The impact of EU border externalisation on freedom of movement within West Africa

Since the so-called “European migrant crisis” of 2015, the European Union (EU) has stepped up its attempts to curb irregular migration by enlisting third countries; a practice known as “border externalisation.” This thesis investigates how the EU’s border externalisation policies impact on freedom of movement within West Africa, a region with high internal migratory movements, due in part to the free movement protocol of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which 15 nations have signed. I argue that EU externalisation policies have inadvertently led to limits on movement within West Africa. Furthermore, by applying Fanon’s postcolonial theory, I also argue that these policies are a continuation of colonialist practices. This thesis adopts a qualitative approach by examining important migration agreements between the EU and African nations since 2000, presenting an illustrative case study, and using interviews with policymakers and migration experts. I find that the EU uses several coercive measures over West African countries to prioritise EU migration concerns, including financial incentives, aid conditionalities and threats of withholding development aid, which emphasise containment and securitisation over free mobility. In so doing, these policies are undemocratic and undermine ECOWAS’s regional sovereignty and self-determination which in turn hinders West Africa’s regional integration. However, the interviews challenged the dominant narrative of African countries as passive victims of EU policies by highlighting how African governments use the threat of migration to extract support for domestic policy priorities and development aid.Arts, Faculty ofPolitical Science, Department ofGraduat