Governing through non-removability
Return policy, legal liminality and the politics of exclusion in Greece
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24020566 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Margarita Markoviti (0000-0003-3783-3738, The American College of Greece, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-07-31 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0896-9205 • E-ISSN: 1569-1632 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/08969205261471563 |
| OpenAlex | W7172098936 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 18 |
This article examines the implementation and lived effects of return and readmission (RR) policies in Greece, situating them within the broader European shift toward deterrence and accelerated removal under the EU’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork conducted in Greece in 2025 – including semi-structured interviews with state officials, non-governmental organization workers, legal practitioners, and migrants, alongside systematic policy document analysis – the analysis reveals that Greece’s RR framework operates as a fragmented and punitive “non-regime.” Despite intensified enforcement rhetoric since early 2025, actual returns remain limited and procedurally inconsistent, producing prolonged legal liminality, socio-economic marginalization and administrative invisibility for non-removable migrants. Rather than passively enduring this condition, migrants seek to navigate it strategically: irregularity and onward movement emerge as rational responses to stalled regularization, institutional opacity, and the absence of integration pathways. Situating these findings within scholarship on non-removability and the “migration fix,” the article argues that enforcement-centered return governance fails to resolve the structural contradictions it is designed to address, and that the persistent gap between enforcement ambitions and implementation realities produces social harms that extend far beyond the narrow logic of “return effectiveness.”
Contentious politics · Corporate governance · Enforcement · Invisibility · Liminality · Politics · Punitive damages · Scholarship · State (computer science) · Contemporary and Historical Greek Studies · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Social Policy and Reform Studies
Irregular Immigration Control in Italy and Greece
Informalising Readmission Agreements in the EU Neighbourhood
The Deportation Regime
Homo Sacer
Departheid
The Presumption of Safety Tested
Waiting in Captivity
Nothing Works’? A Quantitative Assessment of the Effects of Different Types of Return and Readmission Frameworks on EU Member States' Enforced Return Rates
The EU's ‘return rate’ with third countries
Theorising the ‘migration fix
The Mediatization and the Politicization of the “Refugee Crisis” in Europe
"Crossing the Eastern Mediterranean Sea in Search of "Protection
Coerced return
Migrant "Illegality" and Deportability in Everyday Life
Liminal Legality
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |