Between closure and selective openness: the political economy of migration governance in Greece

My proposed thesis examines the coexistence of restrictive migration politics and recurring regularisation programmes in Greece. More specifically, it asks why a state that publicly frames irregular migration as a problem of security, illegality, or national sovereignty repeatedly resorts to regularisation measures in practice. Greece provides a particularly revealing case, as it has combined strong anti-immigration rhetoric and intensified border enforcement with a persistent dependence on migrant labour in sectors such as agriculture, construction, care and tourism.

Methodologically, the project adopts a qualitative case study approach combining ethnographic fieldwork with document and discourse analysis. The ethnographic methods will essentially include participant observation and semi-structured interviews of a diverse set of actors (migrant workers, NGO actors, trade union representatives, local administrators, etc.) Document analysis is focused on migration laws, regularisation schemes, parliementary debates, ministerial statements, political speeches, media coverage, NGO reports, and existing scholarly literature. Where relevant and available, statistical data on labour shortages, deportations, regularisations, and migrant employment trends will be used to contextualise policy developments.