International politics of migration in times of 'crisis' and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic

A much-anticipated end of the COVID-19 pandemic is on the horizon. It is important to reflect on the ways in which the pandemic has impacted the international politics of migration and especially on the migration-security nexus, which is still little understood but affecting policies and population movements with future implications. How the pandemic has shaped tradeoffs between securitization of migration, health, and economic concerns in governing migration? What are the new trends emerging from the pandemic on the migration-security nexus? And how can we study these in the coming years? This Research Note features insights from scholars associated with the British International Studies Association's working group on the 'International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora'. They argue that the pandemic has exacerbated tendencies for migration control beyond reinforcing nation-state borders, namely through foregrounding 'riskification' of migration discourses and practices, adding to an earlier existing securitization of migration considered as a 'threat'. Digital controls at borders and beyond were ramped up, as were racial tropes and discrimination against migrants and mobile persons more generally. These trends deepen the restrictions on liberal freedoms during a period of global democratic backsliding, but also trigger a counter-movement where the visibility of migrants as 'key workers' and their deservingness in host societies has been enhanced, and diasporas became more connected to their countries of origin. This Research Note finds that enhanced controls, on the one side, and openings for visibility of migrants and transnational connectivity of diasporas, on the other, are worthy to study in the future as political trends per se. Yet, it would be also interesting to study them as interconnected in a dual movement of simultaneous restriction and inclusion, and in an interdependent world where the power of nation-states has been reasserted due to the pandemic, but migrant transnationalism has remained largely intact. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Migration Studies is the property of Oxford University Press / USA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Ontological Securitization of Health in Africa: The HIV/AIDS, Ebola and COVID-19 Pandemics and the Foreign Virus

Africa's security issues have suffered serious attention deficits. This article analyses why a globally accepted health security norm, such as fighting a communicable disease during a pandemic such as the COVID-19 pandemic, was, in Africa, perceived as a security threat emanating from external-foreign-actors importing a 'foreign virus' into Africa. This fear-based perception can be explained by West Africa's ontological security fears, ultimately based on its colonial past and a relationship of exploitation by the West. While this article analyses the case of COVID-19, it also explains the same process with previous epidemics, such as HIV/AIDS and EDV/Ebola.

Securitization of COVID-19 as a Security Norm: WHO Norm Entrepreneurship and Norm Cascading

In this article, we analyze the emergence of a global security norm of the COVID-19 epidemic as a threat to international security. This crisis is one of the gravest crises that humanity has experienced since the end of World War II in terms of the number of people infected and died, but also in terms of the economic consequences. Here, we provide a framework for understanding the securitization of the COVID-19 epidemic as an international norm defined and promoted by the World Health Organization as a norm entrepreneur, and cascaded down to the level of member states. We identify the actors who developed the main strategic prescriptions of the security norm and the international mechanisms that promoted the cascading of its contents throughout the international system. We further develop the notion of primary and secondary norms, which explain the striking differences amongst industrialized states with regard to the contents, scope, and implementation timeline of the various measures aiming to curb the spread of the virus. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Social Sciences (2076-0760) is the property of MDPI and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)