Policy Networks and the South American Conference on Migration: Explaining the Rights Based Approach to Migration Management in South America

This paper adopts an actor centred approach to analyse the unique human rights based positions on migration management in South America. This approach, unlike the securitised notion that prevails in most world regions today, is characterised by a consensus on the positive effects of migration and calls for the “right to free movement”, the “right to migrate” and, instead of deportations, regularization as a solution to irregularity. Through our analysis of the vertical and horizontal governance networks that characterise policymaking in the region, we identify the South American Conference on Migration (SACM), a non-binding forum that was a key space for the development of a regional consensus on migration as centrally shaping both regional and domestic migration policy. We argue that a very peculiar constellation of actors enabled the emergence of the South American approach to migration: unlike other regions in the world, a high number of government officials are at the same time academics and personally lived (forced) migratory experiences. Furthermore, nongovernmental actors actively participate in national and regional migration governance. The SACM has been a forum where key actors in migration management got socialized, and shared and formed positions, which were strongly influenced by pre-existing ideas on the importance of human rights. Based on a complex network of interactions, these ideas then informed and influenced national migration policy making. Our analysis is based on insights from over 200 interviews conducted in the region with key policymakers between 2012 and 2018. At a time when rights-based approaches to migration seem to be in global retreat, understanding the formation of these ideas is a central issue to international migration governance.