Research

My doctoral dissertation, “CITIES IN ACTION: COMPARING LOCAL RESPONSES TO IRREGULAR MIGRANTS IN EUROPE” is a comparative analysis of the transformation of migration governance in terms of scale, and actors across global cities in Europe between 2015-2019, inclusive. This benchmarking research illustrates that local governments have been emerging actors in the localization of migration governance by decoupling from their national governments through a diverse set of policies and practices for irregular migrants whose presence is found unlawful by the welfare states. Although local turn of migration has received considerable scholarly attention for the last decade, I argue that transitions towards localization of migration governance depend on the presence of four key factors: (1) local autonomy that successfully advances decentralized policies for irregular migrants (2) local economy provides a ground with implementation of the policies as well as funding other like-minded actors to generate programs (3) Path dependency of local governments has greater leeway to introduce insurgent policies for irregular migrants owing to their strategies, repertoires, and experiences on the governance of migration-related diversity (4) the emergence of alliances between the local government and local civil society, as well as between local governments and other like-minded local governments, enables municipalities reducing the risk to violate national rules as well as access to transnational knowledge and information exchange. This research represents one of the first efforts systematically analyze different forms of local governance or irregular migration. Furthermore, the study theorizes local migration governance, by explaining how cities take action by desecuritizating irregular migration as opposed to its securitization at the national level.