Globalisation and the Reconstitution of Normative and Legal Frameworks
This stream addresses policy challenges brought about by the globalisation, EU enlargement, changing governance of migration and related flexibilization of labour markets and the consequential implications for labour standards. It examines regulatory and normative discourses of migration management at one level, and the empirical and policy outcomes of processes of globalization on the European labour market on the other. In the context of the new peripheries of Europe, both in the former communist countries now within the EU and those on its doorstep, of particular interest is the development of inclusive agendas that promote labour rights and collective forms of representation at workplace level thus securing decent work.
Stream leader: Associate Professor Branka Likic-Brboric
Active projects
Democratizing global migration governance (MI-GLOBE)
Branka Likic-Brboric, Professor
The aim of the project (MI-GLOBE) is to investigate the development of an emerging global governance of migration (GGM) and the space, role, strategies, alliance making, and impact of a composite transnational civil society organisation (TCSOs) in pushing for an accountable rights-based approach to migration. In 2006 UN initiated a High Level Dialogue (UN-HLD) on International Migration and Development, and in 2007 the Global Forum on migration and development (GFMD).
Against the background of a critical review of the UN-HLD, GFMD meetings (2007- 2021), the factoring of migration into 2030 UN Development Agenda and the adoption of the UN Global Compacts for Migration (GCM), the research team will follow and analyse:
a) Global governance policy framing, focusing, on principal positions on and conflicts between with business-friendly migration management approach and the rights-based GGM;
b) Processes of deliberation, conflict mitigation and consensus making between governments, multilateral organisations and TCSOs, business actors within global and regional settings;
c) TCOs mobilisation, internal negotiations, strategies to challenge the marginalization of a rights-based GGM.
Finished Projects
Calculating Migration
As a consequence of the increasing instability and uncertainty around migrationpatterns, and sometimes populist fears about border control in Europe, governments increasingly turn to new information infrastructures, sources of digital data and forms of analysis like predictive algorithms.We ask: what are the implications of us in algorithms as redistribution keys for migrants? Drawing on the interdisciplinary convergences between Migration Studies and Science and Technology Studies, the aim of this project is to follow the implementation of one particular algorithm, developed as a pilot project by the Migration Agency in order to increase statistical precision of predicting migration to Sweden. Using a multisited ethnography, we also trace its connections with databases available in institutions across Germany to understand how algorithms are produced, implemented and received by different national and transnational institutions and actors(developers, case-managers, migrants, policymakers).This proposal seeks to reveal coordinations mediated by algorithms indifferent locations to understand how integration policies depend on information infrastructures and institutional processes.
Politics of Precarity
Carl-Ulrik Schierup, Professor
Politics of Precarity: Migrant Conditions, Struggles and Experiences
Labour Rights as Human Rights?
Carl-Ulrik Schierup, Professor
Rationale
The overall purpose of thi conference wasto reflect on knowledge and promote social dialogue on the role of labour unions and other organisations of civil society in the global governance of migration. These issues were discussed against the background of labour market restructuring and emerging international norms pertaining to labour rights as human rights. The conference was organised so as to systematipromote exchange of perspectives between leading scholars and representatives of international organisations, labour unions and activists in other civil society organisations on questions of migration, ‘decent work’ and global governance. Conference participants investigated jointly and elaborated on policy alternatives for promoting migrants’, citizens’, and labour rights, as well as conditions for equitable international coordination and a more inclusive role for civil society.
The conference was organised by the Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO), Linköping University and the International Network for Migration and Development (INMD) in collaboration with the Swedish UNESCO-MOST Committee, Norrköping May 30-June 1st, 2012
Lost in Mobility?
This thesis seeks to make both theoretical and empirical contributions to the understanding of intra-EU mobility, with a focus on labour migration from Lithuania to Sweden. The thesis aims to help to explain the dynamics and individual decision-making behind mass labour emigration from the Baltic states, its socioeconomic consequences and policy responses.
