Russia is one of the largest recipients of migrant workers worldwide. The Russian migration regime, however, has received relatively little attention in theoretical and comparative debates in migration studies. As one of the first English-language books on Russian migration policy, Why Control Immigration will make a significant and timely contribution to both migration studies in general, and to the Eurasian migration literature in particular. This book also extends the existing literature on Russian politics by reorienting the focus from “big power politics” to more hidden, micro-level governance processes, showing that regional-level actors also have agency and may affect transformations and policy making at the regional or even national level. An ethnographic study of migration governance in Moscow, Krasnodar, Sverdlovsk, and Irkutsk over a period of six years (2009–15), Caress Schenk's book uses informal interviews, participant observations, sixty-six semi-structured interviews with experts, NGO representatives, human rights activists and lawyers, bureaucrats, government officials, diplomats and consulate workers, and migrants. The book also relies on the analysis of statements in speeches and the media, the text of laws, and documents produced by different regional and federal-level agencies.
Schenk organizes her book into seven chapters, which could be divided into two main sections: the first two chapters present the key arguments, review of the relevant literature, conceptual framework, fieldwork and history describing the evolution of labor migration policy in Russia during the period of 2007–2015, and the remaining five chapters develop the conceptual and narrative discussion through the empirical case studies of quota and patent mechanisms and their usage in the regional and local politics of immigration in Moscow, Sverdlovsk, and Krasnodar. A preliminary introduction sets out to understand the Russian migration regime in a global, comparative perspective, asking “ whether this persistently authoritarian regime is really so different from other major immigrant-receiving countries in its approach to controlling immigration” (6). In this introduction Schenk also sets forth her central argument about why and how work permit quotas are strategically used to create a desired level of legal and illegal migrants, which can satisfy the interests and demands of various economic, political, and social actors on federal, regional, and local levels, a form of migration governance conceptualized as a “multi-level balancing act” in this study.
In Chapter 1, Schenk explains the Russian socio-political context and provides an overview of major legal changes to immigration control policies in 2007–15, situating these processes within a broader literature on contemporary migration regimes. Emphasizing the constant tensions between the need for a cheap migrant labor force and anti-migrant sentiments in society, she argues that the Russian government tries to balance these conflicting interests by tightening migration laws that will produce a large number of undocumented migrants. As Schenk notes, low numbers of legal migrants are attractive to both the public and political elites in the sense that it can be deployed as a powerful populist tool for satisfying the anti-migrant sentiments, generating the impression that “the government is willing to protect society from threats to the labor market and social stability” (9). Legal labor scarcity can be used as a source of kormushka (a Russian metaphor used to describe corrupt practices) by mid- and low-level state officials in multiple ways. Employers also benefit from the availability of a large army of undocumented, cheap migrant laborers. The mix of these formal and informal strategies, as Schenk argues, constitutes the key feature of migration governance in Russia, a “multi-level balancing act” that provides extensive opportunities for government and societal actors at all levels to pursue their own interests. In Schenk's view, this is the key element that makes the Russian migration regime different from other major immigrant-receiving countries.
In Chapter 2, “The Multi-Level Balancing Act of Migration Management,” Schenk further develops her argument on the role of informal mechanisms in migration management by focusing on patron-client relationships. Drawing on the existing literature on the dominance of patron-client networks in Russian politics, she explains that stability, prosperity, and legitimacy are the key three concepts that constitute the patronage pact. The patronage pact consists of numerous sub-pacts, with populist and migration pacts being among them. She argues that political elites and actors at various levels are expected to uphold the migration pact by making a populist, anti-migrant connection with the public and contributing to the overall goal of producing a scarcity of legal labor. This scarcity, in turn, provides extensive opportunities for generating informal benefits that can be used and distributed across the system at all levels. In Schenk's view, this is the driving goal of the multi-level balancing act.
In Chapters 3 and 4, Schenk focuses on the informal rules and practices centered around work permit quotas (2007–14) and patents (2015–present)—two labor migration control mechanisms that specifically target migrant workers from the post-Soviet countries. The chapter shows that although work permit quotas and patents considerably differed from one another in terms of their economic logic (the former reflecting Soviet-style central planning and the latter being driven by market-based logic), the primary goal of both mechanisms was to produce a legal labor scarcity which would ensure the continued availability of informal benefits to state actors at various levels.
