Project leader: Cathrine Talleraas, Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), Norway
Project duration: 2020-2024
Participating countries: Sweden, Norway and the United Kingdom
Funding from NordForsk: 13,000,000 NOK
Project website: Effects of Externalisation
The project’s overarching objective was to further the development of theory on global migration management, specifically through research on the effects of European Union (EU) external migration management policies in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). While preventing irregular migration had been a European priority, migration remained crucial for development in partner countries, creating a paradox in EU collaboration. The study explored how governments and stakeholders navigated competing national and global priorities within an EU-centric framework. Using a multi-scalar, interdisciplinary, ethnographic approach, the EFFEXT project advanced migration management theory, informed equitable policymaking, and revealed the institutional, implementation, and broader cross-scale impacts of EU policies.
Key Findings
- The project examined how European migration policies affect governance in six African and Middle Eastern countries (Ghana, Senegal, Ethiopia, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya).
- Local actors are not passive recipients but strategically adopt, adapt, resist, or subvert EU agendas.
- EU externalisation often creates unintended “rippling effects”: politicisation of migration, parallel formal/informal policy discourses, donor dependency, and in some cases instability.
- Combining migration control with development aid generates tensions. EU policies prioritizing a reduction of irregular migration over local development needs, risk harm to human rights, sovereignty and European-African relationships.
- Some of the country-level findings highlight varied dynamics:
Ghana: Modernised immigration services but also dependency and negative impacts on rural mobility.
Senegal: Civil society resists EU discourses through advocacy, but has limited influence in formal policymaking.
Libya: EU support deepens north–south divides and empowers militias.
Ethiopia: Ethiopia has tightened its border security to comply with EU priorities, but this has created tensions between external control and internal development goals.
Jordan: Refugee compacts emphasise containment and labour market segmentation, creating frustration among locals and refugees.
Lebanon: Deliberate non-regulation allows elites to exploit ambiguity while EU influence remains mostly financial. - Conceptual innovations include “rippling effects,” a typology of policy navigation strategies, and “strategic non-regulation” to explain governance responses in partner states.
- The project’s wide outreach — through academic publications, policy briefs, media, and events — has contributed to both research and policy debates, across the Nordics and the UK, and within the European Parliament, stressing the need for more equitable and context-sensitive migration partnerships.
Key outputs
Talleraas, C. & Vammen, I.M.S. (2025) The rippling effects of European migration governance in Africa: a critical research agenda and analytical approach, International Migration Review 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/01979183251359170
Wiig, A., Kolstad, I., Kandilige, L. and Talleraas, C. (2025) Effects of information about irregular migration on transit community attitudes towards migrants, World Development 0(0). doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107044
Talleraas, C. (2024) Externally Driven Border Control in West Africa: Local Impact and Broader Ramifications, International Migration Review, 0(0). https://doi. org/10.1177/01979183241292318
Knudsen, A. J. (forthcoming 2025). Continental containment: Crafting Middle East “host states”. In T. Fakhoury & D. Chatty (Eds.), Refugee Governance in the Arab World: The International Refugee Regime and Global Politics. Bloomsbury.
Talleraas, C. (2024) The politics of migration policy implementation in Ghana, Governance, 1 18, doi:10.1111/gove.12848
Caponio, T, Schiller, M. & Talleraas, C. (2025) The Politics and Governance of Migration, Governance 0(0). doi.org/10.1111/gove.70055