La construction d’un régime européen de visas représente un domaine de recherche important. Ceci a été analysé comme un des instruments politiques qui déplacent le contrôle migratoire au delà des limites du territoire européen. Cependant, la mise en œuvre de cette politique dans les consulats reste très peu étudiée. Cette thèse analyse la mise en œuvre de la politique du visa Schengen conceptualisée comme politique des frontières. Par la délivrance du visa Schengen, organisations étatiques et non-étatiques réalisent le travail de triage et de filtrage des frontières. Cette thèse investigue la construction quotidienne de la frontière européenne à l’étranger en privilégiant la perspective théorique de la mise en œuvre des politiques publiques. L’analyse s’appuie sur une analyse comparée. Elle se concentre sur les services visas des consulats de deux anciens pays d’immigration, la France et la Belgique, et un nouveau pays d’immigration, l’Italie, qui mettent en œuvre la politique du visa dans un même État tiers : le Maroc. Cette étude met en évidence des différences nationales importantes dans la mise en œuvre qui sont dues à l’histoire, à la conception nationale à la politique des visas, aux conditions organisationnelles distinctes. Toutefois, la méthodologie comparative et l’approche inductive choisis ont permis de mettre en exergue des processus de transferts au niveau de la mise en œuvre qui constituent l’action publique transnationale par le bas. Les interactions informelles entre les acteurs constituent une ‘communauté de pratiques’ basé sur le désir de partager un savoir pratique et local qui sert à résoudre des problèmes liés à la mise en œuvre au quotidien. / The constitution of the European visa regime has deservingly received much scholarly attention. It has been analyzed as part of the policy toolkit that displaces migration control away from the edges of the territory of Europe. Nevertheless, the street-level implementation of this European policy in national consulates remains understudied. This dissertation sheds ethnographic light on Schengen visa policy implementation that is conceptualized as bordering policy. By delivering Schengen visas, state and nonstate organizations achieve the filtering work of borders; this dissertation therefore investigates the day-to-day bordering of Europe abroad and using a comparative approach and focusing on from the theoretical perspective of street-level policy implementation. The analysis builds on a comparative case study: it focuses on the visa sections of the consulates of two old immigration countries, Belgium and France, and one new immigration country, Italy, which implement visa policy in a same third country, i.e. Morocco. This study highlights cross-national differences of visa policy day-to-day implementation that are due to shifting historical backgrounds, national sense-making of visa policy, and distinct organizational conditions. However, the comparative research design and the inductive epistemological approach deployed have revealed processes of transfer at the implementation level, which result in transnational policy-making from below. Informal interactions between actors constitute a ‘community of practice’ based on the desire to share local and practical knowledge rather than expert knowledge in order to address problems linked to day-to-day implementation.

En recherchant la maîtrise des flux migratoires, la France entretient des rapports avec l'Union européenne, les pays européens, les pays d'émigration et les organisations non gouvernementales. Deux points essentiels apparaissent dans cette analyse des rapports internationaux de la France. Le premier concerne l'élaboration d'une politique migratoire de l'Union européenne révélant un cadre de négociations difficiles. La mise en œuvre de cette politique dépend des intérêts particuliers de chaque Etat membre. Le deuxième porte sur les coopérations bilatérales d'une efficacité incertaine donnant priorité aux contrôles des flux migratoires sans prendre en compte les attentes des différentes parties contractantes. Parallèlement à la mise en place de ces rapports, les instruments juridiques internationaux dégagent un ensemble de droits protégeant les étrangers. Progressivement, la France est ainsi obligée de s'aligner sur la jurisprudence européenne qui est plus protectrice à l'égard des ressortissants étrangers. / In looking for the control of migratory flows, France maintains relationships with the European Union, the European countries, the countries of emigration and the non-governmental organizations. Two mains points appear in this analysis of the French international relationships. The first one concerns the elaboration of a migratory policy of the European Union which shows a framework of difficult negotiations. The implementation of this policy depends on the particular interests of every member state. The second point is about the bilateral cooperations of an uncertain efficiency giving priority to the controls of migratory flows without taking into account the expectations of the various contracting parties. At the same time as the setting up of these relationships, the international legal instruments highlight a set of rights that protect the foreigners. Gradually, France is then compelled to align itself with the European jurisprudence which is more protective towards the foreign nationals.

