Abstract
Russia has become a primary immigration magnet in the last two decades of post-Soviet development. Although Russia is among the top three destinations for international migrants in the world, theoretically and empirically grounded scholarship on migration control in the context of Russia remains surprisingly scarce. Equally important, little effort has been made to conceptualize Russian migration management as a whole or to introduce Western readers to the inner mechanisms behind the seemingly chaotic policies that affect migrants’ opportunities. For all these reasons, Schenk’s groundbreaking book Why Control Immigration? is a much-needed and timely contribution to understandings of migration management, the legal production of illegality, and power relationships in Russia.
The goals of Why Control Immigration? are to explore the logic behind work documents that regulate labor migrants’ access to the job market and to investigate patron-client relationships that drive the production of illegality through Russia’s migration policies. Framing her argument on the strategic use of legal labor scarcity by state actors, Schenk aims to capture the complex realities of migration control in Russia. Drawing on empirical research in three large Russian cities (Moscow, Yekaterinburg, and Krasnodar), she frames patron-client relationships among state actors at different levels and investigates how they affect immigrants. In doing so, Schenk uncovers unexpected parallels between nondemocratic Russia and Western democracies in the ways that they balance migration control, political rhetoric, and public opinion.
Schenk conceptualizes Russia’s migration management as “a multi-level balancing act powered by patron-client relationships” (6). She unpacks her argument by investigating how the state manages often-conflicting demands from the society based on myths and fear around migration and from the economy based on the shrinking pool of native-born labor. Schenk draws on the notion of the social contract to frame her argument and to demonstrate how state actors maintain the ruling elites’ legitimacy through migration control. At the same time, her discussion of anti-migration populism as a “legitimacy-producing strategy that connects the public to state actors in a social contract that aims to keep the population a passive observer of politics” (23), could have been more grounded in political theory, particularly on the passivity of the population.
The book’s empirical chapters masterfully describe two mechanisms that produce legal labor scarcity in Russia: quotas on work permits and patents. From 2007 to 2014, Russian authorities used quotas to set a limit on work permits for international migrants. The quota system, although resembling practices in other major destination countries (e.g., H1B work visa quota in the United States), was also in many ways similar to Soviet planning. In Putin’s Russia, bureaucrats operate the system on signals from the Kremlin, juggling economic needs, public rhetoric, and personal interests to maintain “on paper” control over migration and produce legal labor scarcity. Schenk uses a variety of data to demonstrate how quotas institutionalized the scarcity of legal labor and reinforced informal practices around immigrants’ access to the labor market.
Schenk also discusses Russia’s shift to a model of migration management through fee-based patents that replaced work quotas in 2015 and have no limit on their number. The new market-based system made it easier for migrants to legalize their status in Russia and generated large revenue for the state. However, Schenk suggests that we treat “liberalization” with caution and investigates new barriers to legalization such as costly medical checks or exams that migrants must take prior to the purchase of patents. She argues that patents pursue the same goal of producing legal labor scarcity, which is strategically used by state actors.
Empirical chapters on the three Russian cities are the true masterpieces of this condensed ethnography and meticulous analysis. They develop a nuanced account of complex power relationships, formal and informal practices, corruption, and local politics around migration control. This fascinating read will be of interest to anyone who wants to know more about Russian politics and governance. At the same time, I wish the author had been able to get more empirical evidence from state bureaucrats to support her argument on their strategic use of migration management. Schenk’s analysis could also have benefited from the discussion of racialized attitudes toward Central Asian migrants, who are often discriminated against through informal practices and populist rhetoric.
These limitations do not challenge the book’s important contribution and value. Schenk develops a compelling argument through a comprehensive exploration of the multilevel balancing act of migration management. Introducing the Russian case into migration theory, she calls for a rethinking of the relationships between the political regime type and migration management. Schenk urges us to take the discussion of regime type off the table in order to make more meaningful comparisons across regimes and policies. Her work toward this goal makes an important contribution to migration theory in the future.