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Migration Letters, Volume: 11, No: 2, pp. 154 – 170
ISSN: 1741-8984 & e-ISSN: 1741-8992
May 2014
www.migrationletters.com
Article history: Received 27 Sept. 2013; last revision 24 March 2014; accepted 29 March 2014
Securitisation, economisation
and the political constitution of
temporary migration:
the making of the Austrian
seasonal workers scheme
KENNETH HORVATH
Abstract
Temporary migration has recently received considerable attention from migration
researchers. This article shifts the analytic focus from migration practices to migration
politics and enquires into the logics and processes underlying the formulation of tem-
porary migration programmes. Based on Foucault’s analysis of liberal governmentality
and Jessop’s strategic-relational approach, it is argued that the governing of temporary
labour migration by nation-states requires sophisticated political technologies. These
technologies entail the differentiated deprivation of fundamental rights and are there-
fore neither unproblematic nor self-evident. Developing and establishing the neces-
sary legal categorisations along skill levels, nationality, employment status, and so on,
requires a complex interplay of two political rationalities that are often conceived of
as contradictory: the securitisation and the economisation of migration. Once estab-
lished, differentiations and measures introduced under securitised conditions can be
invested in utilitarian migration policies. The interplay of these two rationalities de-
pends on and is mediated by wider political-economic and societal transformation
processes. This general argument is illustrated by the example of the Austrian Season-
al Worker Scheme, which shows significant parallels to policies introduced in other
nation-states over the past two decades.
Keywords: temporary migration; securitisation; economisation; strategic-relational
approach; liberal governmentality; Austria
Introduction: The contradictory regulation of temporary migration
Temporary migrant worker programmes (TMWPs) are back on the political
agenda and they play a crucial role in structuring global labour migration
(Ruhs, 2005; Castles, 2006b; Martin et al., 2006; Vertovec, 2007; Stasiulis,
2008). Scholarly discussions of recent TMWPs emphasise resemblances to
guest worker programmes of the post-WWII period (Plewa and Miller, 2005;
Castles, 2006a; Menz, 2009). However, there are important differences.
Besides sectoral shifts and changes in the political-economic context, the new
frameworks entail a far more complex differentiation between migrant groups
entitled to different sets of civic, political, and social rights. While some
Dr Kenneth Horvath, Postdoctoral researcher, University of Education of Karlsruhe, Ger-
many. E-mail: horvath@ph-karlsruhe.de.
HORVATH
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155
‘voluntarily’ temporary migrants enjoy far-reaching freedom of mobility, such
as within the European Union, the temporariness of other migrant is enforced
by sophisticated state regulations. The following discussion mainly refers to
these enforced forms of temporariness that mostly affect third country
nationals or migrants from new member states who until recently were subject
to labour market restrictions.
The central problem this article is concerned with is the relation between
economic and security politics in the development of such temporary migrant
worker programmes. Several authors have pointed to the functional fit be-
tween restrictive, securitised control policies and the use of labour migration
regarding the effects of migration policies as well as concrete regulatory practices. Harsh
migration control policies and the resulting precarious legal status of tempo-
rary migrants are constitutive of their specific utility as labour power (Ander-
son, 2010) – thus mirroring the structure of former guestworker regimes in
relevant regards (Castles and Kosack, 1973). De Giorgi (2010) points to how
the partly militarised security-driven re-bordering of Western states and the
general punitive turn
1
against migrants from the global South go together with
the need for highly precarious workers in post-Fordist segmented labour mar-
kets.
Turning from the effects of policies and regulatory practices to the realms
of political discourse and policy formation, however, the interplay between
economic and security approaches becomes more troublesome. The securiti-
sation and the economisation of migration are usually conceived of as contra-
dictory policy approaches (Buonfino, 2004). In line with this understanding,
the ‘resurrection’ of labour migration (Castles, 2006a) has been interpreted as
a fundamental shift from restrictive, ‘largely defensive security-driven’ migra-
tion politics towards a rational ‘national human resources strategy’ (Menz and
Caviedes, 2010: 3; Kolb, 2010). Caviedes (2010: 15) shows how employers
need to circumvent security-focused political discourses marked by anti-
immigration tendencies to push their migration-related agendas. Seemingly,
functional adequacy for structuring labour markets does not translate into
easy formulation of policy positions. Paraphrasing Sciortino (2000: 22): Has
the employer who hires a temporary migrant worker also lobbied for restric-
tive migration control policies? Scholars have pointed to the complex discur-
sive structuring of temporary migration policies (Stasilius, 2008; Mayer, 2009;
Dauvergne and Marsden, 2011; Ellermann, 2013), but the question of how (if
at all) securitised and economised discourses are related in framing labour mi-
gration policies remains unanswered and contested.
