1182889 ABSXXX10.1177/00027642231182889American Behavioral ScientistCantat et al. research-article2023 Article Migration as Crisis American Behavioral Scientist 1–23 © 2023 SAGE Publications Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642231182889 DOI: 10.1177/00027642231182889 journals.sagepub.com/home/abs Céline Cantat1, Antoine Pécoud2, and Hélène Thiollet3 Abstract Over the past decades, and across different contexts worldwide, migration has become inseparable from a narrative of crisis. This article analyses the connection between migration and crisis. It proposes a migration as crisis framework, designed to understand and analyze the emergence of this specific perception of migration, on the basis of an interplay between social “subjective” constructions of reality and “objective” migration dynamics. Migration as crisis rests upon a fragmented, changing, and contested assemblage of events, representations, and practices, which in turn call for specific ways of governing migration. The link between migration and crisis can be activated or not, and may or may not be correlated with empirical realities. By engaging with migration as crisis (rather than migration crisis), the article denaturalizes and historicizes the relationship between migration and crisis, and unpacks the processes through which key actors (including media, policymakers, civil society, and academics) frame migration as such. Keywords migration crisis, migration governance, Europe Introduction Over the past decades, migration has become inseparable from a narrative of crisis. The Mediterranean region, in particular, is associated with an ongoing migration (or refugee) crisis, with thousands of people trying to escape their country and dying on their way to Europe. Elsewhere in the world, the notion of migration crisis has long been used in the context of irregular migration at the United States’ southern border, while crisis and migration also characterize the situation of Syrians in Turkey, Lebanon 1 Paris School of International Affairs & Institut Convergences Migrations, Sciences Po, Paris, France Institut Convergences Migrations & University of Sorbonne Paris Nord, Villetaneuse, France 3 Institut Convergences Migrations & CNRS CERI Sciences Po, Paris, France 2 Corresponding Author: Antoine Pécoud, University of Sorbonne Paris Nord, 99 Avenue J-B Clement, UFR DSPS, Villetaneuse 93430, France. Email: antoine.pecoud@univ-paris13.fr 2 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0) or Jordan, or of Venezuelans in South America, for example. Despite the supposed temporariness associated with the notion, history shows that certain crises seem to be never ending: the long-lasting plights of Palestinians in the Middle East (since the 1950s) and of the Afghans in Iran and Pakistan (since the 1970s) illustrate the oxymoronic normality of such contexts of crises, in which conflicts, human mobility, and humanitarian challenges are deeply intertwined. The relationship between migration and crisis is complex. On the one hand, crises of different natures—including conflicts, environmental degradation, economic meltdowns, regime changes, or pandemics—push people to leave their country. On the other hand, and whatever their causes, certain migration patterns lead to situations of crisis in receiving regions, as they have become associated with sensitive issues such as security and border governance, ethnic/cultural identity and integration, or socioeconomic challenges (Martin et al., 2013). This has gone so far that, at times, migration seems to be perceived as the main cause behind all kinds of social, economic, and political difficulties—and even as “the” biggest problem in certain receiving societies. Yet, to make the migration–crisis relationship further complex, crises also arise as a consequence of states’ strategies to govern migration. Governments in the Global North, for instance, want to prevent migration and therefore close legal migration channels. But in so doing, they fuel unauthorized migration, which in turn creates political and humanitarian crises—because states are perceived as unable to control their borders, and because irregular migration exposes migrants and refugees to all kinds of abuses throughout their journey and inside destination countries. This makes for self-nurturing dynamics: crises in origin regions provoke migration; migration makes for crises in receiving countries; and states misgovern the entire process in a way that exacerbates crises. But this is only one side of the coin. In other situations, migration is indeed completely disconnected from a crisis lens. This is the case with skilled migration or student migration, for example, which are generally viewed as unproblematic. This is also the case with large segments of unskilled and temporary labor migration. This is not to say that such migration patterns go without problems: labor migration can provoke a loss of skills in origin countries (the so-called “brain drain”) and lead to abuses and labor exploitation. While not systematic, these negative outcomes could also be called “crises.” Somehow they are not framed as such. Even in certain contexts of conflicts and massive displacements across borders, the notion of migration or asylum crisis is oddly absent from the mainstream discourses and policy strategies—making for situations of “non-crisis.” The clearest example is probably the arrival of millions of Ukrainians in Europe as of 2022, after the invasion of their country by Russia. The European Union (EU) activated a Council Directive1 to grant them immediate temporary protection, and to allow them to move within Europe—thereby sticking to a normal legal framework. This contributed to deflating the potential political crisis, in a dramatic contrast with the crisis approach that characterized the arrivals of Syrians as of 2015. To make sense of the complex, and sometimes contradictory, interplays between migration and crisis, this article develops a migration as crisis framework. The key Cantat et al. 3 assumption is that the relationship between migration and crisis is neither natural nor straightforward, but contingent and multifaceted. It requires an interaction between “objective” migration dynamics and the “subjective” ways in which these dynamics are perceived and constructed. This calls for understanding the role of media, political, social, and academic actors, the nature of the discourses they elaborate, and their impact on the perceptions of migration. This also calls for looking at the states’ strategies and at the politics of labeling, because representing migration as a crisis both draws upon and justifies certain ways of governing it. Migration as crisis is thus the product of an assemblage of events, discourses/representations, and practices. Moreover, whereas migration crisis tends to equate migration with crisis in a somewhat mechanical or automatic manner, the migration as crisis approach builds upon the constructivist assumption that reality can be apprehended in different ways, by different actors, and according to different interests. The relationship between migration and crisis then appears as a specific way of bringing together very different migration realities worldwide and to construct, on that basis, a specific representation that is both pervasive and contingent. It follows that, when migration flows occur, the “migration crisis” approach is not always activated, and that it may not be systematically correlated with reality (e.g., in terms of the volume of migration flows). The migration as crisis framework thus offers a constructivist, yet empirically grounded, approach as to why certain patterns of migration (but not all) are crisis producers, and how, when, and why they become apprehended through a predominantly “crisis” lens. By speaking of migration as crisis, we aim at reconciling three core and interrelated dimensions. Firstly, the empirical realities of migration flows, which vary across space and time, and which may be more or less acute, chaotic, intense, fast, massive, and so on. Secondly, the representations of migration that are born out of different political, media, or academic discourses, by different actors. And thirdly the governance of migration, and the ways in which policymaking builds upon—and nurtures— the association between migration and crisis. All three dimensions are deeply imbricated: events change policies and representations; representations and policies fuel each other; and policies also influence events. With an empirical focus on Europe, our objective, therefore, is neither to forgo the concept of “migration crisis” altogether by arguing that migration flows do not make for a “real” crisis, nor to evaluate which migratory episodes would indeed deserve being considered as a crisis (in terms of their volume, consequences, etc). Rather, we critically interrogate the way in which different episodes have been progressively constructed as disruptive “crises” and the impacts that such a construction has on dominant political interpretations of migration. By analyzing migration as crisis, we also draw on research about other types of crisis and crisis politics. Roitman (2014), for example, analyses the 2008 financial crisis as a narrative device that justifies extraordinary measures, or extraordinary political practices. Following Dahinden (2016), such an approach is useful to “de-migranticise” migration studies, and to bridge the gap between migration-focused research and broader social theories of crisis. 