Abstract
Migration and Mobility in the European Union is an interesting publication which offers an attractive approach for investigating contemporary migration in the EU states. The book focuses on rethinking migration using different types of migration as examples in relation to relevant policies at both the national and EU level. Hence, Boswell and Geddes explore the multi-levelness and multidimensionality of migration policy making by analysing the EU's role and at the same time highlighting the relation between the contemporary politics of migration and its dimensions. The book also explores the paradox of Europe's borders, with its continuous process of removing some, relocating others and creating new ones.
The authors adopt an interesting approach for their investigation. They analyse types of migration and EU mobility alongside debates on immigrant integration in order to explore how a chosen type of migration generates various kinds of political responses. This is analysed across all EU states and the research also focuses on how these aspects are reflected at the sub-national, national and supranational (EU) levels.
Boswell and Geddes state that the multi-level politics are related to the distribution of power and authority across EU member states and public actors at different levels of governance. Nevertheless, in their opinion, migration does not match the ‘usual multilevel trope’ (p. 227); and they also note the rapid growth in importance of EU institutions in the process of migration policy making. The authors highlight that the success or failure of migration policies within the EU is distributed unevenly across its members. They also argue that some of the EU member states are shaped by the EU's migration policies, while others are actually shaping them.
This book will be helpful to various types of researcher interested in migration because it explores the multi-levelness of policy making through examples of irregular, family and labour migration, as well as refugees and asylum seekers. The authors succeed in their goal to explore migration and mobility in the EU in a clear, systematic and well-written way and, in addition, their statements are well argued and based on sound evidence.
Christina Boswell and Andrew Geddes bring interesting points to contemporary debate on the role of supranational, national and sub-national levels of governance regarding migration policy making. Nonetheless, by concentrating on all the EU states, they omit to explore the topic in depth by focusing on one particular country.