Diplomacy of Containment: migration, asymmetries, and conditioned agency in the peripheries of the International System

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Dynamics of containment diplomacy: asymmetrical cooperation, negotiated accommodation, and strategic contestation structure the externalization of migration control, shifting costs to the peripheries of the international system. Image generated by artificial intelligence (Gemini) for illustrative purposes.

In recent decades, international migration has increasingly been framed as a security issue, without losing its humanitarian and international cooperation dimensions, occupying a central position on the agendas of core countries. The progressive closure of borders, the diffusion of a defensive logic of mobility control, and the growing association between migration, risk, and threat have reshaped the terms of the global debate. In this process, a significant share of the political, social, and institutional costs of these policies has been displaced onto countries positioned on the periphery of the international system, often transformed into spaces of containment and management of flows they do not fully control. In this context, a still underexplored question arises: to what extent do the responses adopted by these countries remain strictly reactive, or can they be understood as incipient forms of migration diplomacy in the face of hardened borders in core countries?

This security framing is not expressed solely through restrictive domestic measures, but also through the reorganization of responsibilities that structure international migration governance. Through bilateral agreements, political conditionalities, and asymmetrical cooperation arrangements, core countries have shifted central functions of surveillance, screening, and flow containment to their peripheries. This displacement preserves, on the one hand, the decision-making capacity of core countries and, on the other, imposes on peripheral countries the implementation of policies that strain their legal frameworks, administrative capacities, and international commitments. This is less an isolated discourse than a practice that redefines who decides, who executes, and who bears the costs of mobility control.

Still, this arrangement does not eliminate the capacity for action of these countries. Faced with pressure from border closures, they have mobilized a varied repertoire of responses, ranging from negotiated accommodation to punctual diplomatic contestation. In many cases, such responses are formulated under strong constraints, in contexts of crisis or institutional overload, which gives them a contingent character. Reducing them to passivity, however, obscures the fact that they express forms of conditioned agency, exercised within clear structural limits. It is in this ambiguous space, between reaction and strategy, that a migration diplomacy specific to the peripheries of the international system begins to take shape.

These responses are not homogeneous. They vary according to geographic position, degree of economic dependence, and political bargaining power, but they can be understood through some recurring logics of diplomatic action: negotiated accommodation, strategic contestation, and explicit cost outsourcing. It is in light of these logics that recent initiatives gain greater analytical clarity.

In North Africa, the agreement signed in 2024 between the European Union and Egypt, which elevated the bilateral relationship to the status of a strategic partnership accompanied by a robust financial package, illustrates the monetization of migration containment. Amid a deep economic crisis, Egypt converted its strategic geographic position into political and financial capital, offering stability and control in exchange for liquidity. In this case, migration containment is directly transformed into a financial resource and political stability, exemplifying a logic of negotiated accommodation under strong asymmetry.

In a different direction, the case of Niger reveals a logic of contestation. The revocation of legislation that criminalized the transit of migrants through Nigerien territory, following the rupture with France and the European Union, signaled that migration control can also be mobilized as an instrument of geopolitical retaliation. By reopening routes in the Sahel, Niger made explicit that European containment is neither automatic nor free. Here, migration ceases to be merely an object of management and begins to operate as a political lever, used to assert sovereignty in a context of rupture.

Outside the Euro-African axis, the same logic is reproduced. In Central America, the agreement signed in 2024 between Panama and the United States, through which Washington began financing deportation flights for migrants crossing the Darién, transformed migration management into a contracted service. Panama agrees to reinforce control but refuses to bear its costs, shifting them to the core country interested in containment. In this case, migration control is explicitly outsourced, revealing a logic of service provision under asymmetrical pressure.

Although these dynamics are more visible in countries of the Global South, they are not limited to this geographic space. Internal peripheries of Europe have also been incorporated into this architecture of containment. The agreement signed between Italy and Albania for the installation of migrant processing centers on Albanian territory represents a qualitative leap in this process. By agreeing to host extraterritorial structures for screening and possible deportation, Albania not only offers operational cooperation but cedes part of its territorial sovereignty in exchange for political capital in the process of accession to the European Union. Here, containment goes beyond control and comes to include the cession of jurisdiction, establishing a normatively sensitive precedent.

These examples reveal that migration diplomacy exercised in the peripheries of the international system exists less as an articulated project and more as a set of situated responses, shaped by immediate pressures and asymmetrical incentives. The difficulty of coordination stems not only from institutional limitations but also from competition among countries for resources, political recognition, and relief from domestic burdens. In this context, collective articulation appears less as a viable strategic choice and more as an objective constantly strained by internal urgencies and unequal bilateral commitments.

The risks of this conditioned diplomacy become evident when such arrangements cease to be exceptional and become normalized. As peripheral countries internalize the logic of containment and assume externally defined functions, decision-making asymmetries and the political and humanitarian costs associated with migration management are amplified. Even when exercised as negotiation or accommodation, this diplomacy may inadvertently contribute to the reproduction of the very structures that limit its own margin of action.

The migration diplomacy observed in these peripheries (geographic or systemic) cannot, therefore, be understood merely as a reflexive response to restrictive policies. It constitutes a complex space of negotiation, accommodation, and, at times, contestation. The challenge that arises is not only to manage flows, but to transform contingent responses into diplomatic strategies capable of rebalancing, even if marginally, the power relations that structure the global migration regime.

References and recommended readings

Huysmans, Jef. The Politics of Insecurity: Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU. Routledge, 2006.https://www.routledge.com/The-Politics-of-Insecurity-Fear-Migration-and-Asylum-in-the-EU/Huysmans/p/book/9780415361255

Consilium (2025). Cimeira UE–Egito: parceria estratégica e abrangente.https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/international-summit/2025/10/22/

Despite fears in Europe, no migrant surge after Niger junta scrapped ban. Reuters, 7 jun. 2024.https://www.reuters.com/world/despite-fears-europe-no-migrant-surge-after-niger-junta-scrapped-ban-2024-06-07/

US deports migrants to Panama under bilateral agreement. Reuters, 13 fev. 2025.https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-deports-panama-nearly-120-migrants-different-nationalities-2025-02-13/

Italy to turn empty Albania migrant centre into repatriation hub. Reuters, 28 mar. 2025.https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italy-turn-empty-albania-migrant-centre-into-repatriation-hub-2025-03-28/

European Commission (2024). Pact on Migration and Asylum.https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/migration-and-asylum/pact-migration-and-asylum_en