4 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0) This article introduces a special issue2 on migration as crisis, and it is structured in the following way. We first provide a background overview of some of the key works and concepts that have paved the way for current analyses of the migration crisis. We then turn to the empirical developments in Europe, to highlight a number of situations that have, since the 90s, illustrated the relationship between migration and crisis. In the next section, we provide a brief discourse analysis of media and scholarly productions, to show how the notion of migration crisis has emerged around 2014–2015. The fourth and final section examines three interrelated issues raised in the migration as crisis framework: who is concerned (with a particular focus on the refugee/migrant distinction), what is a migration crisis (with an analysis of the respective weight of security versus humanitarian factors in defining a crisis), and why crises happen (with the tensions between external and internal reasons, or between factors situated outside or inside receiving countries). Migration, Crises, Securitization, and Moral Panic The association between migration and crisis is not new. It builds upon a long history of migrant/refugee movements and political crises, across changing geopolitical environments. This section provides a short overview of the key works and concepts that underlie the migration as crisis framework. In 1989, Zolberg and colleagues identified three moments in the history of refugee crises in the 20th century (Zolberg et al., 1989). The first is the period between the two World Wars, in a context characterized by the fall of empires and the construction of nation-states. The second concerns the aftermath of World War 2, with massive displacements taking place in the wake of the conflict and the genocide. The third crisis started in the 1950s and was mainly connected to geopolitical changes surrounding the end of colonialism and the creation of independent states in the Global South. While most of the migration took place within the Global South, this also led to South–North migration (also because of the need for foreign labor in the Global North), and to the permanent settlement of refugees and migrants in Europe from the mid-20th century up until today. One of the consequences of this last crisis was that issues surrounding migrants and refugees in Europe became increasingly associated with non-Western countries, and therefore with other issues such as (under)development, conflicts, and global geopolitics in a Cold War era. This changed the political salience of migrants’ and refugees’ presence, as mobility from the Global South was thought to be different from earlier waves of Europeans on the move. Policy wise, this prompted the elaboration and institutionalization of asylum and migration policies. Academic research reacted, sometimes in a somewhat uncritical manner, by developing “refugee,” “forced migration,” and “migration” studies to investigate the “problems” raised by these new patterns of migration (Chatty & Marfleet, 2013; Chimni, 1998). The contrast between “Southern” and “Northern” refugees/migrants also echoed old-standing racializing tropes, with deep colonial roots (Georgi, 2019; Richmond, 1994). It came along the elaboration (or reactivation) of essentialist/culturalist views about non-Europeans’ (in)compatibility with the “democratic” or “liberal” values of European societies, (Cantat, 2016a, 2022; Pastore, 2021). This is still ongoing: the above-mentioned difference in the treatment of Cantat et al. 5 Syrians and Ukrainians, for example, has been interpreted as yet another indication of how racialized and postcolonial hierarchies shape the reception of people on the move. Shortly after Zolberg’s contribution, the end of the Cold War led to yet other profound geopolitical changes. It is in this context that Weiner (1995) first coined the notion of a “global migration crisis,” with an emphasis on the changing geopolitical order and the perception of migration therein (rather than on the sole evolutions of the nature and volume of migration flows). The collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics led to the end of the exit ban for nationals of communist countries; in turn this led to fears regarding East–West mobility, whose political significance changed. Once celebrated as dissidents fleeing communism, migrants and refugees from the East became unwanted immigrants, thought to destabilize Western Europe, and increasingly met with exclusionary discourses and policies. During the same period, the persistence of poverty and development gaps in the Global South, coupled with enduring postcolonial conflicts and local and global inequalities, also fueled Northern anxieties about massive South–North migration. New emerging issues, like climate change and global warming, also became associated with supposedly uncontrollable migration (Gemenne, 2011). Migration therefore became a matter of “high politics,” deeply associated with the far-reaching global transformations affecting the planet. Inside Western countries, the emergence of multicultural societies, and associated fears regarding sociocultural and religious diversity, further contributed to challenge a territorialized political order centered on the nation-state. Western states began to feel uncertain about their capacity to control their borders (Sassen, 2015). This raised concerns about some of the core aspects of their organization, as migration control proved difficult to conciliate with free market principles, welfare systems, fundamental rights, and basic rule of law principles (Joppke, 1998), with a major contradiction emerging between the openness of countries in an era of liberal globalization, on the one hand, and the quest for migration and border control on the other (Hollifield, 1992). As made clear by Weiner, this was not only a matter of numbers: today, migrants represent 3.7% of the world’s population, and approximately 15% of that of richer countries (UNDESA, 2020), which contrasts with the “age of migration” of the 19th century (when migrants composed above 10% of the world’s population). But regardless of numerical trends, migrants are understood to disrupt the “national order of things” (Malkki, 1995) and to challenge a “sedentary” Westphalian world order, based on the naturalization of territoriality and nationality (Anderson, 2019; Lacroix & Thiollet, 2023; Majidi, this issue). Changes in perceptions are therefore central in the notion of a “migration crisis.” This was clear with East–West migration in Europe after 1991, which led to anxieties but never materialized. Similarly, African migration to Europe never proved as significant as some observers had expected (De Haas, 2008). This is not to say that migration did not increase over the past decades: as detailed below, Europe has experienced substantial arrivals, linked in particular to the Arab uprisings of 2011 and to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But the perception of migration as crisis remains partly disconnected from “real world” realities: as early as 2001 Zolberg and Benda (2001, p. 1) could observe 6 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0) that “recent developments in the sphere of international migration . . . do not provide evidence of a crisis,” adding that “the widespread talk of a ‘crisis’ appears as an irrational phenomenon.” Migration as crisis is therefore the symptom of another deeper crisis about states and sovereignty, and thus “anchored in the fears of politicians about losing their symbolic control over the territorial boundaries” (Bigo, 2002, p. 65). To recapture this control, states have engaged in a process of securitization of migration. This takes the form of tightened legislation and an increased reliance on technology to control borders. But it also entails a cognitive reframing of migration as a threat, and the consequent reorganization of state practices, as certain policy domains that were unconcerned with migration became involved therein (Huysmans, 2000). It is in this context that one can understand the move of migration-related topics into the mandate of interior ministries (whereas they used to be under the responsibility of other ministries, like labor ministries). In turn, the securitization of migration justifies extraordinary measures, which then become progressively normalized—thereby contributing to the institutionalization of migration as crisis (Yavçan & Memişoğlu, this issue). Once framed as a threat to state sovereignty, migration also becomes entangled with other security concerns, such as the global war on terror since the 2000s, the fight against organized crime (which has prompted the consolidation of anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking policies), climate change, or the Covid-19 pandemic. The securitization of