University of Bern (Switzerland)
Wednesday, 27 April and Thursday, 28 April 2016
More information on: http://nccr-onthemove.ch/home/.
This two-day workshop, to be held at University of Bern (Switzerland), discusses how current migration challenges could be resolved through the concept of multilayered governance (MLG).As counter project to constitutionalism and statehood, MLG transforms through constructivist “layering” and “blurring” one-directional hegemonies such as (host) state control over migration law. By adding layers (regional, supranational, multilateral) to the national ones, MLG re-engages with reciprocity, invites plural values, construes flexible structures and points to the prospect of a plural identity for international migration law, one which respects ‘othering’—particularly sending states and migrants.
The conference will discuss the various layers at which rule-making in migration occurs to identify the most efficient and legitimate ones—clearly the bilateral level being unfavorable to sending states, for example. In addition, we ask why one layer may often be insufficient and thus why linkages and embedding (and thus multiple layers) may be necessary and desirable to validate and re-establish balance and organize a body of rules, which has been criticized as ‘substance lacking architecture’. Finally and from a more exploratory perspective, we hope to draw more general conclusions about the transformative power of governance frameworks—structurally, how to re-arrange State-society relations by empowering non-state actors and substantively, how governance reduces ambivalences and dualities among regulatory goals, which for migration are, liberalization, rights protection and risk management. In sum, the conference will transpose the research agenda of MLG to the field of international migration law and discuss why constructing coherence for a regime as highly divided and as deeply complex as migration remains challenging.
This call looks for papers combining a migration-specific analysis, which can be based on empirical research, with governance theory. We strongly encourage papers with an interdisciplinary approach linking any of the following disciplines: law, economics, international relations, sociology, geography, anthropology.
Paper Submission Procedure
Senior and junior scholars (including PhD students) are invited to participate in the call for papers. Papers will be selected on the basis of the submitted abstracts. The abstracts must not exceed 800 words and have to be submitted by email to
Deadline for submission of abstracts has expired, but we are still accepting submissions on a rolling basis until 31 January 2016.
More information on http://nccr-onthemove.ch/events/multilayered-governance-more-coherence-for-the-international-migration-regime/.