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Open AccessArticle
The Externalisation Gamble: Italy and Spain at the Forefront of Maritime Irregular Migration Governance
by
Gabriel Echeverría
Gabriel Echeverría 1,*,
Gabriele Abbondanza
Gabriele Abbondanza
Dr. Gabriele Abbondanza is a Marie Curie Fellow
(European Union grant no. 847635) at the University [...]
Dr. Gabriele Abbondanza is a Marie Curie Fellow
(European Union grant no. 847635) at the Complutense University of Madrid
(Spain), Associate Researcher at the University of Sydney (Australia), and
Associate Fellow at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI, Italy). He specialises
in Australian and Italian foreign policy, irregular migration governance, middle
power and great power theory, and the Indo-Pacific. He has published widely on
these subjects, including research in leading journals such as International Affairs, International Political Science Review, European Political Science, and others.
He has authored three monographs: “The foreign policy of irregular migration
governance” (2024), “Italy as a regional power” (2016), and “The geopolitics of
Australia” (2013); and is co-editor of two books, “Italy and Australia” (2023)
and “Awkward Powers” (2021). Dr. Abbondanza currently teaches a number of
courses related to international relations, security studies, and migration
studies, and he frequently contributes to media, public, and institutional debates
concerning his fields of expertise.
1,2,3 and
Claudia Finotelli
Claudia Finotelli 1
1
Faculty of Political Sciences and Sociology, Applied Sociology Department, Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Pozuelo de Alarcón, 28223 Madrid, Spain
2
School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney (USYD), Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
3
Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), 00186 Roma, Italy
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Soc. Sci. 2024, 13(10), 517; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13100517 (registering DOI)
Submission received: 28 June 2024
/
Revised: 15 September 2024
/
Accepted: 24 September 2024
/
Published: 29 September 2024
Abstract
Irregular migration is rapidly becoming a permanent feature of the twenty-first century. Amid the European “refugee crisis”, Italy and Spain represent two major destination countries that are affected by substantial irregular flows. Despite this comparable condition, and notwithstanding the significance of their relevant policies, they have rarely been compared, a gap in the literature that this research addresses through a novel comparative analysis of their irregular migration governance. Following a broad contextualisation of destination countries’ strategies against irregular migration, this article delves into the two case studies’ external dimension of control policies from the 1990s to 2024 inclusive. In doing so, it assesses the nature of their foreign policy on irregular migration, their specific measures, and their geographical scope. It finds that there is a noticeable convergence towards readmission measures and externalisation, along with the growing use of informal deals. In terms of differences, the article highlights Italy’s much higher number of irregular arrivals compared to Spain, and the impact that this has had on domestic debates, priorities, and relevant policy formulation processes. As a novel investigation of two influential case studies, this article therefore contributes to the literature on both externalisation and Italy’s and Spain’s foreign policy.
Share and Cite
MDPI and ACS Style
Echeverría, G.; Abbondanza, G.; Finotelli, C.
The Externalisation Gamble: Italy and Spain at the Forefront of Maritime Irregular Migration Governance. Soc. Sci. 2024, 13, 517.
https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13100517
AMA Style
Echeverría G, Abbondanza G, Finotelli C.
The Externalisation Gamble: Italy and Spain at the Forefront of Maritime Irregular Migration Governance. Social Sciences. 2024; 13(10):517.
https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13100517
Chicago/Turabian Style
Echeverría, Gabriel, Gabriele Abbondanza, and Claudia Finotelli.
2024. "The Externalisation Gamble: Italy and Spain at the Forefront of Maritime Irregular Migration Governance" Social Sciences 13, no. 10: 517.
https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci13100517
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