disbursed development aid worth €77 million in grant financial assistance to the Gambia to support reforms initiatives of the new government. During the last years of the previous autocratic regime, the aid flow was very low due to the sour relationship with the EU. ODA by EU institutions to the Gambia increased by more than 700% between the last year of the autocratic regime and the first year of the democratic regime (OECD, ).
Funding Information:
The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their very thoughtful and constructive comments. They also acknowledge the previous feedback received from the editors of this special issue, from Amanda Bisong and the participants at the conference Governing Migration outside ‘Fortress Europe’, University of Cambridge, UK, 16–17 September 2019.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Copyright:
Copyright 2023 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.