The dissertation shows that the consequences of the neoliberal policies of the post-communist and post-crisis transformations, together with the construction of formal migration channels after EU accession, constitute various migrant categories. Individual strategies of actively looking for channels to exit and enter, combining them in different ways at various points of the migratory process and establishing informal social networks are re-constituting who can be and who is a migrant. Furthermore, following the economic crisis and austerity measures, the decision to emigrate extends beyond individual survival strategies, instead becoming bound to an individual’s perception of the (ine)quality of life and pursuit of a better quality of life for oneself and one’s family across time and in different places.
Seasonal Migrant Workers in Sweden
Nedzad Mesic, Associate Professor
Seasonal Migrant Workers in Sweden: Contingents of the new austeriat
In the current era of austerity free movement of labour has produced an ongoing but also contingent flow of migrant labour, an austeriat, moving from poorer crisis-hit regions of Europe to those countries such as Sweden where the crisis has been less severe. This project describes the working and living experiences of Bulgarian Roma berry pickers in Sweden. It argues that, in the context of a previously well-regulated labour market, an erosion of labour standards based on the exploitation of seasonal unskilled labour migrants from Bulgaria is occurring in the Swedish berry industry, in turn posing challenges for labour market actors and regulatory authorities. The examines what might be appropriate European and national trade union responses and those of civil society to the issues of labour precariousness which have emerged.
Globalisation and the Governance of Migration
Carl-Ulrik Schierup, Professor
MIGLINK is a Swedish-Mexican-Turkish Research Links consortium specialised on migration and development. MIGLINK aims to
examine the development of an incipient global governance framework for migration with a focus on the role of civil society.
Policy Governance
Maritta Soininen, Professor, Guest researcher
This project addresses the question of the interplay between norm building processes and form of policy governance. How do different governance legacies affect the way the antidiscrimination legislation or its requirements/arguments are used in/to motivate policies/policy measures, and which is the relative role of different societal actors/actor constellations – social partners, private sector actors and state agencies, – in promoting the mainstreaming of this legislation?
The quest for 'fair globalization' and a 'decent work agenda'
Branka Likic-Brboric, Professor
The research in this project critically analyses the on-going configuration of global and regional migration regimes within the framework of multilevel global governance. The main objective is to survey international institutional arrangements for core labor standards and migrant workers? rights and to explore their significance for migration management within the ‘asymmetric’ global governance, as well as their impact on the current trajectory of global and regional political economies. Various studies within the project trace the development of a ‘social dimension’ of globalization and the articulation of an inclusive, human rights-based policy approach to migration management. The focus is on the ILO?s reformulation of social justice goals in terms of ‘decent work’ for all workers, including especially those working in the informal economy. The identification of the main multinational, state and non-state actors, their discourses and strategies for the promotion of global social justice, in particular the role of the EU is examined. Since 2010 participants in this project have followed and analysed the UN High Level Dialogue on Migration, related Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) and the role of global civil society actors in this process, leading to MIGLINK, a collaborative research project with Ankara University (Turkey) and University of Zacatecas Mexico).
Trade Unions, Transnational Solidarity and Ethnic Divisions
Branka Likic-Brboric, Professor
The research project addresses the EU’s regional approach to support countries in the Western Balkans in their progress towards EU membership. It focuses on the social reconstruction in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia and the regional dialogue on social and employment policies within the Bucharest process. The study investigates local and national trade unions strategies to challenge downward pressure on labour rights and standards brought about by the implementation of a neoliberal model of reconstruction. It analyses the counter-influence of European social dimension as well as practices of the international organizations such as the UNDP, ILO and International Trade Unions Confederation (ITUC) and civil society organizations on the development of ‘transethnic’ regional solidarities. It also examines the forms of labour collaboration necessary to counterbalance hostile employers and governments. The main question concerns the efficacy of EU support for social dialogue and the implementation of the ILO ‘decent work agenda’ in empowering trade unions in their struggle for labour rights and standards in post-conflict former Yugoslavia. The issue is especially pertinent considering the wider study of post-conflict societies, marked by social fragmentation, ethnic divisions, political clientelism, poverty, informal economy and migration pressures.
Participation of Inhabitants versus Security Politics
My research project lies in the framework of the restructuring of the states sovereignty in Europe and attempts to analyse the consequences of a set of reforms implemented in social and urban policies. The methods developed through the Local Development Agreements in Sweden as well as the so-called City Policy in France (Politique de la ville) promote new territorial approaches in deprived areas. This new category of public action includes a strategic management, which is most of the time based on public and private partnerships and a coordination of plans in various fields such as housing, education, safety, health and economic development.
