Between Knowledge and Assumptions: The Migrant in the Eyes of the Policymaker

What are policymakers’ assumptions about how migrants take decisions? Do these change across countries or policy issues? And what role does expert knowledge play in reinforcing or reshaping these assumptions? Based on an in-depth analysis of 180 policy documents surrounding key migration reforms in Austria, Italy and the Netherlands since the 2000s, this paper examines dominant assumptions about migrant decision-making across three policy issues: counter-smuggling, asylum reception, and worker attraction. Our analysis shows that while policy documents rarely discuss migrant decision-making explicitly, they are rife with assumptions around migrant behavior. Specifically, they portray “the migrant” as a fundamentally different figure depending on the policy area at stake – ranging from an often simplistic and patronizing understanding of the irregular migrant to the rational yet easily influenceable figure of the essential worker. Such assumptions shape whether and how knowledge is used to underpin policy choices. While knowledge tends to be mostly disregarded in the politicized area of counter-smuggling, knowledge on reception in the region is often used symbolically. In other words, it is discussed but does not ultimately influence policy decisions. Only in policy documents on essential workers did we identify some instances of instrumental knowledge use. Surprisingly, these issue-specific findings hold across Austria, Italy and the Netherlands despite different geographical contexts, migration histories and commitments to evidence-based policymaking. They invite migration scholars, policymakers and experts to pay closer attention to issue-specific dynamics in migration policy and to further theorize the mechanisms through which not only knowledge use but also non-use and even misuse play out in practice.