Understanding narratives on EU migration control policies in West Africa: The case of the Gambia

Since the 1990s, the European Union (EU) and its Member States have intensified efforts to
strengthen migration cooperation with third countries, especially countries of migrants’ origin
and transit. The priority areas of the EU and Member States include discouraging irregular
migration to Europe, for instance, through migration information campaigns, as well as
enforcing the forced return of irregularised migrants within Europe to their countries of origin.
These policies target the cooperation of key actors, including political elite actors in third
countries, as well as ordinary citizens, particularly those seen as ‘potential migrants’ to Europe.
Despite the growing interest from the EU and Member States in controlling migration beyond
its borders, little is known about how the recipients of such migration control policies respond
to the EU and Member States demands. The central objective of this thesis is to demonstrate
how two key aspects of the EU and Member States engagement on migration control in the
Gambia—namely, return cooperation and migration information campaigns—influence the
responses of: (a) political elite actors through the politicisation of migration and (b) potential
migrants through migratory decision-making.
In this thesis, I focus on the Gambia, a small West African country that is a key priority country
for the EU and Member States external migration policies. Gambian citizens are a key target
of the EU and Member States migration deterrence communications, aimed at discouraging
potential migrants from irregularly migrating to Europe. Additionally, Gambian political elite
actors are subjected by the EU to cooperate on the deportation of irregularised Gambians in
Europe.
To analyse the responses of political elite actors and ordinary Gambian citizens towards EU
and Member States migration control efforts, this thesis relies on the pre-existing concepts of
‘elite’ and ‘vernacular’ narratives, previously used by Nick Vaughan-Williams (2021), to
demonstrate how ordinary citizens and elite actors responded to the 2015 European migrant
crisis. I argue that focusing on how both political elite actors and ordinary Gambian citizens
(potential migrants) respond to EU migration (cooperation) policies allows for a more
comprehensive understanding of the agency of third-country actors towards EU and Member
States quest to control migration. The thesis also shows how such demands influence migration
politics and policies and the migration decision-making of ordinary citizens from a Global
South perspective.
By relying on a media analysis, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions with
both political actors and ordinary citizens, the thesis presents several findings and
contributions. First, this thesis provides valuable empirical, conceptual, and theoretical insights
into how political elite actors in the Gambia respond to EU demands for cooperation on the
deportation of irregularised Gambian migrants in Europe, across two types of regimes. While
migration was not a significant political issue in the recent past, this thesis empirically
demonstrates the increasing salience and politicisation of migration, as well as diverse policy
positions and diversifying actors in response to the EU and Member States’ demands for
cooperation on deportation. In view of the regime change in 2016, the analysis shows a change
in migration politics, most especially regarding the deportation of undocumented Gambians
from Europe, and less on migration policies. The findings show that the democratic government
publicly expresses its policy position on the issue of deportation and a host of actors have
criticised the government’s policy stance regarding cooperation on deportation with the EU.
The findings reveal how Gambian political actors adopt different justification frames, including
identity-related (neo-colonial resistance and compliance frames), moral, and utilitarian frames
to justify their support for or against cooperation with the EU on deportations. I show that these
justification frames for (non-) cooperation on deportation differ depending on the type of
political regime, type of actor, and the context in which demands are made. Conceptually, and
in the context of political elite responses to EU demands on cooperation on deportation, the
thesis introduces identity-related ‘neo-colonial’ and ‘neo-compliance’ justification frames
deployed by Gambian political actors to justify their policy positions on cooperation on
deportation. Theoretically, through the analysis of political responses to the EU demands, a
typology of justification frames is built, which can serve as a tool to analyse how other third
countries subjected to EU demands on cooperation on deportation respond.
Secondly, the thesis provides empirical and theoretical insights into the responses of ordinary
citizens to EU and Member States migration control policies. It shows how potential migrants
mostly contest the negative deterrence narratives presented by the EU and Member States in
migration information campaigns by emphasising a more positive and locally dominant view
on migration and Europe, and by disagreeing with the positive messages on opportunities in
Africa as sufficient to disincentivise remigration. Whilst Gambians mostly agree with one
particular message of the EU and Member States’ migration information campaigns—dangers
of the route—they, however, argue that this does not influence their behaviour. The thesis
shows that other important factors such as the material and social rewards associated with
migration, the desire for improved quality of life, and the role of families play a more important
role in the migration decision-making of potential migrants in contrast to the influence of
migration information campaigns. Furthermore, the thesis demonstrates how an ideational
factor—predestination thinking—is deployed by potential migrants to justify their migration
decisions against the EU’s strategic communications on the dangers of the route, to prevent
irregular migration. Predestination thinking not only impacts the choice to migrate irregularly
but also influences risk evaluation and the extent of familial support received.
Overall, the findings of this thesis contribute to the literature and theories on migration politics
and policy and migration sociology, especially from non-Eurocentric perspectives. Firstly, by
shifting the focus from the North, the findings contribute to the migration politics and policies
literature by demonstrating the intermestic nature of migration policymaking in a Global South
context. It shows how political actors in a Global South context often struggle to satisfy the
needs of the citizens for domestic legitimacy and the EU whom it relies on for donor support.
This is different from Global North countries which have no obligation towards donors. The
frame analysis revealed an identity-related justification frame for non-cooperation on
deportation, thus highlighting the impact of historical path dependencies in migration politics
and governance in West Africa.
The findings from the responses of ordinary Gambian citizens contribute to the literature on
migration sociology by providing important insights into their migration narratives and
migration decision-making vis-à-vis EU migration control efforts. More concretely, the
findings from this thesis broadly contribute to the existing and evolving debates on the agency
of third-country actors vis-à-vis the EU’s migration externalisation agenda.