EU Migration Management and the Social Purpose of European Integration: The Spillover of Misery (IMISCOE Research Series)

This book provides a critical analysis of irregular migration to Europe from a neo-Gramscian perspective. It demonstrates how the contemporary EU migration management regime came about within the context of a neoliberal hegemonic project, which in turn was advanced using neofunctionalist methods of integration. Relying on field research that was carried out in Bulgaria, Italy, Germany and Greece, the book also describes how European migration management is experienced by irregular migrants themselves. It suggests that the social purpose of migration management cannot be understood without assessing the experiences of the objects of migration regimes. The 2015 migration crisis revealed that large-scale migration has the potential to undermine some of the greatest achievements of the European integration project such as the Schengen system and open internal borders. This book shows that this fragility is the result of inherent contradictions within the neoliberal hegemonic project for the European Union. As such this book is an interesting read for academics, students, policy makers and all those working in international migration and European integration. Front Matter ....Pages i-xii Introduction (Harald Köpping Athanasopoulos)....Pages 1-11 Neofunctionalism in Theory and Practice (Harald Köpping Athanasopoulos)....Pages 13-41 Thinking Europe Differently – Critical Approaches to European Integration (Harald Köpping Athanasopoulos)....Pages 43-64 The Margins of History – Rediscovering the Subaltern (Harald Köpping Athanasopoulos)....Pages 65-79 Migration Management in the EU (Harald Köpping Athanasopoulos)....Pages 81-97 Migration Management Within a National Context (Harald Köpping Athanasopoulos)....Pages 99-115 Being Spillover – Undocumented Migrants’ Experience of European Integration (Harald Köpping Athanasopoulos)....Pages 117-143 Three Contradictions of Neofunctionalist European Integration (Harald Köpping Athanasopoulos)....Pages 145-163 Conclusion: What Future for Europe? (Harald Köpping Athanasopoulos)....Pages 165-171