Neo-liberalism, Privatization and the Outsourcing of Migration Management: A Five-Country Comparison

Current debates in migration studies underestimate or neglect altogether the implications of the privatization of migration management. Outsourcing control and detention functions to private companies is part of the paradigm of new public management. Such outsourcing has created self-reinforcing mechanisms and lock-in effects. However, the extent to which such privatization is embraced varies internationally depending on the degree of neo-liberalization of the state. Empirically, the article therefore analyses developments in countries with divergent levels of privatization of migration management, including the UK, Australia, the USA, Germany and the Netherlands.