CfP Panel “The Populist Turn of Migration Laws”, 2025 ECPR General Conference

Call for Papers: Panel on “The Populist Turn of Migration Laws”

Section on Migration at the ECPR General Conference 2025

26 – 29 August 2025, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

We invite submissions for the panel, The Populist Turn of Migration Laws, to be held as part of the Section on Migration at the 2025 ECPR General Conference in Thessaloniki.

Panel Theme:

Populist forces have found fertile ground in the domain of migration, where they often use public resentment and nationalist sentiments to undermine legal protections and institutions designed to safeguard migrants. We are witnessing a “populist turn” in migration laws and

practices, with trends such as pushbacks, deterrent measures, and externalisation becoming widespread. Protective legal norms are now under attack, with some blaming these very laws for intensifying populism.

This panel seeks to critically explore the intersection of populism and migration laws and policies, examining how populist pressures are reshaping migration policies, eroding legal protections, and legitimising increasingly hostile measures towards migrants. From both

theoretical and practical perspectives, we are particularly interested in examining issues such as:

• Recent manifestations of populism in scrapping legal protections and imposing hostile

laws and policies in contexts of specific countries or at the EU level

• Drivers of the populist turn in migration laws and policies

• How populist pressures challenge our understanding of democracy, human rights, law,

morality, and community values

• Interdisciplinary insights that can help us understand and address these challenges

• Solutions or strategies that might emerge to counteract these pressures

• Comparative perspectives and case studies

Submission Guidelines:

We welcome papers from scholars across disciplines, including, but not limited to, law, political science, international relations, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and post-colonial studies. Please submit an abstract (max. 250 words) via email to the panel chairs, Dr Ermioni

Xanthopoulou (ermioni.xanthopoulou@brunel.ac.uk) and Dr Mohammad Nayyeri (mohammad.nayyeri@brunel.ac.uk) by 2 January 2025.

Further details about the section for the 2025 General Conference is now included in

the academic programme on the ECPR webpage.