Border games and mutual coercive conditionality between Spain and Morocco: externalization of migration control versus strategic engineered of migrations

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the migratory and border dimension of Spanish-Moroccan relations. In particular, we study the border games played by Spain and Morocco. There are three fundamental explanatory factors for border games: the securitization and externalization of the Migration Policy of the European Union and Spain, the strategic engineered of migration exercised by Morocco and the existence of territories of contested sovereignty, such as Ceuta and Melilla. and, to a lesser extent, the Canary Islands. We approach it from the theoretical approaches of Securitization Theory and Strategic Engineered Migration (weaponization). The results show the existence of a multitude of border games carried out by both countries with different objectives and effects. We conclude that the border games are practices of mutual coercive conditionality between Spain and Morocco and they are framed in a conflictive logic with the “externalization versus “weaponization” scheme. This study helps to better understand the Global North-Global South gap, where externalization and strategic engineered of migrations (weaponization) are practiced as forms of coercion, rebalancing power relations.