12/02/2025: UNU-MERIT Migration Seminar Series – Trust Beyond Borders: The Role of Non-State Actors in Shaping Immigration Preferences
You are cordially invited to join the next UNU-MERIT Migration Seminar Series: Trust in international organizations reduces support for closed-door immigration in weak-governance regions, highlighting non-state actors’ influence. This will be on Wednesday, 12 Feb. 2025 from 15:30 to 16:30. Our speaker is Prof. Carlos Vargas-Silva from the University of Oxford.
About the speaker:
Carlos Vargas-Silva is Professor of Migration Studies at the University of Oxford. He has a joint appointment between the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) and the Oxford Department for International Development. Carlos was Director of COMPAS from October 2019 to September 2023, and was the (founding) Director of the doctoral programme in Migration Studies at Oxford from October 2018 to September 2023. He is a co-founder of the journal Migration Studies, published by Oxford University Press, and was Editor-in-Chief of the journal from 2020 to 2023.
Abstract:
Evidence for high-income countries suggests that greater political trust, defined as confidence in state actors, leads to more openness toward receiving immigrants. We argue that in contexts of weak state governance, trust in non-state actors, such as civil society or international organizations, is also relevant. To test this, we conduct three identical face-to-face surveys, each including a conjoint experiment, in three border locations experiencing large inflows of Venezuelan immigrants: Boa Vista (Brazil), Cúcuta (Colombia), and San Fernando (Trinidad and Tobago). Results indicate that higher levels of trust in international organizations decrease favorability for community profiles with a closed-door immigration approach. The findings suggest a nuanced conceptualization of trust accounting for non-state actors helps understand public attitudes toward immigration; analyses need tailoring to local contexts to capture the role of non-state actors; and in regions with weak state governance, international organizations may act as trusted intermediaries to enhance openness to immigration.
The seminar will take place on Zoom, please click on this link to join. You can find the previous Migration Seminars in this YouTube playlist.
For further information, please contact Soha Youssef (convenor of the Migration Seminar series, on behalf of UNU-MERIT & MACIMIDE): youssef@merit.unu.edu