On different paths: the consequences of migration securitisation on migration governance in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia border region

This Master’s thesis investigates the consequences of migration securitisation, especially in the domains of reception and border control, on migration governance in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia (FVG) region, located at the Italian North-Eastern border with Slovenia. The research aims to deepen the understanding of securitisation mechanisms and of the capacity of actors involved in migration governance to respond and adapt to them, both within their own activities and in their relations with other actors. The geographical area taken into consideration in this project is a privileged observatory. In fact, it is located at the end of the Balkan Route and it has been subject to increasing securitisation at a national and regional level after the 2015 ‘long summer of migration’. From the qualitative content analysis of policy documents, reports and interviews carried out in this research, it emerges that both external and internal securitisation strategies were employed in FVG: the former focused on border enforcement, combining militarisation, criminalisation and smartification practices. The latter, which proved more effective, aimed to downsize the public reception system and limit migrants’ integration opportunities. Migration governance was negatively affected by increasing securitisation: even though some cooperation between subnational governmental and non-governmental actors permains thanks to direct individual relations, the two parties have increasingly diverging and irreconcilable objectives and means to achieve them. As a result, their capacity to adapt to the evolving migration phenomenon in the region is weakened.