Social Control and International Migration: An Analysis of Control from the Global to the Local Level

ABSTRACT
The paper deals with social control in the case of international migration and migrants. The author connects Foucault’s concepts of panoptic surveillance and biopolitics with Althusser’s concept of repressive and ideological state apparatuses. The ideological apparatuses pave the way and provide the domestic political legitimacy (public support) for the repressive apparatus. The author presents in detail the forms of formal social control of migration and migrants, which take place on four levels: outside of the country of destination; at the external borders; inside of the country of destination; and in cyberspace. The restriction of the possibility of legal entry and residence in the EU for foreigners (third country nationals) and the consequential increase in migration control has to be understood in the context of changes determined by neoliberal ideology. This creates a paradoxical situation and causes the transformation of states into socially weak but repressive states. They are weak with respect to the social rights of residents, but repressive in the field of surveillance and stricter penal policy. One of the most illustrative areas of such transformation are qualitative and quantitative changes in the control of migration and migrants.
KEY WORDS: social control, surveillance, migration, panopticon, biopolitics

SUMMARY
SOCIAL CONTROL AND INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION: AN ANALYSIS OF CONTROL FROM THE GLOBAL TO THE LOCAL LEVEL
Aleš BUČAR RUČMAN 

The author analyses social control in the case of international migration and migrants. Foucault’s concepts of panoptic surveillance, discipline and biopolitics are connected to Althusser’s concept of repres­sive and ideological state apparatuses and used as a theoretical starting point for a discussion about social control of migrations. Despite changes in social control, which according to some authors led to the post-Foucauldian era of surveillance, the author argues that nowadays control still follows the basic principles of panopticism supported by complex technical machinery. The ideological apparatuses pave the way and provide the domestic political legitimacy (public support) for the repressive apparatus. The restriction of the possibility of legal entry and residence in the EU for foreigners (third country nationals) and the consequential increase in migration control has to be understood in the context of social changes determined by neoliberal ideology. This creates a paradoxical situation and causes the transformation of states into socially weak but repressive states. They are weak with respect to the social rights of residents, but repressive in the field of ​​surveillance and stricter penal policy. One of the most clear examples of such transformation are qualitative and quantitative changes in the control of migration and migrants. Formal social control, which is increasingly accompanied by institutionalised non-state (private) control, takes place on four levels: 1) outside of the country of destination (global and regional migration control); 2) at the external borders (regional and national); 3) inside the country of destination (national and local control); and 4) in cyberspace. A key feature of the surveillance apparatus is that all these mechanisms coexist, intertwine and complement each other and in addition to formal and institutionalized non-state control include also informal social control of migrant populations.