Departament de Dret i Ciències Polítiques

Los populismos y las derivas iliberales de algunos gobiernos ponen en riesgo el funcionamiento constitucionalmente adecuado de las instituciones y organismos encargados de controlar a la mayoría. Ello acaba por debilitar la democracia, entendida como democracia representativa y constitucional, así como la idea de Constitución como límite al poder. En los últimos años asistimos a una erosión gradual de principios e instituciones del Estado constitucional y democrático de Derecho que afecta a los checks and balances entre poderes y también al pluralismo político. Las corrientes populistas e iliberales abogan por dar primacía a los poderes con legitimidad popular, sobre los órganos de control político y judicial, los cuales son considerados como obstaculizadores de la voluntad popular. Pero en realidad instrumentalizan igualmente las instituciones parlamentarias y colonizan los órganos de control, socavando su independencia. Los autores de esta obra reflexionan acerca de estas amenazas. Analizan los déficits del diseño normativo y del funcionamiento de los contrapoderes e instrumentos contramayoritarios. También pasan revista a la eficacia de los límites provenientes de las instituciones europeas e internacionales, así como de la ciudadanía en el ejercicio de sus derechos. El libro plantea propuestas de mejora de la composición y funcionamiento de los contrapoderes y de las relaciones entre instituciones y de estas con la ciudadanía. Todo ello con la pretensión de hacer frente a esas tendencias populistas e iliberales antes de que deriven en regímenes autoritarios.

En este capítulo, se analiza el rol de los Tribunales Constitucionales dentro del Estado Constitucional de Derecho; en particular, su funcionalidad política. Partiendo del reconocimiento de su valioso rol y de su innegable función política como guardianes de la Constitución, analiza las distintas fundamentaciones y formas de entender dicho rol político; concluye que éste proviene de la Constitución misma como documento de consenso que expresa la decisión política fundamental de la comunidad. Asimismo, expone que estos Altos Tribunales desempeñan una función pedagógica y de educación política constitucional. Se explora cómo su dimensión política influye en el desarrollo de la teoría jurídica de las instituciones constitucionales y de los derechos fundamentales, así como, en la emisión de directrices legislativas. Termina estableciendo unas consideraciones de cara evitar que se socave su importante función y se mantenga la legitimidad del control constitucional, de ese modo, se evite que discursos iliberales o populistas erosionen su autoridad.

Immigration control is increasingly being extended from external borders to the interior of the state and society, and irregular residents in particular face policies that directly aim to prevent their settlement, integration and access to services. The British government explicitly presented these as an effort to create a ‘hostile environment’ for this segment of the population. In order to be effective, such policies have to be implemented within the core institutions of the liberal welfare state which, at the same time, fulfil a crucial role for the integration of society as a whole. Based on original interview data from London, this chapter looks at several sites where the exclusionary logic of immigration law intersects with various inclusionary logics underlying public service provision. Organisation theory helps to explain how and why different public institutions (hospitals, universities and local welfare departments) have responded to this by establishing specialised subdivisions that deal specifically with migrant irregularity. This development represents one of many ways in which the politics of (dis)integration can be institutionalised. While it allows welfare institutions to shield their core professional staff from contradictory logics and demands, it further increases the dangerous overlap between their own aim and function and those of the immigration system.

Something called ‘integration’ has been an official policy goal for the last 50 years or more, at least in liberal democracies. As far as the integration of newcomers is concerned, this liberal consensus has however begun to change in the last few years. While some migrants have always been excluded from integration policies, we can now see a significant rise in the creation of barriers to their equal participation in social systems. In this chapter, we argue that such disintegration policies nonetheless remain linked to the idea of integration; and introduce ‘(dis)integration’ as an analytical tool to describe this intertwining. We thereby build on and seek to contribute to three strands of literature: civic stratification, inclusion/exclusion, and critical citizenship. In order to do this, we develop three related arguments: First, we highlight that integration is often framed in terms of limited capacity to justify accompanying measures of disintegration. Second, we explore how individuals (can) counter such disintegration measures through ‘acts of integration’ that range from adapting to legal constraints, to migrant activism and solidarity with identified others. Third, we show that the (dis)integration of some is inherently connected to the (dis)integration of society as a whole.