This article contributes to discussions regarding the discursive constitution
of TMWPs. To this end, it presents a specific theoretical lense that combines
Foucault's analytics of liberal statecraft and Jessop's strategic-relational theori-
1
De Giorgi (2010) discusses how Western migration regimes have become increasingly
restrictive for migrants from the global South. The punitive turn is noticeable in increasing
deportation and detention numbers, as well as in new policing measures.
AUSTRIAN SEASONAL WORKERS SCHEME
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156
sations of the capitalist state. On this theoretical basis, I argue that the depri-
vation of fundamental rights of temporary migrants is not a self-evident ca-
pacity of liberal nation-states but a complex political technology. As political
technologies, TMWPs need to be developed and established before they can
be put to use within seemingly rational utilitarian labour migration pro-
grammes. Using the example of the Austrian seasonal workers scheme, I ar-
gue that this development process is structured by an interplay of securitisa-
tion and economisation of migration, both of which can be conceptualised as
forms of problematising migration that are (a) contested and (b) structurally
anchored in the political form of liberal nation-states.
By implication, TMWPs should not be seen as neutral, innocent policies
but must be understood in their relation to power constellations and social
inequalities. Although this article focuses on the level of discourse, it is moti-
vated by these links to power and inequality. Temporary migration depends
on the global division of labour and the unequal distribution of resources and
life chances between regions and countries. It is, moreover, tied to complex
processes of labour market segmentation (as already described by Piore,
1979). Analysing the logics and functioning of TMWPs therefore promises to
further our understanding of one small mechanism involved in the reproduc-
tion of structures of social inequality.
The following section presents my theoretical framework; based on Fou-
cault’s analysis of liberal statecraft, the securitisation and the economisation of
migration are identified as structural tendencies of ‘liberal’ migration politics.
Jessop’s strategic-relational approach is suggested as a basis for linking dis-
courses to the strategic agency of political actors and for analysing how the
interplay of these rationalities is embedded in wider societal developments. I
then turn to the development of the Austrian temporary migrant worker sta-
tus as an example for how the government of temporary migration has
evolved against the background of ongoing EU integration and general socie-
tal transformation processes and discuss how the evolution of a TMWP hing-
es on the interplay of the securitisation and the economisation of migration.
Temporary migration and the political rationalities of liberal nation-
states
Enforced temporariness and the deprivation of rights: TMWPs as political technologies
The political rhetoric that presents TMWPs as win-win-win situations (GCIM,
2005; Agunias and Newland, 2007) masks the disadvantaged labour market
positions, the legal precarity, and the enforced temporariness of current
temporary migrant workers (Plewa and Miller, 2005; Stasiulis, 2008; Gabriel,
2008; Dauvergne and Marsden, 2011).
2
Their precarious status hinges on the
2
Dominant accounts of ‘shuttle’, ‘incomplete’ or ‘liquid’ migration, especially in the context of
the EU, also pay little attention to these processes of enforcement and discrimination (Iglicka,
2000; Kaczmarczyk and Okólski, 2005; Currie 2008; Burrell 2009; Engbersen et al. 2010).
HORVATH
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157
deprivation of fundamental civic, political and social rights (Anderson, 2010):
the right to free settlement and labour market mobility, the right to organise
and mobilise, voting rights, and social security entitlements
3
. The employment
relation of temporary migrants is structured by restrictions regarding the
company, the sector, and the region in which migrants are free to take up
employment; in many cases, work permits are issued for single employers only
(Guiraudon and Joppke, 2001: 7). As a consequence, temporary migrant
workers are, in fact, rather ‘immobile’. Their resulting easy retention even
under poor employment conditions is one of the benefits employers
appreciate about temporary migrant workers (Dench et al., 2006).
