Beyond Implementation – How IOs and NGOs Shape Global Migration Governance at the Frontline of Mixed Migration Movements

Intergovernmental (IOs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play an increasingly important role in the regulation of international migration. Despite their growing importance in global migration policy-making and implementation, their official mandates continue to be restricted and global migration governance fragmented. As a consequence, this paper argues that in order to understand how public and private actors influence the global governing of migration, we need to look beyond formal-legal authority and analyse how international organisations respond to migration at the frontline of mixed migration flows. It argues that since formal forms of governance are limited in the area of international migration, global border, asylum and migration professionals, affiliated with different organisations such as UNHCR, Frontex, EASO, IOM and humanitarian NGOs, step in and manage migration through their everyday professional routines and practices. Frontline workers draw on professional knowledge and expertise rather than organisational mandates to creatively deal with migration as it occurs. The paper draws on qualitative data from the European external border in Greece during the ‘crisis’ of 2015/2016 as well as from the training and capacity-building units at the headquarters of international migration organisations to show how IOs and NGOs govern migration across organisational boundaries in local communities of practice in the absence of comprehensive mandates and delegated authority.