In my opinion, the development methods implemented in deprived areas have to be questioned. In general terms, the co-existence of a policy that emphasises safety and one that aim at the involvement of the inhabitants leads to a paradoxical situation in the definition and management of urban development projects. How can one in fact articulate two political directions where one has its object to control and the other to involve a population?
Posted Workers Employment Rights (PostER)
Charles Woolfson, Professor Emeritus
The collaborative PostER project funded by European Commission DG Employment examines the working and living conditions of posted workers in several key sectors to which workers are frequently posted between countries. Little is known of the actual experience of posted workers. Using academic researchers in five EU member states, PostER will gather and disseminate information on national practices related to posted workers? knowledge of employment rights and their enforcement, on the extent of the provision of information to stakeholders and on the potential application of sanctions. PostER focuses on posted workers in Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden and the UK. It uses varied methodologies including desk research and interviews with 60 posted workers and 25 stakeholders (including social partners and enforcement agencies). Photographic evidence on workplaces using posted workers will be collected for display on the project website and in the report. PostER will conclude with the launch of a final report at a conference for stakeholders from the five countries and from European agencies.
Trade unions, globalization and transnational solidarity
The network aims to create an intellectual forum for scientific discussion and criticism, and research initiatives on issues concerning trade unions, globalization and transnational solidarity.
By bringing together researchers from different disciplines and scattered between Universities, the network aims to develop theoretical understanding of the trade union movement’s challenges in a social landscape in change, characterized by regionalization and internationalization of production regimes. Within the framework the nework pays particular attention to cases of union cooperation across national borders. The network brings together research on gender, ethnicity and class linked to transnational trade union solidarity. The empirical focus is on transnational trade union cooperation in near areas (the Nordic /Baltic region), regional (EU / Europe) and global (North-South). In addition to a common theoretical focus, the network is aims to coordinate and develop the research and form the basis for initiation of new research. Finally, the network aims to enable cooperation with other international network of researchers focusing on similar research.
Trade union renewal and social dialogue in post-communism
Charles Woolfson, Professor Emeritus
This project continues a key theme of Charles Woolfson’s European Commission Marie Curie Chair Excellence Award (2004-2007) in the Baltic states – social dialogue and trade union renewal in the post-communist states. The Baltic states are among the most open new market economies and their transformation from Soviet republics to new European Union member states reveals many of the problems of European integration, not least the development of employee representational rights in the workplaces. This project comparatively examines the reasons for the very low levels of union membership and the rather weak structures of social dialogue which exist both nationally, and at workplaces in the Baltic countries. Its key findings so far are that the difficulties facing trade union renewal have as much to do with the pathway of “illusory corporatism” pursued since independence from the Soviet Union, as with the actual negative legacy of pro-regime trade unions in the previous era.
Labour Standards in the new EU member states
Charles Woolfson, Professor Emeritus
This project continues a key theme of Charles Woolfson:s European Commission Marie Curie Chair Excellence Award (2004-2007) in the Baltic states i.e., labour standards, decent work in the form of regularised employment relations, access to training, and the character of the working environment in terms of occupational health and safety in the post-communist states. It explores the difficulties in securing regulated labour standards, as against ongoing counter-tendencies towards the informalisation of employment relations. It also asks how these labour standards are changing in the context of European Union enlargement and what empirical evidence there is of the integrative impacts of European directives and regulations on working life and work environment in the new member states ie., convergence or divergence.
Forced Labour in Sweden: The case of migrant berry pickers
Charles Woolfson, Professor Emeritus
This project is part of a comparative international study commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, UK, and led by the Working Lives Research Institute of London Metropolitan University. It involves researchers in a number of European countries including UK, France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Latvia, Poland, Spain and Sweden. The project examines in each, the forms and extent of forced labour, the legislative and policy contexts, and opportunities for those subject to forced labour to seek redress through the civil or criminal law, local authorities or government agencies, NGOs, trade unions or other civil society actors. Case studies are illustrated with examples of good or innovative practice in securing redress.