Furthermore, temporary migrants are affected by general migration policies:
the more restrictive general migration regulations the easier can migrants'
residence be limited and the more (even self-inflicted) temporariness can be
expected (de Genova and Peutz, 2010).
Obviously, the differential deprivation of rights is one of the key features
of TMWPs. Following Foucault (2002; 2007; Dean, 2010), this capacity to
allocate different rights to different categories of migrants can be interpreted
as a political technology: as instruments that need to be developed and estab-
lished. This capacity has important discursive prerequisites. First, the lines
along which migrants are differentiated have to be established. In the context
of temporary migration, this not only affects forms and degrees of ‘belong-
ing’, but the very idea of temporariness and, relatedly, of ‘skill’.
4
Second, the
legitimacy and feasibility of using these categorisations for the deprivation of
rights are necessarily contested.
An analytical puzzle follows: How can we explain the correspondence be-
tween discursive constellations and labour market needs for TMWPs without
resorting to teleological argumentation? In the following, I argue (i) that an
interplay between the securitisation and the economisation of migration is a
necessary condition for establishing such programmes and (ii) that both of
these rationalities are structurally anchored in the liberal nation-state.
The liberal government of migration
Foucault (2002; 2007) identifies two concepts that organise the liberal gov-
erning of society: the market and the population. Both are imagined to be too
complex to be overseen or understood by any single governmental actor.
Therefore, liberal government is to intervene as little as possible in order not
to distort the ‘natural’ order of things. The underlying logic is utilitarian: gov-
ernmental interventions are not judged on moral grounds but with regard to
3
Dauvergne and Marsden (2011: 21) point to the example of the Australian Pacific Seasonal
Workers Programme which puts an unusual emphasis on migrant workers’ rights: ‘Ironically,
the program appears underused (…) undoubtedly in part because the program cannot address
the identified labour market need with such robust rights protections in place.’
4
Temporary migration is still overwhelmingly linked to low-paid activities marked as
‘unskilled’ (Plewa and Miller, 2005; Gabriel, 2008). Based on the cases of Canada and the US,
Dauvergne and Marsden (2011: 6) argue that this link between ‘skills’ and temporariness has
become stronger rather than weaker over the past decade.
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158
their usefulness for the ‘collective interest’. The role of government is to cre-
ate and ensure optimal conditions for individual market agency. Foucault
terms the resulting type of power ‘governmentality’, distinguishing it from the
‘rule of law’ and ‘sovereignty’ (Dean, 2010).
The establishment of market principles and a utilitarian political rationality
are the core elements of the economisation of social relations implied by lib-
eral governmentality. The economisation of migration means, first, that migra-
tion is construed as an economic issue that is believed to follow and should
therefore be governed according to market principles. Second, migration is
one of the variables through which liberal governments attempt to balance
economic and demographic developments. The differentiation between mi-
grant groups facilitates these governmental tasks. However, the economisa-
tion of migration does not provide sufficient legitimation to establish the in-
volved differentiations. The ideologeme of the market is linked to ideas of
equality and freedom, both of which are not conducive to the differentiation
of fundamental rights.
Here securitisation as a second element of liberal government comes into
play. The liberal doctrine of as little governmental intervention as possible
inevitably leads to a set of security considerations: the need to keep negative
consequences of excessive freedom under control. In Foucault’s conception,
security is the prime legitimation and mode of liberal governmental interven-
tions (Foucault, 2007). Governmental interventions therefore require a pro-
cess of securitisation, i.e. the framing of a phenomenon as an existential threat
to a referent object (usually the nation), thus laying the ground for (exception-
al) political measures. Concerning migration issues, there are three prevalent
forms of securitisation that frame migration as a threat (1) to public order, (2)
to social security or (3) to cultural identity (Huysmans, 2006).
5
The Foucauldian conception of liberal government allows to focus on the
interrelation of economisation and securitisation of migration. These two
logics need to be seen as distinct from each other. They can have conflicting
policy implications and they are linked to different institutions and fields of
practice: employer organisations, supranational associations, and academics in
the case of economisation (Menz, 2009) as compared to security profession-
als, mass media and party politics (Bigo, 2002; Bunofino, 2004) in the case of
securitisation. Still, they are both structurally embedded in the political form
of the liberal nation-state and therefore need to be analysed in their interplay.
Three variants of this interplay are relevant for the following analysis. First,
securitisation is a condition of possibility for the revocation of fundamental
5
This Foucauldian conception of securitisation differs somewhat from the understanding of
securitisation as it was developed by the Copenhagen School of security studies (Wæver et al.,
1993; Buzan et al., 1998). It does not share the Schmittean understanding of sovereignty, states
of emergency and friend–enemy relation (Williams, 2003) and moves the analytic focus from
states of exception to more mundane tasks of risk calculation and everyday security practices
(Bigo, 2002; Neal, 2009).
HORVATH
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rights considered inviolable under ‘normal conditions’. Once no longer re-
garded as fundamental (post-securitisation), these rights can be allocated and
withdrawn in an instrumental manner for utilitarian governmental pro-
grammes. Second, securitisation shifts the overall migration regime towards
restriction and control, thus providing a necessary complement for selection
policies: the possibility to effectively reject those who do not fit (Menz, 2009:
257). Third, temporary migration policies may themselves be securitised, in
the sense of being informed by more than one logic or by fulfilling more than
one purpose.
Securitisation, economisation and political-economic transformation
Foucault’s analysis of liberal governmentality deals with the political pro-
gramme and discursive principles of (neo)liberalism.
6
In this article, discourse
is understood in the Foucauldian sense as a supra-individual order of
knowledge or system of thought
7
. In order to bridge the analytic levels of dis-
course, strategic agency, and social relations, I suggest to combine Foucault’s
analysis of liberal governmentality with Jessop’s (2002; 2008) strategic-
relational understanding of the capitalist state.
Jessop defines the state neither as rational actor nor as neutral stage for
negotiating interests but as a social relation (Jessop, 2008). The core function
of the state is to ‘define and enforce collectively binding decisions on a given
population in the name of their “common interest”’ (Jessop, 2008: 9). The
definition of the ‘common interest’ is a discursive task (Jessop, 2004) and as
such always contested and structured by societal power relations. The result-
ing focus on logics of ‘statecraft’ links Jessop’s approach to Foucault’s con-
cept of political rationalities (Jessop, 2007).
Regarding TMWPs, the strategic-relational approach allows us to analyse
why specific forms of problematisation become dominant at different points
in time. Societal agents develop strategies and push agendas in specific societal
settings that determine the kind of ‘problem’ (e.g., what kind of migrants are
‘needed’ for what economic sectors), as well as what ways of satisfying the
resultant demands seem feasible and legitimate. What strategies are met with
success partly depends on the societal balance of forces, such as between em-
ployers and trade unions. Jessop’s (2002) account of the transformation of the
post-war ‘Keynesian Welfare National State’ (KWNS) into the ‘Schumpeterian
Workfare Postnational Regime’ (SWPR) offers a framework for linking shifts
in the kind of problematisation to political-economic and geopolitical trans-
formations. On this basis, we can ask why TMWPs, once introduced, are re-
6
Foucault (2002; 2007) identifies two main differences between classical liberalism and
neoliberalism: neoliberal thinking stipulates that government itself should be organised
according to market logics and that competition should supersede the market as the core
principle. However, there are also important continuities. The tension between economy and
security that organises my argument remains central to liberal governmentality.
7
For the political field, this understanding implies a focus on different forms of problematisation
of social phenomena that are informed by political rationalities and structure the development and
introduction of political technologies (Dean, 2010).
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tained, how they are adapted, and how they relate to other programmes, logics
and initiatives. The strategic-relational considerations presented in the follow-
ing thus indicate how discourses are linked to strategic agency and thus to link
my findings to existing analyses of Austrian migration politics.
Methodological remarks: the case of Austria
In the following, the main argument regarding how the development of
temporary migration programmes is shaped by an interplay of securitisation
and economisation is illustrated using the Austrian case. Although Austria is
seldom mentioned in the literature on temporary migration (cf. Plewa and
Miller, 2005; Engbersen et al., 2010), there are a number of studies this article
can build on. These studies are mostly concerned with the concrete legal
frameworks (e.g. Pirker, 2010) or the changing modes of and actors involved
in policy making (Bauböck, 1996; Perchinig, 2010; Kraler, 2011). The turn
towards new forms of regulating labour migration in Austria is discussed by
Gächter (1995) and Caviedes (2010). The following analysis builds on these
existing studies, but moves the focus to the discursive level.
Temporary migration plays a crucial role in the Austrian migration regime.
Since the early 1990s, Austria has developed a differentiated framework for
temporary migration. The relevance of enforced temporary migration to Aus-
tria is obvious even from official numbers that are heavily biased downwards
(Kratzmann et al., 2011: 43). Especially its geographic location at the former
Iron Curtain and the presence of a strong far-right party make Austria an in-
teresting case for analysing the political-economic transformation processes of
the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The primary objective of this article is to argue for a specific theoretical
perspective. The case discussion therefore fulfills an illustrative function (for a
more comprehensive empirical elaboration see Horvath 2014a). Nevertheless,
it builds on material that has been systematically compiled for the purpose of
analysing the political discourse on migration in Austria. The examples given
are taken from a corpus of migration-related contributions (speeches and in-
terpellations) in the Austrian parliament from WWII to 2012
8
. This corpus
allows to combine the quantitative assessment of the relevance of different
forms of problematisation (such as securitisation and economisation) with in-
depth interpretations of key passages.
Considering the crucial role of EU-integration processes for recent tempo-
rary migration practices, the focus on one nation-state may appear questiona-
ble. After all, the overwhelming majority of temporary migrants to Austria
come from the new EU member states
9
(Horvath 2012). There have been
several initiatives to harmonise and establish common migration regulations
8
I translated the originally German quotes for this article.
9
Due to the labour market restrictions for migrants from new member states, this
temporariness was for almost a decade of an enforced nature.
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within the EU, and policy frameworks decided by EU bodies trigger devel-
opments and force changes in national policies. However, as Menz (2009)
points out, the nation-state still is one of the central actors for the regulation
of migration – and thus an adequate context to enquire into the underlying
discursive developments.
Figure 1: Frequency of indicator terms for securitised and economised prob-
lematisations of migration (source: own research)
Guestwork 2.0? How securitisation structured Austria’s temporary
labour migration policies
The surprising introduction of a seasonal worker status
The late 1980s are generally seen as turning point for Western European mi-
gration regimes at which migration issues became, in general, highly politi-
cised (Messina, 2007). Figure 1 illustrates the scope and securitised nature of
this development for the Austrian Parliament. It shows the frequency of se-
lected indicator terms for economic and security problematisations over the
period 1945 to 2010. During the first three post-war decades, security prob-
lematisations were virtually non-existent and migration issues overwhelmingly
discussed in economic terms (the grey reference line in the graphs). In the
mid-1980s, the picture changed dramatically, with indicators for securitised
framings – here references to ‘crime’, ‘integration’, ‘illegality’ and unemploy-
ment
10
– outweighing economic discussions for most of the 1990s and 2000s.
10
Obviously unemployment is an economic issue. However, references to unemployment in the
corpus are overwhelmingly linked to a securitised logic of problematising migration (as a threat to
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162
Against this background, the Austrian migration regime was profoundly
restructured (Perchinig, 2010; Kraler, 2011). In accordance with the secu-
ritised context of the time, the measures aimed at restricting migration (Mayer,
2009). The alleged state of emergency served as pretext to change the legal
framework: [These changes are made] against a dramatic background: if my information
is correct, another 5,000 Romanians tried to cross the border illegally last night. Thousands
of Romanians are waiting in the neighbouring Eastern states, ready to enter our Republic.
[…] We cannot take in half the population of Romania. (ÖVP/Conservative, contri-
bution to parliamentary debate, July 1990)
However, not all measures seem to fit into the frame of securitisation. As
part of the first comprehensive revision of the legal framework in 1992, a
measure reminiscent of the 1960s guest-worker programme was taken – the
status of ‘seasonal worker’ was introduced. Given (1) record-high immigra-
tion, (2) high unemployment rates and (3) the securitised context, this deci-
sion was rather surprising. The rationales for the introduction of the new sta-
tus emphasised the need for migrant labour in specific sectors of the economy
and the existential pressure on enterprises threatening the well-being of the
whole country. The quotes in table 1 illustrate the demands for a seasonal
worker status across the political spectrum. The argumentations are hardly
reconcilable with the image of immigration as out of control. There is an ob-
vious rhetoric of emergency, but migration figures as a solution, not as a
source of danger. In this context, the second quote (by a representative from
the far-right FPÖ) is especially interesting because it anticipates the win-win-
win rationale of current migration management discourses. In short, economi-
sation and securitisation existed side by side, in line with the assumption that
both are structurally embedded in the liberal nation-state.
At first glance, the seasonal worker status seems to be a rather straightfor-
ward consequence of a utilitarian reasoning – but the story is more complex.
The central argument of this article is that it is only once the required tech-
nologies are established and normalised that states can make easy use of them
to curb or regulate migration within utilitarian policy frameworks. Establish-
ing these political technologies, however, requires the framing of migration in
non-economic, securitised terms. Following the theoretical considerations
above, there are three ways in which the securitisation of migration directly
structured the new seasonal worker status in Austria.
First, securitisation was a condition of possibility for the introduction of the
new status. The demand for such a model was anything but new; employer
organisations had been calling for what they called the ‘Swiss model of sea-
sonal work’ for years. But for various reasons seasonal worker programmes
had been deemed unacceptable by key political actors – mainly social demo-
crats and trade unions – for decades. The change of heart at the beginning of
social security, Huysmans, 2006). Economised cost-benefit arguments mostly circumvent the
explicit mentions of unemployment, talking rather of labour costs, lack of labour, or inflation
risks.
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the 1990s comes rather suddenly and can only be explained by the securitised
context of the time. The construal of migration as an existential threat made
exceptional measures seem acceptable and even inevitable. What may previ-
ously have been considered an unbearable act of discrimination could now be
sold as a necessary evil. Rather than avoiding politicisation and circumventing
security-centred discourses (Caviedes, 2010), employers made use of this new
constellation to push their decades-old agenda.
Table 1: Economising problematisations around 1989
1989: Interpellation, FPÖ (far right),
09/1989.
‘The Tyrolean labour market is suffering from a shortage
of workers in the areas of tourism and, especially, catering.
This shortage can only be remedied by employing foreign
workers. Therefore, procedures to approve workers must
be fast and non-bureaucratic, in accordance with economic
necessities.’
Post-1989: Contribution to
parliamentary debate, FPÖ (far
right), 12/1990.
‘What could be achieved with this status of seasonal worker
that we have repeatedly demanded? […] First: Job-seekers
could be given employment without much bureaucratic
effort. Second, duration of employment would be
manageable, which would help to dispel the justified fears
of Austrian job seekers. Third, the imminent uprooting of
foreign workers could be prevented. Fourth, unskilled
workers could go back to their economies with their newly-
acquired knowledge and help build infrastructure there.
Fifth, the money the seasonal workers put aside could
benefit their families and could be used to develop their
national economies.’
Post-1989: Contribution to
parliamentary debate, Green Party
(liberal/progressive), 07/1992.
‘I believe that hardly anyone in Austria would deny that a
net annual immigration rate of 25,000 is necessary to shape
our demographic development in a way that would
promote positive development for Austria.’
Source: Author’s own research.
Second, the new status can itself be interpreted as a securitised measure. Sea-
sonal labour migration in Central Europe was a regular practice established
over centuries. In this situation, the only alternative would have been to ac-
cept what was increasingly considered a dangerous threat: the undocumented
mobility of labour. Two rationales were at play: (1) a utilitarian argument call-
ing for a cheap and flexible labour force and the resultant need for migration
and (2) a ‘security’ rationale that implied a need to bring existing labour mar-
ket relations under state control. The first, utilitarian rationale was mainly ad-
vocated by the far-right Freedom Party, the second, securitised one by social
democrats. The combination of the two rationalities is reflected in the parlia-
mentary discussion of the new status: as an instrument of both labour market
regulation and migration control (Table 2).
Third, the securitised context structured the overall development of the
Austrian migration regime, thus providing the context for implementing control and
selection policies. The new temporary status did not require changes to labour
regulations but a new residence law (Kraler, 2011). New restrictions and regu-
AUSTRIAN SEASONAL WORKERS SCHEME
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164
lations contributed to what de Genova and Peutz (2010: 6) termed ‘deporta-
bility’: ‘the very possibility of being deported’ leading to the ‘disposability of
ever deportable migrant labor’. This third aspect corresponds to the kind of
interplay already discussed by other authors (Menz, 2009; Anderson, 2010; de
Giorgi, 2010).
Table 2: Seasonal work as a security measure and labour market instrument
Contribution to parliamentary
debate, 07/1990.
‘The first challenge was to do something to limit the
free influx of foreigners to Austria. The second
challenge was to get the increasing irregular
employment under control. The third challenge was to
address the question: How can we liberalise the
procedure of admitting foreigners, speed it up and
make it less bureaucratic?’
Interpellation, 03/1991.
‘The purpose of this new labour market instrument is
not only to meet the demand for labour in specific
sectors of the economy that cannot be supplied
otherwise, but also to stop illegal practices of
employing foreign workers.’
Source: Author’s own research
What we see is not merely a compromise between economic needs and se-
curity considerations. Rather, the securitised context allowed for the imple-
mentation of a decades-old demand at a seemingly very unlikely time. Alt-
hough the role of political actors cannot be discussed here in detail, it is strik-
ing that the observed link holds not only as a discursive pattern but also for
important political players. The far-right FPÖ, e.g., was not only the most
active securitising player but also the first party to bring the demand for sea-
sonal work onto the agenda. FPÖ parliamentarians used the anti-immigration
sentiment – provoked in part by themselves – to push their ideas on what type
of labour migration to organise under what conditions.
The never-ending season: From seasonal worker to temporary migrant
The new migrant status soon lost its character of seasonality and became a
general means of enforced temporariness. This process of normalisation and
generalisation proceeded in steps. Five measures taken since the early 1990s
deserve attention. First, the potential duration of employment was extended
by allowing for a one-time extension of six months, after which period the
migrant worker can only start to work legally again after a waiting period of
two months (this, in combination with the general residence and settlement
regulations, effectively made it impossible for temporal workers to receive
unemployment benefits). Employment periods of up to one year can no long-
er be meaningfully regarded as ‘seasonal’. Seasonal work has thus been gener-
alised to a scheme for the flexible recruitment of migrant labour for short-
term labour market needs. Second, as of 2002, ‘seasonal workers’ are officially
referred to as ‘temporarily employed workers’, reflecting the generalisation of
the status. Third, while seasonal workers could only be employed in tourism,
HORVATH
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165
construction or agriculture, in 2002, the right-wing FPÖ–ÖVP Government
allowed for temporary workers to be recruited for any economic sector. Alt-
hough never used in practice, this option is evidence of the institutionalisation
of temporary labour recruitment. Fourth, in 2000, employers of seasonal
workers in agriculture were exempted from certain social insurance contribu-
tions, explicitly making migrants a cheaper workforce as compared to native
workers. This measure is symbolically important because it breaks with the
solidarity principle of compulsory insurance. Fifth, the status of ‘temporary
worker’ has been made the main mode of legal labour market integration for
various groups of migrants, including asylum seekers and, until recently, mi-
grants from new member states.
11
The new status of seasonal worker not only developed into a permanent
institution, but was broadened and diversified. Its normalisation is obvious
from how the status of seasonal worker is now treated as an unquestioned
fact, as done, for example, by an SPÖ representative in 2009, in the midst of
the economic crisis: ‘The crisis notwithstanding, our economy needs labour
migrants […] we need the seasonal workers’ (SPÖ, February 2009).
Selection, retention, adaptation: The Austrian TMWP from a strategic-
relational perspective
Temporary migration programmes depend on a discursive constellation
marked by the interplay of utilitarian logics and securitising moves. However,
discursive developments alone do not explain why similar developments are
evident for the same period across different ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ (Menz,
2009; Menz and Caviedes, 2010), welfare regime types, immigration histories
and party systems. Most Western European countries have established some
form of temporary/circular migration scheme over the past two decades
(Plewa and Miller, 2005; Engbersen et al., 2010: 8; EMN, 2011).
