Search Results

Many theories try to explain why remote controls of asylum seekers proliferated in the 1980s and 1990s, but most techniques of remote control were developed in the 1930s and 1940s. Policies to push out the border were ad hoc responses to perceived crises that then spread as governments copied each other’s policies. Europeanization took this process toward convergence the furthest of all the cases. Over time, policies have tended to converge across the Global North as multiple forces, such as the end of the Cold War and the broadening of the refugee definition, incentivized further remote control. This chapter describes the broad factors that promoted the spread of remote control as well as where those impulses have been constrained by countervailing forces arising from the courts, transnational advocacy networks, and foreign policy interests.

Most refugees do not have a legal way of reaching safety in the rich democracies of the Global North. There is no legal line where they can register and wait as their number advances. Obtaining a resettlement slot is like winning the lottery. The only realistic way to reach the Global North is to reach its territory and then ask for asylum. Rich democracies typically abide by the principle of non-refoulement but deliberately and systematically shut down most legal paths to safety. An architecture of repulsion based on cages, domes, buffers, moats, and barbicans keeps out asylum seekers and other migrants. Australia, Canada, the United States, and the European Union have converging policies of remote control to keep asylum seekers away from their territories. The catch-22 for refugees is that rich democracies are essentially telling them, “We will not kick you out if you come here. But we will not let you come here.”

This chapter argues that the development and proliferation of remote controlled vehicles for military operations, whether on land, sea or air, augments the long historical and technological development of the tools of war. The just war tradition contains the historical continuity, breadth, depth, and explanatory power to morally interpret these new technological developments successfully, albeit with certain caveats. Pacifists or realists of various stripes are not likely to consider these remote controlled tools to be game changers; their views of the moral statuses of military operations per se will not change because these new tools are introduced. Just war theorists, however, can and should embrace the advantages and risks these vehicles provide, as long as their use satisfies the burden of moral justification in particular contexts.

This chapter discusses the internal structures of the Shiv Sena, and the diffusion of power under the central command. The author describes the figure of the autocratic yet charismatic Bal Thakeray whose control of the party is its most unique feature. Bal Thackeray has advocated that a ‘benevolent dictatorship’ is the most beneficial form of government for India. The use of the family metaphor—with the leader as the patriarch, and the sainiks his children—is essential to the ideology of the party structure. Thackeray's ‘remote control’ over the party is also described. Dissenting members are ridiculed and expelled, their departure being announced in Samna or Marmik. While Thakeray has to continually be aware of rivalries, individual shakhas exercise a fair amount of autonomy, thus revealing that, despite an autocratic leadership, the Sena operates as a network of multi-layered institutions which are dispersed and autonomous in differing degrees. This makes for a strategic command structure in which the Sena as a whole can dissociate itself from individual acts, should they go wrong. The author concludes by analyzing how the Sena gives its sainiks opportunities to rise in the local power structure as also how the charisma (of the leader and his party) works to organize actions that can generate power.

Member States started adopting carrier liability regulations from the mid-1980s, seemingly as a direct response to increasing numbers of asylum requests, with immigration liaison officer (ILO) schemes proliferating afterwards. Techniques of ‘remote control’ have now been communautarised, providing an additional layer of control. Both carriers and ILOs have privileged access to migrants bound to the EU already at the pre-entry phase. Making them responsible for the anticipated enforcement of visas has the potential to block lines of regular (and safe) access to those in need of international protection. This chapter is concerned with these developments. It analyses carrier sanctions and ILOs legislation, comparing the EU regime with its international counterparts. The review encompasses the pre- and post-Schengen periods as well as recent innovations concerning the automated treatment and transfer of advance passenger information (API) and the creation of ‘Frontex liaison officers’. The impact of carrier sanctions and ILO activities on refugee flows is scrutinized at the end, pointing at a structural incompatibility of advance border enforcement, through a model of ‘imperfect delegation’/’hidden coercion’, with basic guarantees against denial of entry.