migration also translates into microlevel social transformations. Increased hostility toward foreigners, in particular, is regularly documented through surveys and polls (Hatton, 2017), which has reshaped politics in many countries, with the rise of anti-migrant, populist, and far-right political parties throughout the Global North. The interplay between “real world” changes, evolving perceptions of reality, and microsocial/individual attitudes can be fruitfully apprehended through the notion of moral panic. In the 70s, Cohen (2011) documented collective anxieties as an outcome of the historical and structural transformations affecting Western societies. The key idea was that such anxieties are not only the product of peoples’ irrationality or ignorance (in which case they could be addressed through better information). Rather, public anxieties are the by-product, at the psychological and microsocial level, of broader trends affecting states and societies, like macroeconomic changes in advanced capitalist societies. In 2011, the fourth edition of Cohen’s book included refugees and asylum seekers as one of the most recent illustrations of “objects of normal moral panics.” Moral panic also fits into the functioning of “risk societies,” in which uncertainties and crises are the norm, and in which people associate certain specific issues, however minor, with the ill-defined and global risks that they are exposed to (Beck, 1996). Cohen’s contribution also emphasizes the role of entrepreneurs and intermediaries. As a specific construction of social problems, moral panics are not born out of nothing, but require “some form of enterprise” (Cohen, 2011, p. xxviii). Examples of the moral/ political entrepreneurs that turn certain issues into panic (or crisis) include in particular the media and politicians (especially those from far-right populist movements). As far as migration is concerned, there is indeed evidence that crises are to some extent constructed through specific media coverage, as well as through political opportunism. Cantat et al. 7 Europe Between Localized Dynamics and a Generic Migration Crisis The analytical observations made in the previous section are relevant to understand the specific situation of Europe. Already in the 90s, the establishment of the EU, along with its economic agenda centered on deregulation and neoliberal reforms, contributed to anxieties over national sovereignty. Migration and asylum concomitantly became central issues, with the progressive emergence of a European “migration policy domain” (Guiraudon, 2003). Ever since the 1985 Schengen Agreement, the free movement of people within Europe proved difficult to conciliate with the control of migration from outside the EU. This led to an ongoing fortification process at Europe’s external borders, from wall-building and barbed wired fences to digital surveillance, the privatization of migrant control, and deportations (Pedersen, 2013; Walters et al., 2022). These concerns also structure the cooperation of the EU with third countries, which is largely organized around the diffusion of its border control objectives and the prevention of migration (Helton & Lavenex, 2000; Jaulin et al., 2020). Another consequence was the conflation of migration- and asylum-related issues. Migration is supposedly a sovereign prerogative of the state, whereas asylum is a fundamental human right enshrined in international, European, and domestic laws that should remain immune from changes in migration policy. In practice, however, both fields of policy are inextricably linked in European strategies, especially because externalization policies target both asylum seekers and migrants. These developments have come along a dramatic increase in the budget, which rose from €4 billion euros in 2007–2013 to 35 billion for 2021–2027.3 This period saw the emergence of discrete migration crises, situated in specific locations and presenting local specificities. These different episodes contributed to fuel anxieties over migration among European governments and citizens. They generated intense public debates, civil society activism, and policy controversies that, while initially limited to local, national, or bilateral contexts, progressively pervaded the entire European level and the relations between the EU and its neighbors. In what follows, we review some of these discrete migration crises and argue that they led to the emergence of a generic representation of migration as crisis (Adamson & Tsourapas, 2019; Thiollet, 2011). In the late 1990s, the French town of Calais, situated on the shore of the Channel and at the entrance of the so-called “Eurotunnel,” became the site of a lasting crisis, anchored in a French–British context. Large numbers of migrants/refugees, from Kosovo in particular, were hoping to reach the United Kingdom, but were stuck on the French side of the tunnel. To cater to their needs, the French government opened a reception center in 1999 in a nearby town called Sangatte, which was administered by the Red Cross. In 2002, however, the center was closed by the French government, acting under pressure from its British counterpart that considered it as a magnet for irregular migration. This led migrants to relocate to makeshift settlements in the surrounding areas and to the emergence of the infamous “Calais Jungle.” Even though this “jungle” has been dismantled several times since then, the situation in Calais has remained a hot topic in local and international politics. It became a trope in the 8 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0) migration and asylum debates, both in France and in Britain, as well as in the UK–EU relationships (notably in the context of the Brexit campaign). It also became a major humanitarian challenge as hundreds of people lived precariously and under systemic police brutality (Lendaro, this issue). A few years later, another episode of crisis emerged in the Canary Islands. In 2006, thousands of people entered Spain by reaching these islands that were situated off the coast of Western Sahara, and hundreds of them died in shipwrecks. These events prompted the EU to address migration control in the Mediterranean in its different summits; it also enabled FRONTEX (the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders) to launch its first major operation, the so-called Operation Hera, in 2006. This was denounced by left-leaning political parties across Europe and by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), which asked for stable and secure routes into Europe and effective reception infrastructure for migrants. Still in Spain, and more or less simultaneously, the situation deteriorated at the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco. In October 2005, more than 10 people were shot by the Moroccan police, which is in charge of controlling the borders of the two enclaves and equipped with EU-funded weapons—thus illustrating a reality that has become typical of the cooperation between EU and non-EU countries and of the externalization of the control of European borders. Today, almost two decades later, the situation has not fundamentally changed: migrants keep trying to enter the enclaves and are routinely repressed by border guards and police on both sides, often with lethal consequences. In the early 2010s, the Italian island of Lampedusa became the site of yet another crisis, at the heart of what has been labeled the Central Mediterranean migration route. In the context of the Arab Springs, political changes in Tunisia and Libya made departures by boat toward Europe easier than before. In October 2013, a shipwreck off the coast of Lampedusa led to over 360 deaths, with major political consequences. In 2014, the Italian government launched an extended “search and rescue” (SAR) operation, called Mare Nostrum, at the end of which several NGOs decided to set up their own operations to rescue the migrants at risk in the Mediterranean. This raised ongoing debates on the role of NGOs (often blamed and criminalized for encouraging irregular migration), and on the nature of the cooperation between states and NGOs (Cuttitta, 2018). The Mediterranean progressively became a symbol of the tensions between control and humanitarian operations in European migration governance, as migrants and refugees have since then kept trying to reach the EU from countries such as Tunisia or Libya, but also Syria, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and so on. (Schmoll et al., 2015). To address these migration flows, the EU also set up reception and identification centers in Italy and Greece, the so-called “hotspots,” in which newly-arrived migrants are kept before being either returned or allowed to solicit protection under the asylum law. The conditions in these centers have long come under harsh criticism from CSOs, which have denounced overcrowded centers together with inhumane and even illegal conditions of detention (Calarco, 2023). In 2020, the Greek government and Frontex were accused of expelling migrants and asylum seekers back to Turkey, without Cantat et al. 9 having allowed them to solicit refugee protection—a practice that became known as “pushbacks” and is contrary to international refugee