A challenge when reforming public management is the potential risk of side effects as policy intentions often come with unintended consequences in practice. For the field of International Relations (IR), management reforms affecting the foreign service are particularly relevant as they go beyond the domestic context with potential implications also for state relations with foreign publics. However, little academic attention has been directed towards visa management, which serves not only as a consular function of the diplomatic missions but also plays a key role in facilitating their diplomatic functions as stated in the Vienna Convention. Employing the theoretical perspectives of New Public Management (NPM) and The Visa Dimension of Public Diplomacy, this thesis investigates the intentions and outcomes of Sweden's decision to regionalise its Schengen visa management in Sub-Saharan Africa. The inquiry is based on 15 semi-structured interviews with public officials currently or formerly working at the Swedish Migration Agency, the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Swedish embassies in Abuja, Addis Abeba, Dar es Salaam, Lusaka, Nairobi and Pretoria. The thesis finds the regionalisation of Sweden's Schengen visa management to be an NPM-inspired reform intended to establish economies of scale in visa management. While the reform was motivated to improve cost efficiency and quality in terms of increased uniformity and legal certainty in visa processing, it was meantime anticipated to come with challenges related to resource allocation, transfer of local competence and service delivery to applicants. In practice, the reform has led to permanent side effects on applicants by making the visa process more time-consuming and expensive from a user perspective. Thus, the thesis concludes the regionalisation of the Schengen visa management to be an NPM-inspired reform that focused too narrowly on internal efficiency gains that it overlooked the negative effects on applicants to the detriment of Swedish diplomatic functions in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Visa-liberalisation agreements are commonly used as an incentive by the EU to encourage cooperation within the realm of border and migration management with its neighbouring countries. The ultimate aim of these agreements is to reduce irregular migration to Schengen territory, something that has been percieved as an increasingly urgent issue for European policy makers in the wake of the 2015 'migration crisis'. However, the use of visa liberalisation agreements in such a fashion appears contradictory considering that most irregular migrants in the EU most likely are visa-overstayers. This essay takes of in this apparent puzzle and argues that securitisation theory might help us better understand this discrepancy. While the construction of the migrant as a security threat in Europe has been thoroughly examined, differences in securitisation between grups of irregular migrants are often left out of the discussion or only implicitly mentioned. By examining the discourse and practices of a central EU agency in regard to border and migration management, FRONTEX, this thesis shows that visa-overstayers are routinely left out of the securitised discussion on irregular migration, thus rendering EU policies asymmetrically occupied with irregular migration by means of 'illegal entry'. However, the thesis also uncovers a more conplex set of ideas that show that although visa-overstayers are not conceptulised as threats to security in discourse on par with other categories of irregular migrants, visa-goers and other travellers are, too, incresingly subjected to a rationale of survaillance and risk.

The constitution of the European visa regime has deservingly received much scholarly attention. It has been analyzed as part of the policy toolkit that displaces migration control away from the edges of the territory of Europe. Nevertheless, the street-level implementation of this European policy in national consulates remains understudied. This dissertation sheds ethnographic light on Schengen visa policy implementation that is conceptualized as bordering policy. By delivering Schengen visas, state and nonstate organizations achieve the filtering work of borders; this dissertation therefore investigates the day-to-day bordering of Europe abroad and using a comparative approach and focusing on from the theoretical perspective of street-level policy implementation. The analysis builds on a comparative case study: it focuses on the visa sections of the consulates of two old immigration countries, Belgium and France, and one new immigration country, Italy, which implement visa policy in a same third country, i.e. Morocco. This study highlights cross-national differences of visa policy day-to-day implementation that are due to shifting historical backgrounds, national sense-making of visa policy, and distinct organizational conditions. However, the comparative research design and the inductive epistemological approach deployed have revealed processes of transfer at the implementation level, which result in transnational policy-making from below. Informal interactions between actors constitute a ‘community of practice’ based on the desire to share local and practical knowledge rather than expert knowledge in order to address problems linked to day-to-day implementation.<p><p><p>La construction d’un régime européen de visas représente un domaine de recherche important. Ceci a été analysé comme un des instruments politiques qui déplacent le contrôle migratoire au delà des limites du territoire européen. Cependant, la mise en œuvre dans les consulats nationaux reste très peu étudiée. Cette thèse analyse la mise en œuvre de la politique du visa Schengen conceptualisée comme politique des frontières. Par la délivrance du visa Schengen, organisations étatiques et non-étatiques réalisent le travail de filtrage des frontières. Cette thèse investigue la construction quotidienne de la frontière européenne à l’étranger en privilégiant la perspective théorique de la mise en œuvre des politiques publiques. L’analyse s’appuie sur un cas d’étude comparé. Elle se concentre sur les services visas des consulats de deux anciens pays d’immigration, la France et la Belgique, et un nouveau pays d’immigration, l’Italie, qui mettent en œuvre la politique du visa dans un même État tiers :le Maroc. Cette étude met en évidence des différences nationales importantes qui sont dues aux différents passés historiques, à l’attribution d’un sens national à la politique du visa, aux conditions organisationnelles distinctes. Toutefois, la méthodologie comparative et l’approche épistémologique inductive choisis ont permis de mettre en exergue des processus de transferts au niveau de la mise en œuvre qui constituent l’action publique transnationale par le bas. Les interactions informelles entre les acteurs constituent une ‘communauté de pratiques’ basé sur le désir de partager un savoir pratique et local qui sert à adresser des problèmes liés à la mise en œuvre au quotidien. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished