Encounters Across Difference: Analyzing the Role of Foreign Experts in Shaping Migration Policies in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The rise in irregular border crossings by migrants and refugees from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to European borders has led the European Union (EU) to increase border enforcement capacity through technological and organizational innovation. The increasing technicality of security necessitates the opinion of experts for policy development and implementation (Gricius, 2022). As such, security experts gain political privilege by proposing policies they identify as being in the best interest of states (Haas, 1992). Despite the importance of understanding how legacies of foreign economic and political influence provide the foundation for political privilege and uneven distribution of power (Georgis and Lugosi, 2013), the literature has not adequately addressed that topic. This paper proposes to fill this gap. As part of a larger dissertation project, I intend to analyze the role of expert knowledge (interveners) in border enforcement capacity building in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I contend that social reality is created and sustained through interaction and negotiations between multiple actors in particular social and political environments (Emerson et al., 1995; Tsing, 2005), demanding an understanding of the historical forces that have contributed to shaping geopolitical spaces. This research seeks to answer the following questions: (1) How has the organizational structure of migration governance in Bosnia and Herzegovina changed? (2) How have EU migration policy institutions affected local migration management decision-making processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina? How do encounters between displaced populations, local populations and interveners influence the political and societal transformation in Bosnia and Herzegovina?