Extending EU Governmentality to the eastern neighbourhood: A Study of Knowledge Production, Governing Technologies and Micro-Practices in the EU management of Cross-Border Mobility

Based on Foucault's work on the rationalities of government (governmentality) and Bourdieu's study of practices (philosophy of action), this thesis seeks to examine the case of cross-border mobility by way of analysing knowledge-production, instruments of governing and practices in the EU's relations with the states of the Eastern Partnership (EaP). The thesis shows that EU attempts at governing cross-border mobility do not merely aim to foster regulated mobility between the EU and its neighbours, but are also inherently linked to the EU's efforts to shape the EaP states to its own standards and practices of governing.

Using the case studies of i) border management capacity-building, ii) facilitation of short-term travel and iii) labour migration, the study argues that while the EU's rationalities of governing remain largely controlling and disciplinary, the study of the microcosm of daily practices reveals some emergent rationalities of 'governing at a distance', which increasingly draw on the interplay of both the EU's interests and partners' needs. To this end, it does not merely present issues of cross-border mobility from the perspective of either 'inclusion' or 'imposition of constraints', but rather by way of seeking to govern the external space by making the Other 'capable of bearing a kind of regulated freedom' (Rose & Miller; 2008: 53).

The thesis' key contributions are (i) conceptual involving ontological examination of the wider changes in the EU management of (in)security, and focus of a paradigmatic shift from the EU directly-controlling 'governance' to a more nuanced form of diffused 'governmentality', or governing at distance, and its effectiveness; and (ii) methodological, combining the study of knowledge-production and instruments of governing with daily practices, hitherto applied separately, but in this research proving instrumental for understanding the EU management of insecurities and its sustainability. Empirically (iii), the thesis provides new data on the three case studies, particularly, highlighting the extent to which the EU's attempts at governing are transposed to the micro-level of daily practices.

In the context of the on-going migration crisis, the eastern neighbourhood provides some important lesson-drawing for the management of cross-border mobility in the wider neighbourhood and beyond.