The instrumentalisation of migration as an emerging paradigm in EU policy-making?

This paper examines the genesis and conceptual evolution of the notion of “instrumentalisation” of migration as a policy driver and strategic tool within the framework of EU migration governance. Tracing the history of the concept in official EU documents and press releases, we combine quantitative text analysis with discourse and context analysis to show how key EU institutions have articulated and operationalised situations of instrumentalisation in various strategic and legislative texts, contrasting cases in which the EU overtly speaks of instrumentalisation or orchestration (the 2021 Belarus border crisis and the 2020 events at the Greek-Turkish border) with other cases of coercive power exercised by other states in which this is not openly acknowledged. Theoretical attention is given to the dual function of “weaponisation” or “instrumentalisation” of migration as both an analytical and political category. By contrasting Kelly Greenhill’s definition of “migration weaponisation” with the function of instrumentalisation in the European policy discourse, we seek to delineate the boundaries between descriptive and normative usages of the concept, thereby contributing to a more precise understanding of how the EU uses and narrates coercive power within its external and internal policy arenas. We argue that narratives of migration being instrumentalised against the EU by foreign (authoritarian) actors are applied selectively and follow geopolitical, rather than migration-related interests. As such narratives stand in stark contrast to (irregular) migration flows being framed as manageable by EU migration policy, in particular of the deterrent kind, they have also served to rally support for internal EU policies in the context of the adoption of the Pact.