This open access book explores how contemporary integration policies and practices are not just about migrants and minority groups becoming part of society but often also reflect deliberate attempts to undermine their inclusion or participation. This affects individual lives as well as social cohesion. The book highlights the variety of ways in which integration and disintegration are related to, and often depend on each other. By analysing how (dis)integration works within a wide range of legal and institutional settings, this book contributes to the literature on integration by considering (dis)integration as a highly stratified process. Through featuring a fertile combination of comparative policy analyses and ethnographic research based on original material from six European and two non-European countries, this book will be a great resource for students, academics and policy makers in migration and integration studies.

This open access book provides an analysis of the functioning, consequences and inherent limitations of internalised immigration control. By adopting the perspective of irregular residents as well as local service providers, the book sheds new light on the intricate mechanisms that either help or hinder the diffusion of immigration control into concrete institutional settings, like schools or hospitals. A simple and innovative analytical framework enables thesystematic comparison of three different spheres of service provision across two distinct local as well as also national contexts. This is necessary to understand the complex interplay between formal law and policy, the intrinsic rules and logics operating within institutions, and the ethical or practical obligations and constraints attached to particular roles and professions. Based on empirical findings and rigorous analysis, the book argues that internalised control is part of the problem that irregular migration poses for society, rather than constituting a potential solution to it.

European governments widely celebrate and extensively fund ‘assisted voluntary return’ (AVR) programmes and assume that return counsellors play an important role for their implementation. At the same time, relevant legislation only vaguely defines this role and reduces it to a passive and neutral provision of ‘objective information’. In this article, we therefore ask how much and what kind of agency individual counsellors exercise and how this affects the aim and nature of AVR. We argue that counsellors fulfil a highly ambiguous function within a system that overall aims to bring unwanted migrants’ decision-making in line with restrictive immigration law. This function requires considerable autonomy to choose and use the various kinds of information they provide. We conceptualise their work as ‘aspirations management’ that mediates the ‘asymmetrical negotiation’ between precarious status migrants and the governments seeking to deport them. Based on original qualitative data from Austria and the Netherlands, we analytically distinguish three fundamentally different counselling strategies: facilitating migrants’ existing return aspirations, obtaining their compliance without aspirations, and/or inducing aspirations for return. This framework not only helps us to conceptualise AVR counsellors’ specific agency, but will also be useful for analysing how other actors manage the aspirations of unwanted non-citizens.

This article introduces the theme and scope of this Special Themed Section on the role of ‘voluntariness’ in the governance of migration. It provides an overarching framework for defining and operationalising the notion of voluntariness in the field of migration studies; and for investigating how voluntariness works across different sites, situations and in distinct national contexts. We understand voluntariness as a general principle and instrument that (re)produces the active participation of different actors across society in the (state-driven) management of migration. This focus leads us to explore key dimensions in the shifting (neoliberal) governmentality of migration in contemporary societies. The introduction makes the case for bringing together seemingly disparate examples and case studies in order to shed new light on how certain ascribed meanings and understandings of voluntariness can shape the actions of very different subjects involved in contemporary bordering processes.

This article looks at the implementation of so-called “assisted voluntary return” policies in Austria and Britain, where state agencies have recently replaced nongovernmental organizations as providers of return counseling. To better understand how such a shift affects the in/voluntariness of return, I identify three dimensions along which the “quality” of voluntariness can be assessed and relate them to concrete aspects of return counseling practice: absence of coercion; availability of acceptable alternatives; and access to adequate and trusted information. Based on original qualitative data, I show that even within an overall restrictive and oppressive regime, return counselors can make room for voluntariness by upholding ethical and procedural standards—if they retain substantial independence from the government.

La Ley 19/2013, de 9 de diciembre, de transparencia, acceso a la información pública y buen gobierno (LTE) tiene un ámbito subjetivo de aplicación muy amplio, que incorpora no solo a la Administración pública y a otros sujetos públicos, sino también a diversas entidades de naturaleza privada que tienen una especial conexión con la Administración. El presente trabajo estudia el derecho de acceso a la información que los ciudadanos pueden ejercer frente a las entidades privadas del sector público, las corporaciones de derecho público o los sujetos puramente privados que prestan servicios públicos, ejercen potestades administrativas o celebran contratos con el sector público. Se analizan tanto las razones que justifican la sujeción de cada una de estas entidades a la transparencia como el alcance del derecho de acceso a la información que tienen en su poder, a la luz de la copiosa doctrina jurisprudencial, del Consejo de Transparencia y Buen Gobierno y de sus homólogos autonómicos emanada desde la aprobación de la LTE.