Labour Migration Policy in Russia: Considerations on Governmentality
| Published date | 01 June 2018 |
| Date | 01 June 2018 |
| Author | Mark E. Simon,Vladimir S. Malakhov |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12402 |
Labour Migration Policy in Russia:
Considerations on Governmentality
Vladimir S. Malakhov* and Mark E. Simon*
ABSTRACT
The authors argue that Russian migration policy reflects the functioning of contemporary Rus-
sia’s entire bureaucratic machine. The bureaucracy’s Soviet-era governance techniques on the
one hand and the material interests of particular pressure groups on the other, shape the
manipulation of immigration regulation that has occurred since the early 2000s. Therefore,
attempts to liberalize migration regulation, i.e., to simplify the legalization of foreign workers,
have always been incoherent, accompanied by reservations and limitations. Additionally, Rus-
sian actions are riddled with conflict between ‘geopolitical’and domestic policy rationales.
The authorities’occasional attempts to use immigration regulation as a foreign policy tool
acquire primarily symbolic value in the ‘domestic political market’rather than serving any
instrumental purpose. The effort to enhance Russian influence in the post-Soviet space through
the ‘reintegration project’(Eurasian Economic Union) collides with the goal of national labour
market protection, since integration entails the removal of barriers to labour movement.
INTRODUCTION
Over the past decade and a half, a significant body of literature exploring the immigration policy of
post-Soviet Russia has accumulated (Andrienko and Guriev, 2005; Zayonchkovskaya, 2007; Korob-
kov, 2007; Heleniak, 2008; Robarts, 2008; Ivakhnyuk, 2009; Balzer and Repnikova, 2009; Light,
2010; Schenk, 2013; Turukanova et al., 2014; Malakhov 2014; Schenk, 2016). Many of these stud-
ies reveal the thinking behind the decision-making concerning migration regulation in Russia.
Almost none of them, however, resort to the framework of governmentality, which seems extre-
mely productive for comprehending the basic prerequisites that lead to certain modes of regulation.
The ‘governmentality’concept, coined by Michel Foucault (2009 and 2010), presupposes a
research programme focused on the analysis of epistemological settings (the relationship between
particular forms of knowledge and power) mediating particular administrative techniques. To anal-
yse governmentality means to explore how those who govern conceive of governance as such and
what kind of rationality and techniques lie behind this governance. This concept is now actively
being used in migration studies:
1
with regard to labour migration (Nonini, 2002; Rudnyckyj, 2004;
Hoang, 2016); refugees and asylum seekers (Agier, 2006; Hedman, 2008); and migration and secu-
rity (Bigo, 2002; Truong, 2011). Especially significant within our framework are the studies consid-
ering the production of illegality as a direct consequence of the activity of the bureaucratic
apparatus (Inda, 2006; Fassin, 2011). We see our contribution to the study of Russian migration
policy as addressing the kind of governmentality that engenders this policy.
* Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow
doi: 10.1111/imig.12402
©2017 The Authors
International Migration ©2017 IOM
International Migration Vol. 56 (3) 2018
ISSN 0020-7985Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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