Chapters 5, 6, and 7 focus on regional migration politics, showing that the multi-level balancing act of migration management varies between regions. In important migration hubs such as Moscow, the migration pact plays a pivotal role in the overall patronage pact that require mayors to make ardent anti-migrant rhetoric in their daily work; to present a coordinated policy space and ensure the scarcity of legal labor. In contrast to Moscow, Sverdlovsk represents a “just enough” compliance with the rules of the patronage pact where regional actors make a populist connection with the public just to prove that “something was being done.” The case of Sverdlovsk also demonstrates that civil society actors can effectively limit the ability of regional actors seeking to generate personal benefits from the restrictive migration policies. The case of Krasnodar, however, shows a well-functioning patronage pact that benefited both federal actors and regional elites. As long as regional elites complied with the basic rules of the patronage pact, they had de facto independence in implementing migration policies, benefiting from the corruption provided by the migration industry and keeping civil society under strong control. These three chapters show that regional-level variables, such as the individual behavior of governors, regional migration officials, and civil society institutions considerably shape migration governance patterns. In light of this evidence, Schenk argues that the macro-level explanations for Russian politics and governance, which tend to ignore the agency of regional actors, need to be reconsidered.
In her concluding chapter, Schenk returns to her central argument of restating that migration management in Russia should be understood as a multi-level balancing act, which relies on a mix of populist rhetoric, symbolic control, the scarcity of legal labor, and patronage and informal practice in an attempt to produce stable, prosperous, and legitimate governance. In this sense, the book contributes to debates within migration studies by showing the nexus of patronage ties, informality, and corruption in migration governance, a thing that makes the Russian migration regime distinct from the typical migration management practices laid out in migration theories. At the same time, Schenk shows that Russia shares similar characteristics with the major immigrant-receiving countries in terms of inter-ministerial struggles, the dynamics of federal relations, and the government's attempts to balance between anti-migrant sentiments and the need to produce conditions for economic prosperity via a cheap and docile migrant labor.
Several unconvincing arguments that Schenk makes from the introduction to her final chapter takes some attention away from a solid narrative. First, Schenk argues that migrants have agency and can navigate around the restrictive legal environment and corruption (66). This argument is put forward more forcefully in the concluding chapter: “Yet a focus on exploitation without giving due weight to migrant agency creates a picture of poor, bedraggled migrants who are disadvantaged in the host state, but driven to migrate for work because of even more disadvantaged status at home” (214). This argument, however, is not well-supported empirically throughout the book. Rather, the book provides a predominantly structuralist account, focusing on the agency of regional-level state actors while migrants seem to be described as passive recipients of the policies and laws designed by the federal and regional actors. Second, the author states that her focus is on the ways the state interacts (or fails to interact) with migrants. But the empirical evidence presented largely focuses on the interactions and struggles between federal, regional, and local-level structures and their effects on the design and implementation of migration policies. The book could have benefited from a more “thick description” of migrant-state official interactions in everyday life situations. As a result, at various junctures in the chapters, the solid narrative is ruptured by the author's attempts to cover migrant experiences without providing sufficient empirical evidence. Hence, this book is more useful as an ethnography of migration governance rather than of migrant experience.
Why Control Immigration is an important contribution on several counts: (1) as one of the first English-language books on the Russian migration regime; (2) as one of the first multi-level (federal-regional-local dynamics) investigations of migration management in Russia; (3) as one of the few works that provides a comprehensive overview of the legislative changes in Russia in relation to migration; (4) as a timely attempt to resituate the focus from the “big power politics” to more hidden, micro-level governance processes, showing that regional-level actors also have agency and may affect transformations and policy making at the regional or even national levels; and (5) as one of the first studies that situates the Russian migration regime within the broader migration studies scholarship. That Schenk was able to achieve these feats through informal interviews, participant observations, expert interviews, and media and document analysis shows the strength of her methodology. It is actually the combination of rich ethnographic data with a thorough document analysis that makes the book a must-read for all those interested in understanding the key features of the Russian migration regime and its implications for the broader debates in migration studies.