law, eventually provoking the resignation of Frontex’s director in 2022. In 2015, Hungary acquired a strategic position on the so-called “Balkan routes,” the itinerary followed by migrants and refugees from the Middle East who aspire to reach Europe through Turkey, Greece, and the Balkans. Even though most migrants entering Hungary did not plan to stay in this country, their presence grew into a full-fledge political crisis and was instrumental in favoring far-right political parties in a country unaccustomed to immigration. Anti-migrant policies designed by then Prime Minister Viktor Orbàn included the construction of a wall at the border between Hungary and Serbia. The Hungarian strategy was backed by the EU and supported the formation of an anti-immigration coalition led by the so-called Visegràd Group, a strategic alliance initiated in 1991 by Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. The group opposed the harmonization of EU policies on migration and asylum, thereby hindering the elaboration of a common EU migration agenda (Cantat, 2021). Since 2020, migration crises have also emerged out of the deliberate strategies of certain states to use migrants as a tool (or a weapon) in foreign policy. In 2020, Turkey organized the out-migration of some 13,000 migrants to Greece, in violation of its 2016 diplomatic agreement with the EU (which called for Turkey to host migrants and asylum seekers on their way to Europe). In 2021, Morocco opened its borders at Ceuta to let in around 10,000 sub-Saharan immigrants, to pressure the Spanish government over their conflict regarding Western Sahara. In 2021, Belarus president Lukashenko sought to “help” migrants and asylum seekers from the Middle East into Europe at its border with Poland and the EU, and threatened to “flood” Europe with drugs and migrants. The use of migrants as an instrument of diplomatic pressure is not new, but shows how crises can be artificially created, with a strong impact despite the fairly small numbers of people involved. These episodes also illustrate the porosity between migration policy, border control, foreign policy, and military concerns over security—to the extent that the EU is developing doctrines around “hybrid attacks” or “hybrid threats” that would involve migration flows, regardless of the uncertainties over the exact nature of the “threat” represented by migrants (European Parliament, 2021; Marder, 2018). More episodes could be mentioned, for example, at the French–Italian border or in the Balkans. Taken together, they illustrate the continuous emergence of migration crisis situations in the EU over the past three decades, as well as their geographical magnitude (as they take place in all European border zones as well as inside the EU). They have in common a framing that mobilizes specific metaphors, around notions such as “swarms” or “flooding,” with fairly obvious xenophobic connotations (Taylor, 2021). Another similarity was the absence of a clear end to most of these episodes: in Calais, or in the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, the EU has been facing more or less the same problem for decades, without finding a solution. All these episodes are also directly related to the above-described development of European policies, with the establishment of the Schengen Area and the externalization of migration control through Europe’s migration diplomacy, which illustrates the deep relationship between the EU migration governance framework and the recurrence of situations seen as 10 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0) migration crises (Fine, this issue; Perkowski et al., 2023). While situated in specific locations, and presenting local specificities, all these episodes contributed to anxieties over migration in Europe and led to the emergence, since the nineties, of a multi-sited and generic representation of migration as crisis. It is worth noting, however, that even if all these episodes present the characteristics of crisis-like situations, the term itself has not been systematically used to describe them. This raises the issue of the emergence of a common “crisis” label, which brought together a wide range of different migration-related events and became an influential way of representing them. From a constructivist perspective, words matter: through repetition and increased salience, they bring various aspects of reality together, provide them with meaning, shape social representations, and eventually pave the way for specific ways of governing reality (Boswell et al., 2011; Matthes, 2009). The following section thus examines when migration became framed as a crisis. The Emergence of a Concept This section analyses the progression of a crisis framework to speak about migration, through an exploratory analysis of media and academic discourses. Figures 1–3 show the use of crisis-related words in key newspapers in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. One can observe that, in all three countries, the media only started to talk about crisis in the mid-2010s. The term was not used before, despite the above-mentioned episodes at the UK–French border and other situations of important population movements: Germany, for instance, has witnessed large inflows of newcomers since the 90s, first with the arrival of Aussiedler (ethnic Germans) after reunification and then with refugees fleeing the war in ex-Yugoslavia between 1992 and 1999 (Fröhlich, this issue; Lecadet, this issue). These episodes were of similar (or even higher) statistical relevance, but not apprehended as a crisis (Perron & Bazin, 2018). By contrast, after 2014, the press in these three countries started relying massively on a more generic use of the concept of “migration crisis.” However limited, this data suggest that the concept of crisis does not merely describe migration dynamics: it rather became a generic way of referring to different episodes across time and space, and thus led to a reframing of preexisting realities. Moreover, this is a selective process, as certain flows of people are left outside the scope of the crisis (like the above-mentioned inflow of Ukrainian refugees in 2022). These operations of (re)framing and selection are central in the social production of crisis. If one assumes that there is no straightforward relationship between a reality and the words used to describe it, it follows that the concept of crisis can be used even in situations in which there is no “real” crisis. The case of Hungary is interesting in this respect: as noted above, it saw large numbers of transit migrants in 2015 and took strong anti-migration measures; but despite the currently low number of foreigners in the country, the “migration crisis” has remained a central feature of all public debates, electoral campaigns, and political speeches. The case of France is also worth mentioning: In 2015, when Europe witnessed strong inflows of refugees, the country only received 6% of all new asylum applications in the EU; but it considered itself just as Cantat et al. 11 Figure 1. Number of articles mentioning migration or migrant crisis or asylum or refugee crisis (crise migratoire, crise de l’asile, crise des migrants, crises des réfugiés) in the main French daily newspapers (Le Figaro, le Monde, Libération, Les Echos, Le Parisien, La Croix). Source: Europresse (2023). Figure 2. Number of articles mentioning key terms describing migration and asylum crises (Migrationkrise or Flüchtlingskrise) in the main German daily newspapers (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Tageszeitung). Source: Factiva (2023). 12 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0) Figure 3. Number of articles mentioning key terms (migration crisis, migrant crisis, refugee crisis, asylum crisis) in the main U.K. newspapers (The Guardian, The Times, Daily Mail). Source: Factiva (2023). affected by the “migration crisis” as Germany, where over a third of all new applications were filed (Reddy & Thiollet, this issue). In more general terms, migration flows to Europe have constantly remained limited, at least compared to the overall population of the EU or to the scope of displacement in other regions of the world, like the Middle East (Thiollet, 2013). In a historical perspective, they can hardly be compared to previous episodes of migration, such as European colonialism or European emigration to North America in the early 20th century (Menjivar et al., 2019). If one now turns to scholarly production, one can similarly observe that the reliance on a crisis terminology has increased. Figure 4 shows how the term “crisis” has spiked in academic literature, in a way that is roughly comparable to what happened in media production. Academic research has long questioned the relevance of the crisis lens to apprehend ongoing migration dynamics (e.g., Collyer & King, 2016; Crawley et al., 2017; Lindley, 2016). But it also appears to have aligned itself on media narratives in a somewhat uncritical manner. Cabot (2019) argues that this is potentially problematic, as the way in which social scientists work and the conceptual tools they mobilize risk reinforcing dominant perceptions of social reality. In a similar vein, Anderson (2019) shows that migration scholarship as a whole fails to offer an alternative to the migrant/non-migrant dichotomy, thereby reinforcing the belief in the migrant threat to the national community. As suggested above, this would indicate that migration and refugee studies have been deeply shaped by the political context in which they emerged—a trend that is currently reinforced by powerful calls for expertise and knowledge to influence policymaking. Defining a “Migration Crisis”: Who, What, and Why After an exploration of how and when the “migration crisis” notion gained prominence since the mid-2010s, this section addresses some of the major disagreements Cantat et al. 13 Figure 4. Number of academic documents including the terms “migration crisis” and “asylum crisis” in their title, abstract, or keywords from 1990 to 2022 in social sciences and humanities (including Economics, Econometrics and Finance, Environmental Science and Psychology) journals and books. Source: Scopus (2023). underlying the reliance on this notion. The widespread reliance on the crisis framework does not indeed prevent controversies over the definition of the crisis. We examine three controversies in particular: who is concerned, with a particular focus on the refugee/migrant dichotomy; what is the problem, especially in terms of the tension between security and humanitarian issues; and why does the crisis happen, because explanations for the crisis oscillate between internal factors (due to the political strategy in receiving states) and internal ones (linked to external events like migration flows). Who? Concerning the who question, a landmark was the 2015 editorial disagreement between the BBC and Al Jazeera. When reporting on migration in the Mediterranean, the BBC spoke of a migration crisis and introduced the following disclaimer in its articles: A note on terminology: The BBC uses the term migrant to refer to all people on the move who have yet to complete the legal process of claiming asylum. This group includes people fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria, who are likely to be granted refugee status, as well as people who are seeking jobs and better lives, whom governments are likely to rule are economic migrants.4 A few weeks later, in response, Al Jazeera English (AJE) took the opposite decision. Reporting on the same dynamics of boat migration across the Mediterranean, an AJE editor explained that, for reasons of accuracy, the director of news at Al Jazeera English, Salah Negm, has decided that we will no longer use the word migrant in this context. We will instead, where appropriate, say refugee.5 14 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0) This highly publicized controversy raised a number of important issues, not only in the media, but also in policy debates, among civil society actors and in scholarly discussions. AJE further explained that “the umbrella term migrant is no longer fit for purpose when it comes to describing the horror unfolding in the Mediterranean”; the word migrant was understood as excessively neutral, and therefore as downplaying the violence faced by people on the move. By contrast, the BBC followed a more legalistic way of thinking, according to which only state authorities have the right to label people as refugees: as long as this decision has not been taken, the neutral word migrant should be used. The controversy thus echoed a fundamental ambiguity in the concept of refugee, which refers both to the “objective” reality of people being forced to move, and to the legal/normative category used by states to address foreigners’ entitlements. This debate is highly political because the overall framework used to govern the mobility of people is built on the opposition between (economic) “migrant” and (political) “refugee.” This is clear in Europe, where governments systematically state that the former tend to be undesirable and can/should be returned to their country, while the latter deserves to be protected. In a different way, this is also clear at the global/intergovernmental level: at the UN, the distinction between forced and voluntary migrants functions as a key device in the organizational division of labor between agencies, especially as far as the relationship between the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is concerned, with the IOM labeling itself as the “UN migration agency” and the UNHCR being known as the “refugee agency” (Geiger & Pécoud, 2014; Green & Pécoud, this issue). The difference between refugees and migrants, or between forced and voluntary migration, has long been challenged. In contemporary migration dynamics, they tend to belong to a “continuum of experiences” (Erdal & Oeppen, 2018; Fussel, 2012), as people always have a plurality of reasons to move. It follows that states’ implementation of this dichotomy is by nature inadequate and unsuccessful (Carling & Collins, 2018). Alternative terminologies have been proposed, like “asylum migration” (Koser & Van Hear, 2003), “crisis migration” (Martin et al., 2013), or “survival migration” (Betts, 2013) with various success: while they may be useful analytically, they have no legal validity and leave the governance framework unchanged. To go a step further, one could therefore suggest that one of the reasons why the events described above were perceived as a crisis is precisely because they challenged the conceptual and organizational routine of governance mechanisms: the mobility of people in and around Europe over the past decade has made clear that the refugee/ migrant distinction is often non-operational, thereby challenging the very foundations of the normative and institutional frameworks designed to govern people on the move. Here, a crisis arises when reality no longer fits into the categories used to apprehend it (or at least when the disjuncture between the two, which never fully coincide, becomes extremely patent). In principle, such a mismatch could spur a reassessment of categories and policy frameworks; yet, in practice, this is not what happened: governance frameworks remained unchanged, making for a permanent mismatch—and hence for a permanent crisis. Cantat et al. 15 AJE’s decision was criticized by migrants’ rights advocates on the grounds that it attributed a higher moral status to refugees, thus failing to recognize the rights and needs of migrants. Judith Vonberg and the British NGO Migrants’ Rights’ Network, for instance, argued that “[b]y rejecting the term ‘migrants’, Al Jazeera gives credence to the illiberal voices telling us that migrants are not worthy of our compassion” (Vonberg, 2015). This controversy thus makes it clear that disputes over the qualification of the crisis are not merely terminological disagreements, or divergences about representing reality accurately. The words used to describe reality matter because they anticipate the manner in which reality will be governed: by speaking of migrants, the BBC negated the tragic dimension of the crisis, as if desperate people at EU borders were “only” migrants to be admitted or rejected according to states’ sovereign decisions; but by speaking of refugees, AJE seemed to imply that only refugees were to be protected from hardships and abuses under international law, as if all other migrants were in unproblematic situations. What? The second and related disagreement underlying the migration as crisis framework concerns the what question, that is to say the nature of the policy problems to be addressed, especially as far as the mix of security/control issues and humanitarian considerations is concerned. European governments tend to see the crisis as the symptom of a lack of efficiency in controlling their borders: the crisis is primarily a matter of security, and of states’ capacity to implement their sovereign right to control access to their territory. As suggested above, failure to control can then be associated with all kinds of threats (to socioeconomic well-being, welfare, culture, identity, and so on). Logically, the answer to the crisis is then to increase securitization, through tightened legislation or sophisticated control measures: borders should then be better controlled, which will stop the crisis. Alternatively, NGOs, CSOs, and migrant-led organizations typically put forward another interpretation of the crisis, according to which the key problem lies with the risks and abuses faced by migrants/refugees. Such humanitarian crisis narratives are mobilized to call upon European governments to nuance their security-focused policies, and to launch humanitarian initiatives, for example, to address the situations of people facing life-threatening risks in the Mediterranean. Such initiatives are also a mobilizing cry for solidarity within migrants’ networks (Cantat, 2016b; Cantat et al., 2019). The migration as crisis framework thus supports different interpretations of what the crisis is, of what it entails, and of the type of policies it requires. This being said, the opposition between security and humanitarian concerns is not always binary. This is, for example, visible in EU discourses and policies: although overwhelmingly inspired by security concerns, they are also framed within a narrative of care for people’s rights and well-being. As early as 2006, Frontex launched the above-mentioned Operation Hera to prevent irregular migration from West Africa to the Canary Islands: Ilkka Laitinen, former Frontex director, was proud to announce that, thanks to this operation, “hundreds if not thousands of lives have been saved” (cited by Heller & Pécoud, 2020). By contrast, in the context of another operation (Triton) in 2015, Frontex explained that its mandate was not to save lives or to pursue SAR operations.6 And a few years later, on the front page of the Frontex web site, one could read: 16 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0) Last but not least, Frontex officers involved in search and rescue operations have helped save more than 65,000 lives in the Mediterranean since the new mandate came into effect. Fundamental rights are integrated into Frontex operations from their inception, ensuring that all those fleeing war and persecution are able to apply for international protection. These quotes do not only reflect the confusion that surrounds Frontex’ objectives, but also the emergence of ambivalent situations, in which security and humanitarian concerns are conflated. As in the Mediterranean, the border then becomes the site of multiple interventions, by different actors, and with different logics: border guards with their sovereign logic coexist with NGOs with a humanitarian (and sometimes political) agenda, while at the same time governments claim that controlling borders is also necessary to protect migrants in what has been called “humanitarian borderwork” (PallisterWilkins, 2017). Here, different interpretations of the crisis follow different assessments of reality, not only in interpretative terms (what is happening) but also in ethical and practical/policy terms (what is our responsibility, and what should be done). These interpretations coexist within crisis narratives in more or less balanced ways, even if security frameworks seem to be more prevalent in mainstream media and political discourses. An analysis of Austrian media production, for example, found that “narratives of security threat and economization are most prominent,” while “humanitarianism frames and background information on the refugees' situation are provided to a lesser extent” (Greussing & Boomgaarden, 2017). Why? The third disagreement underlying the migration as crisis framework regards the causes and factors that are associated with it. As indicated above, a securityfocused approach sees the crisis as stemming from too large flows of people, which would exceed state capacities (both in terms of border control and integration); the answer then lies in tightening monitoring capacities to better reduce migration. By contrast, another approach frames the crisis as the result of an inappropriate governance framework: for example, and as reviewed above, a strict refugee versus migrant distinction is central in governance mechanisms, but makes it structurally impossible to address patterns of mobility that do not fit into this distinction. This makes for a two-sided situation, in which the crisis can be attributed either to external factors (like the size of migration flows), or to internal ones (like the political strategies put in place to govern these flows). In addition, an in-between approach explains the crisis through a mismatch between governance mechanisms, on the one hand, and migration flows, on the other. From that perspective, the migration crisis has been labeled a “crisis of hospitality,” or a “crisis of solidarity,” both between Europe and migrants, and between European states (Agustín & Jørgensen, 2019; Calabrese et al., 2022). This discussion echoes long-standing debates about why migration policies “fail” (Castles, 2004). Critical research has long established that the narrow control-oriented nature of migration policies in the Global North makes them unfit to address some of the key challenges raised by migration, including the protection of migrants/ refugees, the need for migrant labor, or the development differentials between countries at world level. It follows that migration policies pursue unrealistic objectives Cantat et al. 17 that cannot be met, which logically makes for a permanent crisis. It also follows, in line with the “gap hypothesis” (Hollifield et al., 2022), that migration governance is characterized by a disconnection between states’ claims to control migration on the one hand, and the actual reality of persistent migration flows on the other: the wider the gap, the more migration will be perceived as uncontrollable (regardless of the exact nature or volume of the flows). From that perspective, there are two variables that shape the perception of migration as crisis: politicians’ promises and the reality of migration. The crisis is the outcome of the gap between the two—and will widen if either of them intensifies. Let us for instance recall a quote from a former French Minister of Labor who, in the 60s, argued that “clandestine immigration in itself is not without benefit, for if we stuck to a strict interpretation of the rules and international agreements, we would perhaps be short of labor” (Gaspard & Servan-Schreiber, 1985, pp. 28–29). Such a statement is unthinkable 60 years later and illustrates the changes in narratives—and how these changes fuel the perception of a crisis. If one sees the crisis as a mismatch between external events and policy strategies, the question that arises concerns the extent to which this mismatch can be remedied, according to a scenario that would see events lead to policy changes. There is evidence that this may happen: In 2015 the German government suspended the Dublin Regulation and invited Syrians to claim asylum in Germany even if they had transited through another EU member state; this was a clear and spectacular policy change, explicitly designed to address a new situation. This change proved temporary, however, and isolated in Europe. The dominant scenario rather consists of “more of the same” policy dynamics: the crisis does not change earlier policies, but reinforces them, which in turn aggravates the crisis and makes for a self-nurturing cycle (Jeandesboz & Pallister-Wilkins, 2016). One may even go a step further and argue that framing a situation as a crisis is a way for policymakers to refuse to admit the inappropriate nature of their political strategies: rather than adapting policies to reality, they frame reality as exceptional. Political language is performative here: once apprehended through a crisis lens, migration is perceived as extraordinary or abnormal, which therefore calls for ad hoc measure rather than structural political strategies. A crisis approach thus contributes to fuel migration control and containment. It has, for instance, often been observed that policy responses to situations of migration crisis tend to overlook the respect for fundamental rights and for the rule of law on the basis that the extraordinary nature of the situation would call for temporarily suspending these norms. This dynamic can be observed elsewhere as well, with counter terrorism as an obvious example. By sidelining structural drivers of mobility and fundamental rights, migration policies merely reproduce the unequal socioeconomic and political relations that underlie migration in the first place—and thus nurture the next “migration crisis.” There is therefore a deep connection between migration control and crisis narratives: both rely on the assumption that migration is not (or should not be) a normal phenomenon, and that a strategy of strict border control should remain the norm—even if this norm 18 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0) may, at times, be challenged by temporary situations of crisis. This blocks the recognition of migration as a structural feature of today’s world, and the elaboration of long-term, systemic political strategies. In terms of temporality, a crisis approach de-historicizes and decontextualizes migration, by framing it as a sudden/temporary problem rather than as a core component of world history. This also contributes to depoliticizing migration, by disconnecting it from the unequal organization of the global economy (Delgado-Wise, 2014; Pécoud, 2015). This obliterates the inherent violence of political orders grounded in state’s control of people’s mobility, and the intrinsically unequal access to rights based on nationality (Thiollet, 2022). The crisis lens thus sidelines structural issues such as poverty, vulnerability, and environmental degradation, while offering an easy way to scapegoat external factors and foreigners as responsible for domestic socioeconomic problems (thereby relegating other structural crises—like inequalities, crumbling welfare states and social cohesion, or environmental threats—out of public debates). Conclusion This article has sought to establish the validity of the migration as crisis framework to understand the logic at work in migration discourses and policies. Over the past decades, Europe has witnessed several episodes of “crisis” that have fed the belief according to which migration makes for destabilizing and risky situations, in which states would find themselves unable to control their borders. While reliance on a crisis framework is not correlated to the actual number of people on the move, the migration as crisis framework calls for denaturalizing crisis discourses, empirically locating them, and tries to explain how, in certain contexts, migration flows become perceived as such, while in others they are not. Our framework also calls for investigating the grey zones, or epistemic and moral arrangements, in the definition of what exactly constitutes a crisis beyond migration. These arrangements crystallize along politically constructed dichotomies such as the migrant/refugee one, and along the oppositions between moral conceptions of what constitutes a crisis. They also help to elucidate the discursive divide between those who explain the crisis by external events (like the arrival of migrants) and those who emphasize the role of migration policies in (mis)managing migration and the manufacturing of crises, thus introducing a debate on the politics of responsibility. