The European Politics of Brain Drain: A Fast or Slow-Burning Crisis?

This qualitative multi-method study maps the politics of brain drain at the level of the European Union and follows the evolution of the issue over the last four parliamentary periods. By utilizing a novel combination of interviews with a content and network analysis of parliamentary questions, the paper demonstrates how the politics of brain drain travel from the domestic level to the European through frames that connect the issue to problems and solutions at the Union-level. I argue that the politics of brain drain are not adequately captured or addressed in the official statistics. Instead, I turn to discourse in order to analyze the prevailing interpretations of brain drain, why it occurs, and what to do about it. The analysis reveals that the uncertainty, controversy, and open-endedness of brain drain as an intra-European phenomenon lends itself well to multiple framings by actors in pursuit of preconceived political ends. This creates a space of opportunities between involved participants and even within the Commission between laissez-faire and interventionist responses that vary in terms of the economic assumptions and political preferences brought to bear on the issue. The paper goes on to explore especially how a supply-side, employability logic towards addressing brain drain clashes with other ways of framing and contesting the phenomenon, and how this is reflected in policy responses.