Democratising Migration from the Bottom Up

The Rise of the Global Migrant Rights Movement

Bibliographic Data

ID12716628
AuthorsN Piper (0000-0003-3993-8699, RnOlD-BErGsTrAeSsEr-INsTiTuT, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume12
Issue5
Pages788-802
Publication date2015-03-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlobalizations (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1474-7731 • E-ISSN: 1474-774X
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14747731.2015.1024454
OpenAlexW1989734315
LanguageEN
Citations received25
References cited41

This paper discusses the link between international migration and democratisation from an actor-oriented perspective on the basis of the mobilising efforts by key civil society actors engaged in the promotion of the rights of migrant workers through developing strategies towards movement building and by capitalising on political opportunities that have appeared on the global level. Being pitched at the global level and at organising patterns via the network form, the analytical framework developed takes as its starting point global justice perspectives and then builds upon insights from social movement and constructivist International Relations scholarship. It is argued that what is emerging are (1) movement practices in migrant rights networks which are putting forward increasingly coherent claims that transcend the conventional thinking about global governance and human rights (rights-assuming advocacy); and (2) that such practices are effectively transgressing interstate political arenas (participatory, rights-producing politics). It is on the basis of the cooperation between the 2 main protagonists, trade unions and migrant rights associations, that strategic positioning of migrant rights issues within the global policy debate is taking place, with the aim of promoting a rights-based approach (RBA) to migration and its governance. The combination of rights-producing politics and rights-assuming advocacy is expressed in the RBA to migration which involves the reframing of migrants rights as well as attempts to democratise migration governance in participatory terms

Civil society · Cognitive reframing · Corporate governance · Democracy · Democratization · Economics · Global governance · Human rights · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Social movement · Sociology · Transnational governance · Human Rights and Development · International Labor and Employment Law · Labor Movements and Unions · Law