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Modeling migrant smuggling: Testing descriptive types against recent findings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2018

Veronika Bilger
Veronika Bilger*
Affiliation:
International Centre for Migration Policy Development, Vienna, Gonzagagasse 1, 1010, Vienna, Austria, Veronika.Bilger@icmpd.org
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Abstract

This article develops a typology of migrant smuggling. Six generic types of migrant smuggling that were originally produced in the early 2000s are reviewed against more recent empirical findings. These six types were developed in the context of the profound transformation faced by Europe over the course of the 1990s in terms of its geopolitical landscape, when the fall of the Iron Curtain and the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia resulted in an unprecedented magnitude of asylum migration, irregular migration flows, and migrant smuggling. Today, in the aftermath of the Arab spring protests and the outbreak of civil war in Syria, the phenomenon of migrant smuggling toward Europe has regained notoriety and relevance. The article concludes that the fundamental mechanisms and types of migrant smuggling that were identified more than a decade ago have persisted over time, but that certain changes in the modus operandi of migrant smugglers can be observed, changes that are linked to geopolitical, market, infrastructural, and other factors.

Keywords

Migrant smugglingirregular migrationtypologyEurope
Type
Special Dossier: Researching human smuggling in the Mediterranean
Information
New Perspectives on Turkey , Volume 59 , November 2018 , pp. 33 - 61
Copyright
© New Perspectives on Turkey and Cambridge University Press 

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