12
Although this argument cannot be fully elaborated here, I argue that Jes-
sop’s strategic-relational approach offers a framework to understand why sim-
ilar developments occurred throughout Western Europe. In a nutshell, we can
read the introduction and retention of TMWPs as an adaptation process of
national migration regimes to new political-economic contexts: ‘It took the
epochal events of 1989 and 1990 to change the policy of no further recruit-
ment’ (Plewa and Miller, 2005: 67) – as well as the crisis of the ‘Keynesian
Welfare National State’ (Jessop, 2002). These transformations led to a new,
unevenly structured and ‘strategically selective’ setting to which state and non-
state actors had to adjust their strategies.
11
After the restrictions have been lifted, migrants from new member states are theoretically no
longer subject to enforced temporariness. However, the migration systems that have been
established over the past years still bear the marks of the restriction phase.
12
Sweden is the only country to remain reluctant to enforcing temporariness and relying on
voluntary mobility instead (EMN, 2011: 33). Because the forms of legal framework vary
considerably, even within the EU, the exact number depends on the definition of temporary
migration and thus varies from source to source.
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166
Among the key state actors involved in the securitisation of migration are
security professionals (police, military, etc.) who had to respond to the chang-
ing geopolitical context of the late 1980s (Bigo, 2002; Huysmans, 2006). Re-
garding non-state actors, the epochal events of 1989 contributed to an already
on-going shift in the balance of social forces. From a strategic-relational per-
spective, these shifts are crucial to understand how some actors (mainly em-
ployer organisations) managed to make use of the new discursive context,
while others lost ground (above all, migrant and workers’ organisations). This
process was linked to the emerging dominance of neoliberal policy approach-
es. In this changed strategic setting, the securitisation of migration – triggered
by other societal actors – opened a window of opportunity for employer or-
ganisations.
In addition to the new balance of social forces, the 1980s had also seen
important economic shifts leading to a demand for different kinds of migrant
labour. The reorganisation of the international monetary system and the de-
regulation of economic policies had increased the pressure towards interna-
tional competitiveness and had simultaneously opened new channels for
transnational movements of capital, goods, and labour. The economic restruc-
turing resulted in decreasing demand for semi-skilled labour in industrial pro-
duction, while sectors in which labour demands and practices were far more
‘flexible’, such as tourism, agriculture and construction, gained importance.
In other words: The status of seasonal worker had become necessary and
possible due to broad societal developments that mark the fundamental crisis of
the ‘Keynesian Welfare National State’ (Jessop, 2002).
Conclusion and outlook
Using the example of Austria, I have argued that the development of
temporary migration programmes is linked to processes of securitisation that
provide conditions of possibility, motives, and necessary accompanying
measures for TMWPs. I proposed Foucault’s concept of liberal
governmentality to analyse the interplay of securitisation and economisation
in the (discursive) formation of migration policies. Jessop’s strategic-relational
approach enables us to examine how these dynamics of migration regimes and
political discourses are linked to strategic agency in concrete political-
economic settings.
This analysis has two central implications. First, I maintain that in liberal
nation-states securitisation is a prerequisite for establishing discursive tech-
nologies such as a seasonal worker status
13
. Once established and normalised,
these technologies can be re-invested. Second, it is misleading to interpret
new guestworker initiatives as a shift from a restrictive policy approach to a
more soliciting one, or to envision the main dividing line in migration politics
13
Even the basic distinction between migrant and national labour had to be established – in
Austria this happened in the mid-1920s under heavily securitised conditions (Horvath, 2014b).
HORVATH
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167
to run between liberalising and restrictive positions. Even if that is the way
actors frame their argument, this does not correspond to the actual discursive
structuring of policies such as the Austrian seasonal worker scheme.
The observed pattern holds not only for temporary migration pro-
grammes. For example, the transitional agreements for restricting labour mi-
gration from new member states served Austrian employers well. They al-
lowed to keep CEE migrants in precarious labour market positions (either, in
fact, falling under the temporary migrant worker scheme or as pseudo self-
employed). Today, the resulting migration systems are well established and it
will take some time to overcome them even after the transitional agreements
ended. However, employers did not push for these agreements themselves; on
the contrary, their rhetoric was one of necessary liberalisation. Instead, other
Austrian political actors pushed the demand for restrictions on the basis of
securitised problematisations of migration, focusing on threats to social secu-
rity, but also linking to dangers for public order and cultural identity.
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