RSC seminar, 12 March 2025
RSC Public Seminar Series, Hilary term 2025
Series convened by Professor Tom Scott-Smith and Professor Catherine Briddick
About the seminar
As allegations of the weaponization of migration proliferate on both sides of the Atlantic, Professor Kelly M Greenhill explored a triad of intertwined and self-reinforcing challenges that inform, affect and complicate migration management and the politics around border security: 1) the weaponization of migration for political, economic and/or military gain; 2) the politicization and exploitation of fears of migration for domestic political gain - or the weaponization of the weaponization of migration, if you will; and 3) the weaponization of the politicization of migration, in the form of hostile influence operations that rely on the deployment of rumors, conspiracy theories, and other forms of what Greenhill calls "extra-factual information" as well as on the direct and indirect creation of actual migration outflows.
Drawing upon evidence from recent and ongoing cases, Professor Greenhill also discussed how each of these three distinct phenomena can feed and exacerbate the others, creating vicious feedback loops. leaving target states less secure and more vulnerable to future acts of migration predation and further endangering the human rights of the true victims of migration weaponization, the displaced.