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by the French National Research Agency under grant number ANR-18-CE41-0013 (project title: The Politics of Migration and Asylum Crisis in Europe—PACE) and by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 822806 (project title: Migration Governance and Asylum Crises—MAGYC). Cantat et al. 19 Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Council Directive 2001/55/EC of 20 July 2001 on minimum standards for giving temporary protection in the event of a mass influx of displaced persons and on measures promoting a balance of efforts between Member States in receiving such persons and bearing the consequences thereof. Source: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CEL EX%3A32001L0055&qid=1648223587338. This special issue was prepared within the framework of a research project funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant agreement 822806), called “Migration Governance and Asylum Crises” (MAGYC). For further information, see https://www.magyc.uliege.be/. Source: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_IDA(2018)625148. Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911. Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2015/8/20/why-al-jazeera-will-not-saymediterranean-migrants. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/22/eu-borders-chief-says-savingmigrants-lives-cannot-be-priority-for-patrols. References Adamson, F. B., & Tsourapas, G. (2019). Migration diplomacy in world politics. International Studies Perspectives, 20(2), 113–128. https://doi.org/10.1093/isp/eky015 Agustín, Ó. G., & Jørgensen, M. B. (2019). Solidarity and the ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Europe (1st ed.). Springer International Publishing. Anderson, B. (2019). New directions in migration studies: Towards methodological de-nationalism. Comparative Migration Studies, 7(1), 36. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-019-0140-8 Beck, U. (1996). World risk society as cosmopolitan society?: Ecological questions in a framework of manufactured uncertainties. Theory, Culture & Society, 13(4), 1–32. https://doi. org/10.1177/0263276496013004001 Betts, A. (2013). Survival migration. Cornell University Press; JSTOR. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/10.7591/j.ctt32b5cd Bigo, D. (2002). Security and immigration: Toward a critique of the governmentality of unease. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 27(1_suppl), 63–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/030437 54020270S105 Boswell, C., Geddes, A., & Scholten, P. (2011). The role of narratives in migration policymaking: A research framework. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 13(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-856X.2010.00435.x Cabot, H. (2019). The business of anthropology and the European refugee regime. American Ethnologist, 46(3), 261–275. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12791 Calabrese, L., Gaboriaux, C., & Veniard, M. (2022). L’accueil en crise: Pratiques discursives et actions politiques. Mots, 129, 9–21. https://doi.org/10.4000/mots.29775 Calarco, R. (2023). The political-humanitarian borderwork of NGOs in Sicily: Between migration management and repoliticisation. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 44(1), 93–109. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2022.2146663 Cantat, C. (2016a). La Hongrie, chien de garde de l’Europe. Plein droit, 111(4), 19. https://doi. org/10.3917/pld.111.0019 Cantat, C. (2016b). Rethinking mobilities: Solidarity and migrant struggles beyond narratives of crisis. Intersections, 2(4), 11–32. https://doi.org/10.17356/ieejsp.v2i4.286 20 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0) Cantat, C. (2021). La politique migratoire du groupe de Visegrád: Une anomalie morale au sein de l’Union européenne ?. Migrations Société, N° 186(4), 57–74. https://doi.org/10.3917/ migra.186.0057 Cantat, C., Sevinin, E., Morawska, E., & Birey, T. (Eds.) (2019). Challenging the political across borders migrants′ and solidarity struggles. Center for Policy Studies, Central European University. Carling, J., & Collins, F. (2018). Aspiration, desire and drivers of migration. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44(6), 909–926. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1384134 Castles, S. (2004). Why migration policies fail. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 27(2), 205–227. https://doi.org/10.1080/0141987042000177306 Chatty, D., & Marfleet, P. (2013). Conceptual problems in forced migration. Refugee Survey Quarterly, 32(2), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1093/rsq/hdt008 Chimni, B. S. (1998). The geopolitics of refugee studies: A view from the south. Journal of Refugee Studies, 11(4), 350–374. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/11.4.350-a Cohen, S. (2011). Folk devils and moral panics: The creation of the Mods and Rockers (4th ed.). Routledge. Collyer, M., & King, R. (2016). Narrating Europe’s migration and refugee ‘crisis’. Human Geography, 9(2), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1177/194277861600900201 Crawley, H., Düvell, F., Jones, K., McMahon, S., & Sigona, N. (2017). Unravelling Europe’s ‘migration crisis’: Journeys over land and sea. Policy Press. Cuttitta, P. (2018). Repoliticization through search and rescue? Humanitarian NGOs and migration management in the central Mediterranean. Geopolitics, 23(3), 632–660. https://doi.org /10.1080/14650045.2017.1344834 Dahinden, J. (2016). A plea for the ‘de-migranticization’ of research on migration and integration. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39(13), 2207–2225. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.20 15.1124129 De Haas, H. (2008). The myth of invasion: The inconvenient realities of African migration to Europe. Third World Quarterly, 29(7), 1305–1322. Delgado-Wise, R. (2014). A critical overview of migration and development: The Latin American challenge. Annual Review of Sociology, 40(1), 643–663. https://doi.org/10.1146/ annurev-soc-071811-145459 Erdal, M. B., & Oeppen, C. (2018). Forced to leave? The discursive and analytical significance of describing migration as forced and voluntary. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44(6), 981–998. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1384149 European Parliament (2021). Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL addressing situations of instrumentalisation in the field of migration and asylum. European Parliament. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/EN/ALL/?uri=COM:2021:890:FIN Fine, S. (this issue). Symbolic rewards as migration diplomacy: crisis and containment in EU–Turkey migration cooperation. American Behavioral Scientist. Fröhlich, C. (this issue). Migration as Crisis? German Migration Discourse at critical points of nation-building. American Behavioral Scientist. Fussel, E. (2012). Space, time, and volition: dimensions of migration theory. In M. R. Rosenblum & D. J. Tichenor (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the politics of international migration (pp. 25–52). Oxford University Press. Gaspard, F., & Servan-Schreiber, C. (1985). La Fin des immigrés. Éd. du Seuil. Geiger, M., & Pécoud, A. (2014). International organisations and the politics of migration. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40(6), 865–887. Cantat et al. 21 Gemenne, F. (2011). How they became the human face of climate change. Research and policy interactions in the birth of the “environmental migration” concept. In E. Piguet, A. Pécoud, & P. F. A. de Guchteneire (Eds.), Migration and climate change. UNESCO Pub., Cambridge University Press. Georgi, F. (2019). The role of racism in the European ‘migration crisis’: A historical materialist perspective. In V. Satgar (Ed.), Racism after apartheid: Challenges for marxism and antiracism. Wits University Press. Green, B., & Pécoud, A. (this issue). Talking about migration in times of crisis. A textual analysis of narratives by IOM and UNHCR on migrants and refugees. American Behavioral Scientist. Greussing, E., & Boomgaarden, H. G. (2017). Shifting the refugee narrative? An automated frame analysis of Europe’s 2015 refugee crisis. