Self-Legitimation through Knowledge Production and Partnerships: International Organisations as Migration Governors in Central Asia

This paper stems from my Marie Curie post-doctoral research project MIGGOV that explores the role of international organizations (IOs) as global governors of migration and, more specifically, looks at their impact on migration governance in Central Asia. The absence of an overarching global normative structure of migration governance allows IOs to introduce and even impose varying international standards in different countries. This, inevitably, creates favorable conditions for competition between IOs and, thus, brings the issue of their legitimacy to the fore. This, for example, is the case for IOM whose legitimacy is challenged by other IOs that enter migration governance terrain. In Central Asia, authoritarian governments also challenge the legitimacy of IOs. Drawing on insights from international relations and “sociology of translation” as well as on fieldwork in three Central Asian countries, this paper argues that in order to secure legitimacy in the field of migration governance, both challenged and challenging IOs rely on knowledge and partnerships. The self-legitimation through knowledge – important in conditions of uncertainty about future migration scenarios – happens via knowledge-generating activities implying co-optation of both internationally recognized and local experts where IOs come to be seen as the sole sources of reliable knowledge. The self-legitimation through partnerships happens in global-global and global-local formats. The former include partnerships between IOs involved in mutual legitimation, such as in cases of IOM and OSCE, the EU and ICMPD or the World Bank, IOM and UN Women. The latter implies engagement with governmental and civil society actors via implementing partnerships, multiplication of working groups or involvement of governments and NGOs in Regional Consultative Processes on migration. Practices of self-legitimation trough knowledge production and partnerships tend to be mutually reinforcing which emphasizes cumulative nature of legitimacy for many IOs in this field.