Abstract
The visa—an authorization to cross borders—is a recent invention. The history of visas is strictly interrelated to the constitution of modern nation-states. The Schengen visa is noticeable since it is issued by one state, but it authorizes entry in an area of more than one nation-state, in which internal frontiers have been lifted. The Schengen visa has been analyzed as a policy instrument of European migration control. However, the day-to-day implementation in comparative perspective remained a ‘black box’. This study focuses on the implementation of EU visa policy in the consulates of Belgium, France, and Italy in Morocco. It does so in original manners. First, it uses a ‘comprehensive implementation approach’ by taking account of the local, national, and supranational locations of Schengen visa policy-making. Second, it builds on in-depth pioneering fieldwork and a comparative research design that includes those three locations. The research design has determined the evolving of the puzzle and the realizing of the unanticipated: Cross-national differences diminish when policy is put into practice. Before outlining the content of the book, I highlight the findings as well as their contribution to implementation studies, comparative policy studies, migration studies, and European studies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The perimeter of the Schengen area has varied over the years. It includes non-EU Member States whereas some EU Member States are not part of it. For an up-to-date map of the Schengen area, see https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/schengen_en.
- 2.
These scholars focus in particular on the bureaucratic encounter at the window (the guichet) as the locus to analyze policy implementation (see also Weller 1999).
- 3.
Council Regulation (EC) No. 539/2001 of 15 March 2001 (OJ L 81/1 of 21 March 2001); Council Regulation (EC) No. 1683/95 of 29 May 1995 laying down a uniform format for visa (OJ L 164/2 of 14 July 95); Regulation (EC) No. 562/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 establishing a Community Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders (Schengen Borders Code, OJ L 105 of 13 April 2006); Regulation (EC) No. 810/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 establishing a Community Code on Visas (Visa Code) (OJ L 243/1 of 15 September 2009).
- 4.
Source: International Migration Outlook 2018, OECD Network of International Migration Experts, formerly SOPEMI, https://doi.org/10.1787/migr_outlook-2018-en.
References
Albert, M., & Brock, L. (1996). Debordering the World of States: New Spaces in International Relations. New Political Science, 35, 69–106.
Alpes, M. J., & Spire, A. (2014). Dealing with Law in Migration Control: The Powers of Street-Level Bureaucrats at French Consulates. Social & Legal Studies, 23(2), 261–274.
Becker, S. H. (1996). Toward the Epistemology of Qualitative Research. In R. Jessor, A. Colby, & R. A. Shweder (Eds.), Ethnography and Human Development (pp. 53–70). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Bell, J. (1992). Discretionary Decision-Making: A Jurisprudential View. In K. Hawkins (Ed.), The Uses of Discretion (pp. 89–111). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bennett, C. J. (1991). What Is Policy Convergence and What Causes It? British Journal of Political Science, 21(2), 215–233.
Bigo, D., & Guild, E. (2003). La mise à l’écart des étrangers: la logique du visa Schengen. Paris: L’Harmattan.
Bigo, D., & Guild, E. (2006). Polizia a distanza. Le frontiere mobili e i confini di carta dell’Unione Europea. Conflitti Globali, 2, 58–76.
Bigo, D., Jeandesboz, J., Ragazzi, F., & Bonditti, P. (2011). Borders and Security: The Different Logics of Surveillance in Europe. In S. Bonjour, A. Rea, & D. Jacobs (Eds.), The Others in Europe (pp. 77–86). Brussels: Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles.
Börzel, T., & Risse, T. (2000). When Europe Hits Home: Europeanization and Domestic Change (EUI Working Papers. RSC 2000/56). Italy: European University Institute.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Brodkin, E. Z. (1987). Policy Politics: If We Can’t Govern, Can We Manage? Political Science Quarterly, 102, 571–587.
Brodkin, E. Z. (1990). Implementation as Policy Politics. In D. J. Palumbo & D. J. Calista (Eds.), Implementation and the Policy Process: Opening Up the Black Box (pp. 107–118). New York: Greenwood Press.
Brodkin, E. Z. (2008). Accountability in Street-Level Organizations. International Journal of Public Administration, 31, 317–336.
Brubaker, R. (1992). Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Calavita, K. (1992). Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration, and the INS. New York: Routledge.
Castles, S. (2004). The Factors That Make and Unmake Migration Policies. International Migration Review, 38(3), 852–884.
Coburn, C. E. (2006). Framing the Problem of Reading Instruction: Using Frame Analysis to Uncover the Microprocesses of Policy Implementation in Schools. American Educational Research Journal, 43(3), 343–379.
Colombo, A., & Sciortino, G. (2004). Italian Immigration: The Origins, Nature and Evolution of Italian Migratory Systems. Journal of Italian Modern Studies, 9(1), 49–70.
