Book review: war and democratic constraint: how the public influences foreign policy

The book presents an original and engaging argument for the necessity for further analysis into choices democracies make prior to engaging in conflict, and the impact of the media and the public on decision makers, writes Gemma Bird

Criminalisation at Europe’s borders: uncovering the risks faced by those who support asylum seekers

Asylum seekers travelling to Europe via irregular migration routes often rely on assistance from lawyers, NGOs, and volunteers following their arrival. Drawing on research conducted in Greece, Gemma Bird details the risks that these individuals and organisations take in their efforts to provide support

The everyday at the border: Examining visual, material and spatial intersections of international politics along the ‘Balkan Route’

This article examines the intersections between the visual, spatial and material and considers how these interactions capture the border politics of everyday ‘banal’ objects. We do this by looking at some of the objects and things that constitute the ‘Balkan Route’ through Europe: posters, signs, directions, notices, flyers and maps produced by state authorities and volunteer-led aid networks. We use objects to reflect more broadly on how seemingly banal and everyday things become incorporated into the political work of states and become constitutive of fluid borders. We argue that everyday objects become visualisations of states and authorities, and help to make and regulate physical spaces. We show how each visual object encountered along the route gives us a broader insight into the macropolitics of European border regimes, specifically the effects of ‘closed borders’ and the criminalisation of aid networks. The article pushes forward the ‘aesthetic turn’ debate in international relations by bringing in insights from political geography and materialism, and suggests that a walking methodology can be a productive way of encountering the visual and understanding how its physical location creates political effects

Humanitarianism and the ‘Migration Fix’: On the Implication of NGOs in Racial Capitalism and the Management of Relative Surplus Populations

The existing critical literature on NGOs operating in the context of European migration has interrogated their involvement in systems of state surveillance and neoliberal governmentality. We supplement this with a critical political economy perspective which reveals the implication of the humanitarian sector in broader systems of capital accumulation. We draw on two related critical literatures, on Racial Capitalism and Relative Surplus Populations (RSPs), to explore the complex role that NGOs, both large and grassroots, serve in managing displaced populations at the borders of Europe. By introducing the concepts of the ‘migration fix’, secondary exploitation and racialisation, we show how NGOs are implicated, often unwittingly, in the production and management of displaced people as surplus populations, through their dequalification, categorisation and containment. We conclude by exploring the political dilemmas generated by this situation with regard to the practice of NGOs, as well as the possibility for alternative forms of solidarity

Rethinking refugee support: Responding to the crisis in South Eastern Europe

The migration crisis that began in 2015 has had a major impact on countries in South Eastern Europe. Outlining findings and recommendations from a new project, Amanda Russell Beattie, Gemma Bird, Jelena Obradovic-Wochnik and Patrycja Rozbicka explain that the EU’s response to the crisis has resulted in the outsourcing of refugee settlement and care to states such as Serbia, Greece and Bosnia which were previously described as ‘transit’ countries. This is leading to overcrowding in refugee camps and reception centres, as well as difficulty in ensuring adequate standards of care and accommodation

We Must Open Our Eyes To The Injustices Facing Child Refugees

As we follow the plight of migrants on the US border and the Thai cave rescue, it is important that we also open our eyes to the injustices faced by child refugee