Knowledge, Power, and Trust: The Role of Experts in Russia’s Migration Regime

This article examines the role of experts in the field of migration policy in an authoritarian environment and their collaboration with the state in times of crisis. While much of the literature on migration policy-making in Russia focuses on patron-client relationships between state and business, little is known about the collaboration of state actors and experts. Therefore, this paper provides an overview of the main migration experts and shows the conditions under which they are involved in migration policy. Despite various forms of collaboration, expert policy networks are strictly controlled by Russia’s authoritarian state. Measures of control include the sanctioning of foreign financing, a weak culture of dialogue, non-transparent political decisions, the absence of institutionalized political competition and an extremely personalized system of interaction that places experts in a relationship of dependence, thus preventing substantial criticism of political decisions and forcing loyalty. Since 2016, the conditions under which experts are involved in migration policy have become even more limited. It is argued that the reasons for the change are linked to a threefold loss of trust in the expertise of non-state actors, in particular, international organizations. This loss of trust can be explained firstly by a collision of the long-term logic of expert advice with the short-term crisis management of the state; secondly by a dynamic that followed from the institutional restructuring of the Federal Migration Service that dissolved long-standing personal relationships between experts and officials; and thirdly by a general loss of trust in Western policy solutions and liberal norms in the management of migration (crises).