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Complex harms of migration externalisation: EU policy ‘creep’ processes into domestic counterterrorism at the Turkey-Iran border

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Abstract

This article examines the overlap between European Union migration controls and internal counter-terror measures in the Kurdish populated region at the Turkey-Iran border. It highlights the development of an ‘externalisation creep’ in the context of this overlap. We discuss how the EU’s external measures aimed at people classed as ‘irregular migrants and smugglers’ creep into local internal border security, leading to the prioritisation, on the ground, of measures against people broadly labelled as supporting ‘terrorism’. This development has resulted in the expansion of borderwork, which is associated with unexpected border control outcomes beyond those originally intended by the EU. The article draws upon an ethnographic data collection at the Turkey-Iran border, a geographical area that has seldom featured in EU-supported border controls studies. Our analysis seeks to contribute to the academic literature on externalisation by moving away from an EU-centric perspective, and instead focusing on border governance dynamics that are situated in the local histories and domestic sites of conflict, as understood by diverse border crossing survivors. This approach allows us to foreground how EU migration externalisation co-opts domestic practices in the context of borders with pre-existing forms of insecurity, and targets migrants as well as residents.

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Notes

  1. The interviews with representatives of different EU institutions and with the Council of Europe revealed, as expected, the existence of diverging positions in the context of the external dimension of migration policies. Despite these divergences, a mainstream narrative on the idea that the externalisation of migration is the most efficient way to govern increasing numbers of migrant arrivals was common to all EU and Council of Europe policy makers interviewed.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Mercator-IPC Fellowship and colleagues from the Istanbul Policy Centre for the opportunity to conduct this research in Turkey, to the anonymous lawyers and participants in Van for our close collaboration during the data collection, and to the anonymous reviewers of this article for their excellent contribution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, 28 Bute Gardens, Glasgow, G12 8RS, UK

    Karolina Augustova

  2. Faculty of Life Sciences and Education, University of South Wales, Pontypridd, Wales, UK

    Ethem Ilbiz

  3. Department of Social Sciences, Northumbria University, 2 Sandyford Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    Helena Carrapico

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  1. Karolina Augustova
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Correspondence to Helena Carrapico.

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Augustova, K., Ilbiz, E. & Carrapico, H. Complex harms of migration externalisation: EU policy ‘creep’ processes into domestic counterterrorism at the Turkey-Iran border. J Int Relat Dev 27, 25–45 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41268-023-00319-w

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