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43(11), 1749–1774. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1282813 Guiraudon, V. (2003). The constitution of a European immigration policy domain: A political sociology approach. Journal of European Public Policy, 10(2), 263–282. https://doi. org/10.1080/1350176032000059035 Hatton, T. J. (2017). Refugees and asylum seekers, the crisis in Europe and the future of policy. Economic Policy, 32(91), 447–496. https://doi.org/10.1093/epolic/eix009 Heller, C., & Pécoud, A. (2020). Counting migrants’ deaths at the border: From civil society counterstatistics to (inter)governmental recuperation. American Behavioral Scientist, 64(4), 480–500. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764219882996 Helton, A. C., & Lavenex, S. (2000). Safe third countries: Extending the EU asylum and immigration policies to central and eastern Europe. International Migration Review, 34(4), 1301. https://doi.org/10.2307/2675989 Hollifield, J. (1992). Immigrants, markets, and states: The political economy of postwar Europe. Harvard University Press. Hollifield, J. F., Martin, P. L., Orrenius, P. M., & Héran, F., (Eds.) (2022). Controlling immigration. A comparative perspective. Stanford University Press. Huysmans, J. (2000). The European union and the securitization of migration. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 38(5), 751–777. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5965.00263 Jaulin, T., Mesnard, A., Savatic, F., Senne, J.-N., & Thiollet, H. (2020). Externalization policies and their impacts on migrant and refugee flows to europe during the “crisis.” A preliminary study (Working Paper D8.1; MAGYC Working Paper). https://www.magyc.uliege.be/ cms/c_8994607/en/d-8-1-v3january2022 Jeandesboz, J., & Pallister-Wilkins, P. (2016). Crisis, routine, consolidation: The politics of the Mediterranean migration crisis. Mediterranean Politics, 21(2), 316–320. https://doi.org/10. 1080/13629395.2016.1145825 Joppke, C. (1998). Why liberal states accept unwanted immigration. World Politics, 50(2), 266–293. Cambridge Core. https://doi.org/10.1017/S004388710000811X Koser, K., & Van Hear, N. (2003). Asylum migration and implications for countries of origin. UNU/WIDER. https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/52828/1/369381076.pdf Lacroix, T., & Thiollet, H. (2023). Les migrations comme ‘crise.’ Penser l’État et les migrations au 21e siècle. In Centre de Recherchers Internationales (Ed.), Un monde en crise? Répondre aux défis internationaux. Presses de Sciences Po. Lecadet, C. (this issue). The Bosnian war and refugee policy: crisis management and migration control. American Behavioral Scientist. Lendaro, A. (this issue). Justice in the jungle: Litigation and judicial violence in Calais refugee camps at the French–UK border. American Behavioral Scientist. 22 American Behavioral Scientist 00(0) Lindley, A. (Ed.) (2016). Crisis and migration: Critical perspectives. Routledge. Majidi, N. (this issue). Deterring migration in times of crises: The ethics of behavioural change in migration information campaigns. American Behavioral Scientist. Malkki, L. H. (1995). Refugees and exile: From ‘refugee studies’ to the national order of things. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24(1), 495–523. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev. an.24.100195.002431 Marder, L. (2018). Refugees are not weapons: The “Weapons of Mass Migration” metaphor and its implications. International Studies Review, 20(4), 576–588. https://doi.org/10.1093/ isr/vix055 Martin, S., Weerasinghe, S., & Taylor, A. (2013). Crisis migration. The Brown Journal of World Affairs, 20(Fall), 123–137. Matthes, J. (2009). What’s in a Frame? A content analysis of media framing studies in the world’s leading communication journals, 1990–2005. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 86(2), 349–367. https://doi.org/10.1177/107769900908600206 Menjivar, C., Ruiz, M., & Ness, I. (Eds.) (2019). The Oxford handbook of migration crises. Oxford University Press. Pallister-Wilkins, P. (2017). Humanitarian borderwork. In C. Günay & N. Witjes (Eds.), Border politics (pp. 85–103). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3319-46855-6_6 Pastore, F. (2021). Are European migration policies racist? Brown Journal of World Affairs, 27(2), 167–182. Pécoud, A. (2015). Depoliticising migration: Global governance and international migration narratives. Palgrave Macmillan. Pedersen, M. L. (2013). Private security companies and the European borderscapes. In T. Gammeltoft-Hansen, & N. N. Sørensen (Eds.), The migration industry and the commercialization of international migration (pp. 152–172). Routledge. Perkowski, N., Stierl, M., & Burridge, A. (2023). The evolution of EUropean border governance through crisis: Frontex and the interplay of protracted and acute crisis narratives. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 41(1), 110–129. https://doi. org/10.1177/02637758231152478 Perron, C., & Bazin, A. (2018). Methodological considerations in addressing the issue of forced migrations, lost territories and the related politics of history: A comparative approach. In A. Bazin & C. Perron (Eds.), How to address the loss? Forced migrations, lost territories and the politics of history. A comparative approach in Europe and at its margins in the XXth century (pp. 11–36). Peter Lang. Reddy, M., & Thiollet, H. (this issue). The making of a crisis. Migration and polarisation in the French press. American Behavioral Scientist. Richmond, A. H. (1994). Global apartheid: Refugees, racism, and the new world order. Oxford University Press. Roitman, J. L. (2014). Anti-crisis. Duke University Press. Sassen, S. (2015). Losing control: Sovereignty in an age of globalization. Columbia University Press. Schmoll, C., Thiollet, H., Wihtol de Wenden, C. (2015). Migrations en Méditerranée. Permanences et mutations à l’heure des révolutions et des crises. In C. Schmoll, H. Thiollet, & C. Wihtol de Wenden (Eds.), Migrations en Méditerranée: Permanences et mutations à l’heure des révolutions et des crises (pp. 9–30). CNRS éditions. Taylor, C. (2021). Metaphors of migration over time. Discourse & Society, 32(4), 463–481. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926521992156 Cantat et al. 23 Thiollet, H. (2011). Migration as diplomacy: Labor migrants, refugees, and Arab regional politics in the oil-rich countries. International Labor and Working-Class History, 79(01), 103–121. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547910000293 Thiollet, H. (2013). Migrations, exils et printemps arabes [Migration, exile and the Arab Springs]. In F. Charillon & A. Dieckhoff (Eds.), Afrique du Nord, Moyen-Orient: La double recomposition (pp. 133–146). La Documentation fran-caise. Thiollet, H. (2022). Migration control as state making: Towards an illiberal convergence hypothesis? In J. Hollifield, P. Orennius, & P. Martin (Eds.), Controlling immigration. A global perspective (4th ed.). Stanford University Press. UNDESA (2020). International migrant stock 2020. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/content/ international-migrant-stock Vonberg, J. (2015, August 25). Al Jazeera will not say mediterranean ‘migrants’ but we should. Huffington Post. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/judith-vonberg/al-jazeeramigrants_b_8036950.html Walters, W., Lecadet, C., & Parizot, C. (2022). Air deportation: (In)visibility, power and resistance. AntiAtlas Journal, 5. https://www.antiatlas-journal.net/05-walters-lecadet-parizotair-deportation-in-visibility-power-and-resistance/ Weiner, M. (1995). The global migration crisis: Challenge to states and to human rights. HarperCollins College Publishers. Yavçan, B., & Memişoğlu, F. (this issue). Institutional creation as a local governance response to Syrian refugees: The case of Turkish municipalities. American Behavioral Scientist. Zolberg, A. R., Suhrke, A., & Aguayo, S. (Eds.) (1989). Escape from violence. Conflict and the refugee crisis in the developing world. Oxford University Press. Zolberg, A. R., & Benda, P. M. (Eds.) (2001). Global migrants, global refugees: Problems and solutions. Berghahn Books. Author Biographies Céline Cantat is based at the Paris School of International Affairs and works on migration, humanitarianism, solidarity mobilization and the relation between macro processes, such as globalization and state formation, and the forced movement of people within and across borders. She has also worked on higher education and in particular on the politics of university access. Antoine Pécoud is a Professor of sociology at the University Sorbonne Paris Nord, and Director of the POLICY department at the Institut Convergences Migrations (ICM). His latest book is the Research Handbook on the Institutions of Global Migration Governance, with Hélène Thiollet (Edward Elgar, 2023). Hélène Thiollet is a permanent researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) based at the Center for International Research (CERI) Sciences Po. She is a political scientist interested in migration and political transformations across the world and working on migration and asylum politics in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.