The Kofi Annan Foundation and Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy have published the sixth issue brief from our joint project on how democratic principles and multilateral cooperation intersect across major global challenges.
Authored by Valerio Simoni of the Instituto de Ciências Sociais at the Universidade de Lisboa, the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy, and the Global Migration Centre, this issue brief focuses on migration as a key site where both democracy and multilateralism are under pressure. The brief shows how migration governance directly affects equality, access to rights, participation, transparency, and accountability, with migrants often among the first to experience the consequences when democratic safeguards weaken.
Consistent with the broader project’s focus on democracy as a condition for effective multilateral action, the brief argues that democratic quality and migration governance shape one another. Polarised migration debates are often used to mobilise political support and redraw boundaries between insiders and outsiders, while weakened democratic oversight makes rights violations easier to normalise. At the same time, the brief foregrounds migrant political agency, documenting participation in elections, advocacy, public debate, and grassroots mobilisation. It also calls for reconnecting migration debates to wider struggles over labour, welfare, housing, and territorial inequality that affect migrants and non migrants alike.
The brief was prepared as a research input to one of the project’s expert thematic roundtables, which will convene scholars, practitioners, and multilateral actors in Geneva and other international hubs in Geneva next March.