Inclusive Exclusion: Explaining the Control Gap and Irregular Migration in Europe

The paper contends that scholarly attempts to gauge the ability of states to control migration need to include analysis of irregular migration (Sciortino: 2004). Moreover, irregular migration should be understood not as an aberration, an occasional breakdown in a systematic regime of control. Rather, irregular migration should be analyzed as a normal and integral (albeit unofficial) element of a broader migration regime governing both the documented and the undocumented (Jansen, Celitakes and Bloois 2015; Sassen 2014; Karakayali 2008). The paper employs the concept of “inclusive exclusion” (Agamben 1998: 7) to analyze the pervasive presence of irregular migrants in the EU and MS (Italy, Spain, UK, Germany, France, and the Netherlands). The theory of inclusive exclusion hypothesizes the widespread toleration and even facilitation of the entry and residence of undocumented migrants (inclusion) simultaneously combined with their marginalization and exploitation (exclusion) -- what Ataç and Rosenberger (2013: 9) term “exclusion in not from society” (also Balibar 2007; Sassen 2006; De Genova 2005). Using the concept of “assemblage” (Foucault 2007: 311), that is, a heterogeneous, loosely connected network of people, institutions, discourses, and products, the paper goes on to analyze who and what benefit from inclusive exclusion. Without knowing what interests are served by inclusive exclusion one cannot fully grasp the significance of its contribution to the so-called “control gap.”