Your border is not mine: smugglers, the legitimation of authoritarian states and ecosystems of discontent

This is Your Border, Not Mine: Smugglers, State Legitimacy and Ecosystems of Discontent argues that migrant smugglers fill the void left by fragile states, and in doing so, develop enough legitimacy to influence national politics and international relations between states. It draws on over 99 interviews with individuals engaged in migrant smuggling, as well as my own experiences and those of local researchers living and working across three smuggling hubs in Afghanistan, Djibouti and Niger. The thesis makes an academic contribution by proposing the concept of “ecosystems of discontent.” This concept describes how quasi formal actors (in this case, migrant smugglers and those who engage with them) contribute to a process in which local community and market dynamics coalesce into stronger informal institutions, at the expense of state legitimacy. It also aims to deepen the policy debate around smuggling by highlighting the political role smugglers and their ecosystems can play both domestically – as governments in Niger and Afghanistan have taken take specific actions to address discontent within the ecosystem – and internationally, as these same governments have used migration diplomacy measures to engage with the international system, sometimes at the expense of smuggling ecosystems.