International organizations as global migration governors: The World Bank in Central Asia

Numerous international organizations play a key role in generating and sustaining migration governance across the world in the absence of a global migration regime. However, global governance scholarship lacks grounded understanding of their role, which is often rejected or simply left unnoticed. In rare cases when international organizations do get academic attention,light is shed on two referent “migration”international organizations the International Organization for Migration and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees while other IOs remain in their shadow. Drawing on the case of the post-Soviet Central Asia, which is characterized by both significant migration dynamics and multilayered governance but has so far escaped attention of migration governance scholars, this article takes two steps for establishing a new research agenda. First, it deploys and applies to international organizations the concept of global migration governors defined as authorities who exercise power across borders for the purpose of affecting migration policy. Second, it moves discussion beyond the referent international organizations and demonstrates the role of often overlooked nonreferent international organizations, such as the World Bank, active in the field of migration governance. This analysis is based on fieldwork in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Russia conducted in 2011−2015

Problems and prospects of EU — Russia dialogue on visa-free travel

This article deals with the issues pertinent to the EU — Russia visa dialogue — one of the major areas of cooperation between the two partners. The article aims to identify the main problems of this dialogue, as well as prospects for the introduction of a visa-free regime between the EU and Russia. The authors provide a historical overview of cooperation in this area and consider problems and prospects of visa liberalization from the economic, legal, and political perspectives. The analysis draws on primary sources such as the EU and Russia’s legislation, EU — Russia agreements on visa facilitation and readmission, visa statistics, expert interviews, as well as analytical reports and research works on the topic. Particular attention is paid to the “Common steps towards visa-free short-term travel of the citizens of the EU and Russia”, which is currently the main document in the visa dialogue. Having assessed the implementation of the provisions contained in the four blocks of the “Common Steps”, the authors draw conclusions about the political nature of major obstacles to a visa-free regime. This article is based on the proceedings of the “Russia and European Union: the dynamics of interrelations” international conference organized by the EU center of the I. Kant Baltic Federal University (the EU4U project)

Learning in, about and from the field? : Symbolic functions of EU knowledge production on Central Asia

This work was supported by the project ‘Contested Global Governance, Transformed Global Governors? International Organisations and “Weak” States’ of the French National Research Agency [grant number ANR-16-ACHN-0034] and Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) [grant number 12B9422N].Examining the European Union’s (EU) engagement with Central Asia since the early 1990s, we see an increased commitment to context sensitivity. Arguably, in order to design ‘better’ interventions, the EU needs to know more about this region. This article explores three means of EU learning: in the field – through EU officials’ first-hand experience of working at EU Delegations in Central Asia; about the field – through programmed channels of external expert knowledge, and in particular think tanks; and from the field – during institutionalized consultations with multiple local actors, such as academics, journalists and non-governmental organizations. It is argued that despite this complex learning infrastructure, EU knowledge production on Central Asia has a predominantly performative character. Rather than leading to changes in its relations with Central Asia, new knowledge produced by the EU aims at legitimizing this organization’s pre-existing frameworks of engagement and practices of interactions with the region, and substantiating existing policy priorities.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

EU–Central Asian interactions : perceptions, interests and practices

Funding: This work was supported by the project ‘Contested Global Governance, Transformed Global Governors? International Organisations and “Weak” States’ of the French National Research Agency [grant number ANR-16-ACHN-0034]; and the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) [grant number 12B9422N].By shifting the study of European Union (EU)–Central Asian relations from its fixed category of black-boxing both the EU and Central Asia, this article advances the case for the approach of examining multi-level and multi-actor interactions that identify the dynamic processes of reciprocal action and meaning-making that characterize the mutual cooperation. It distinguishes perceptions, interests and practices, pointing to the rationales and modes of behaviour of multiple EU and Central Asian actors. The article also advances five reasons why EU studies should take more interest in Central Asia, given that the EU’s larger external relations and security agenda extends to this region. Similarly, it shows that Central Asian studies can benefit from the analysis of the region’s interactions with external actors, including the EU, given that external actors contribute to reshaping national policy agendas and influence everyday life.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Coherent dynamics and decoherence in a superconducting weak link

We demonstrate coherent dynamics of quantized magnetic fluxes in a superconducting loop with a weak link - a nanobridge patterned from the same thin NbN film as the loop. The bridge is a short rounded shape constriction, close to 10 nm long and 20 - 30 nm wide, having minimal width at its center. Quantum state control and coherent oscillations in the driven time evolution of the tunnel-junctionless system are achieved. Decoherence and energy relaxation in the system are studied using a combination of microwave spectroscopy and direct time-domain techniques. The effective flux noise behavior suggests inductance fluctuations as a possible cause of the decoherence.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Russia and Kazakhstan in Eurasian migration system : development trends, socio-economic consequences of migration and approaches to regulation

CARIM-East: Creating an Observatory of Migration East of Europe.Translated version of Migration Policy Centre; CARIM-East Research Report; 2013/43Russia, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries formed a strong migration system that is characterized by large-scale labor migration. It is not only economic development of donor countries that depends on labor migration. The same is true for recipient countries (Russia and Kazakhstan), where considerable share of GDP is generated by foreigners. This dependency will keep rising in the context of demographic crisis and shrinking labor resources.Evolution of migration policies of Russia and Kazakhstan, as well as of other Central Asian countries is not coordinated. Although Kazakhstan partially copies many aspects of migration regulation in Russia, their policies are not conceptually linked. As a result there is a need for stronger multilateral and bilateral cooperation between various Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan and Russia.CARIM-East is co-financed by the European University Institute and the European Union