Davis, K. C. (1969). Discretionary Justice: A Preliminary Inquiry. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
Della Porta, D. (2008). Case Selection in Case-Oriented Versus Variable-Oriented Research. In D. Della Porta & M. Keating (Eds.), Approaches and Methods in the Social Sciences (pp. 192–222). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dicey, A. V. (1915). Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution. London: Macmillan.
Dörrenbächer, N., & Mastenbroek, E. (2017). Passing the Buck? Analyzing the Delegation of Discretion After Transposition of European Union Law. Regulation & Governance. https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12153.
Dubois, V. (1999). La vie au guichet. Relation administrative et traitement de la misère. Paris: Economica.
Dubois, V. (2010). Politique au guichets, politique du guichet. In O. Borraz & V. Guiraudon (Eds.), Politiques publiques. 2, Changer la société (pp. 265–286). Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.
Duina, F. (1997). Explaining Legal Implementation. The European Union International Journal of the Sociology of Law, 25(2), 155–180.
Duina, F. (1999). Nations-States Within the Common Market. New York: SUNY Press.
Duina, F., & Blithe, F. (1999). Nations-States and Common Markets: The Institutional Conditions for Acceptance. Review of International Political Economy, 6(4), 494–530.
Dworkin, R. (1977). Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Edelman, L. B. (1990). Legal Environments and Organizational Governance: The Expansion of Due Process in American Workplace. American Journal of Sociology, 95(6), 1401–1440.
Ellerman, A. (2009). States Against Migrants: Deportation in Germany and the US. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Emerson, R. (1983). Holistic Effects in Social Control Decision-Making. Law and Society Review, 17, 425–455.
Emerson, R., & Paley, B. (1992). Organizational Horizons and Complaint-Filing. In K. Hawkins (Ed.), The Uses of Discretion (pp. 231–247). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Eule, T. G., Loher, D., & Wyss, A. (2017). Contested Control at the Margins of the State. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44(16), 2717–2729. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2017.1401511.
Evans, P. B., Rueschemeyer, D., & Skocpol, T. (Eds.). (1985). Bringing the State Back In. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Falkner, G., & Treib, O. (2008). Three Worlds of Compliance or Four? The EU-15 Compared to New Member States. Journal of Common Market Studies, 46(2), 293–313.
Falkner, G., Treib, O., & Holzleithner, E. (Eds.). (2008). Compliance in the Enlarged Europe: A World of Dead Letters? Aldershot: Ashgate.
Favell, A., & Guiraudon, V. (2011). Sociology of European Union. London: Palgrave.
Feldman, M. S. (1992). Social Limits to Discretion: An Organizational Perspective. In K. Hawkins (Ed.), The Uses of Discretion (pp. 163–183). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Galligan, D. J. (1986). Discretionary Powers: A Legal Study of Official Discretion. Oxford: Clarendon.
Grattet, R., & Jenness, V. (2005). The Reconstitution of Law in Local Settings: Agency Discretion, Ambiguity, and a Surplus of Law in the Policing of Hate Crime. Law & Society Review, 39(4), 893–942.
Graziano, P., & Vink, M. (Eds.). (2007). Europeanization: New Research Agendas. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Guild, E. (2001). Moving the Borders of Europe. Inaugural Lecture, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen. https://cmr.jur.ru.nl/cmr/docs/oratie.eg.pdf. Accessed 15 February 2018.
Guiraudon, V. (2000), European Integration and Migration Policy: Vertical Policy‐making as Venue Shopping. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 38, 251–271. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5965.00219.
Guiraudon, V. (2003). Before the EU Border: Remote Control of the “Huddled Masses”. In K. Groenendijk, E. Guild, & P. Minderhoud (Eds.), In Search of Europe’s Borders (pp. 191–214). The Hague: Kluwer Law International.
Guiraudon, V. (2007). Anti-discrimination Policy. In P. Graziano & M. Vink (Eds.), Europeanization: A Handbook for a New Research Agenda (pp. 295–308). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Guiraudon, V., & Joppke, C. (Eds.). (2001). Controlling a New Migration World. New York: Routledge.
Guiraudon, V., & Lahav, G. (2000). A Reappraisal of the State Sovereignty Debate Revisited: The Case of Migration Control. Comparative Political Studies, 33(2), 163–195.
Hassenteufel, P. (2005). De la comparaison internationale à la comparaison transnationale. Les déplacements de la construction d’objets comparatifs en matière de politiques publiques. Revue française de science politique, 55(1), 113–132.
Hassenteufel, P., & Surel, Y. (2000). Des politiques comme les autres? Construction de l’objet et outils d’analyse des politiques européennes. Politiques européennes, 1, 8–24.
Hawkins, K. (1992). The Use of the Legal Discretion: Perspectives from Law and Social Science. In K. Hawkins (Ed.), The Uses of Discretion (pp. 11–46). New York: Oxford University Press.
Hawkins, K. (2002). Law as a Last Resort: Prosecution Decision-Making in a Regulatory Agency. New York: Oxford University Press.
Héritier, A., Kerwer, D., Knill, C., Lehmkuhl, D., & Teutsch, M. (2001). Differential Europe: The European Union Impact on National Policymaking. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Herzfeld, M. (1992). The Social Production of Indifference: Exploring the Symbolic Roots of Western Bureaucracies. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Jileva, E. (2003). La mise en œuvre de Schengen: la délivrance des visas en Bulgarie. In D. Bigo & E. Guild (Eds.), La mise à l’écart des étrangers: les effets du visa Schengen (pp. 42–59). Paris: L’Harmattan.
Jordan, B., Stråth, B., & Triandafyllidou, A. (2003). Contextualising Immigration Policy Implementation in Europe. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 29(2), 195–224.
Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., & Tversky, A. (1982). Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Knill, C., & Lenschow, A. (1998). Change as Appropriate Adaptation: Administrative Adjustment to European Environmental Policy in Britain and Germany. European Integration Online Papers (EIoP), 2(1). https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/bitstream/handle/123456789/26717/Knill_267176.pdf?sequence=2. Accessed 15 February 2018.
Knill, C., & Lenschow, A. (Eds.). (2000). Implementing EU Environmental Policy: New Directions and Old Problems. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Lasswell, H. D. (1936). Politics: Who Gets What, When, How. New York: Whittlesey House.
Lipsky, M. (1980). Street-Level Bureaucracy. Dilemmas of Individuals in Public Services. New York: Russel Sage Foundation.
Manning, P. K., & Hawkins, K. (1990). Legal Decision: A Frame Analytic Perspective. In M. Weatheritt (Ed.), Policy Research: Where Now? (pp. 139–156). Farnborough: Gower.
Nisbett, R. E., & Ross, L. (1980). Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Palumbo, D. J., & Calista, D. J. (1990). Opening Up the Black Box: Implementation and the Policy Process. In D. J. Palumbo & D. J. Calista (Eds.), Implementation and the Policy Process: Opening Up the Black Box (pp. 3–18). New York: Greenwood Press.
Pierson, P. (2000). Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and Study of Politics. American Political Science Review, 94(2), 251–267.
Pratt, A. C. (1999). Dunking the Doughnut: Discretionary Power, Law and the Administration of the Canadian Immigration Act. Social & Legal Studies, 8(2), 199–226.
Pressman, J. L., & Wildavsky, A. (1984). Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington Are Dashed in Oakland: Or, Why It’s Amazing That Federal Programs Work at All, This Being a Saga of the Economic Development Administration as Told by Two Sympathetic Observers Who Seek to Build Morals on a Foundation of Ruined Hopes. Oakland: University of California Press.
Radaelli, C. (2002). The Domestic Impact of European Union Public Policy: Notes on Concepts, Methods, and Challenge of Empirical Research. Politique européenne, 1(5), 107–142.
Rea, A. (2009). Laisser circuler, laisser enfermer: les orientations paradoxales d’une politique migratoire débridée en Europe. In C. Kobelinsky & S. Makaremi (Eds.), Enfermés dehors: Enquête sur le confinement des étrangers (pp. 265–280). Paris: Editions du Croquant.
Satzewich, V. (2015). Points of Entry: How Canada’s Immigration Officers Decide Who Gets In. Toronto: UBC Press.
Schain, M. (2008). The Politics of Immigration in France, Britain, and the United States: A Comparative Study. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Scheel, S. (2017). Real Fake? Appropriating Mobility Via Schengen Visa in the Context of Biometric Border Controls. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2017.1401513.
Simon, H. A. (1947). Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization. New York: Free Press.
Spire, A. (2008). Accueillir ou reconduire. Enquête sur les guichets de l’immigration. Paris: Raisons d’Agir, Seuil.
Sverdrup, U. (2007). Policy Implementation. In P. Graziano & M. Vink (Eds.), Europeanization: A Handbook for a New Research Agenda (pp. 197–211). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Torpey, J. (2000). The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship and the State. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wedel, J. R., Shore, C., Feldman, G., & Lathrop, S. (2005). Toward an Anthropology of Public Policy. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 600(1), 30–51.
Weller, J. M. (1999). L’État au guichet: sociologie cognitive du travail et modernisation administrative des services publics. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zampagni, F. (2013). Who Moves? Schengen Visa Policies and Implementation in Consulates. A Fieldwork Study from the Embassy of Italy in Senegal (PhD dissertation). Università di Pisa.
Zolberg, A. (1999). Matters of State: Theorizing Immigration Policy. In C. Hirschman, P. Kasinitz, & J. DeWind (Eds.), The Handbook of International Migration: The American Experience (pp. 71–93). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Infantino, F. (2019). Introduction. In: Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10647-8_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10647-8_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-10646-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-10647-8
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)