5 Conclusion
5.2 How does the state go about to achieve its aims?
In what way has the state practically set out to regulate this labour migration according to its aims? Theda Skocpol reminded us that states do not infrequently pursue goals that are beyond their reach and that their capacities to implement strategies and policies therefore deserve close analyzes in their own right. At this point, when summarizing what we have seen of the concrete state management, I would like to return to Schuck and his concepts for explaining the “three-headed nature” of laws; “law on the books”, “law in action” and the “law in their minds”.
95 In the early 2000s when the government literally made migration from Central Asia a national security issue, it seemed to believe that by implementing strict procedures for registration and for employment of foreign citizens, Russia could come to grips with illegal migration. The law `on the books`, however, proved to be too complicated to be put into practise with good results, and `in action` it failed both to decrease the number of people staying illegally in Russia, as well as the number of foreigners working in the country illegally. As a result, 90 % of the labour migrants were estimated to be lacking either registration or work permit or both. The state had far from reached its aim, and had even helped to create a negative perception of the migrants that were to persist, although the state gradually came to see the need for corrections of its policies.
In 2005, with strong signals coming from the president, there was an evident change of the `law in their minds`- the government seemed to realize that their policy had failed.
Subsequently, they set out to address the questions of migration in a way that took into account the president‟s statements on immigration from the CIS countries as a resource for Russia - one that the country should take advantage of. The result and the evidence of the new mindset were the 2006 law amendments which somewhat eased access to the Russian labour market for CIS citizens. CIS citizens, or as formulated in the text of the law; citizens from countries with a visa-free regime with Russia (в порядке не требующем визы) were separated from other foreign citizens and treated preferentially in the new legislation. The registration procedures were simplified for all foreign citizens, and according to the law `on the books` it became possible for labour migrants from Central Asia (and all CIS citizens) to acquire work permits at the UFMS offices independent of an employer. Some positive effects were noticed such as the amount of labour migrants with an actual work permit rose, and as such the 2006 law amendments did reflect a migration policy which harmonized somewhat better with the demographical concept mentioned above. However, embedded in the `law on the books` was a “hidden clause“, which became apparent at the time of economic crises in 2008. This was the quotas - a mechanism for regulating the numbers of foreign workers that were to be allowed entrance to the labour market in various sectors of the economy. The quotas asserted themselves when they suddenly were significantly reduced at the time of economic crisis. The `law in action` as followed by these reductions led migrants into illegal existence when the work permit quotas were filled up and left them without one. The state‟s capacity in this field of regulation was thus reduced to the act of deciding upon the migrants‟
96
legal status in work relations as legal or illegal, while the state proved insufficient in regulating the numbers of labour migrants present in Russia.
The state itself has repeatedly expressed that its migration policy is under development, and yet not settled. In 2010, a few more steps were taken as the state
implemented some new mechanisms of regulations. The so-called patent -`on the books` a way of legalizing the work of labour migrants who are working for private persons, was to bring in taxes to the state from a group of migrants that for a long time had been existing outside of the legal framework. `In action`, however, the patents acquired functions beyond its target group when they were obtained by migrants who were not working for private persons, simply in order to legalize their stay in Russia. In this respect the patents‟ indented
functionality showed clear weaknesses. Still, opinions vary on the new development - the “law in their minds” differs, something which the statements of the commercial migration managers in chapter 4 exemplified. While Bakhrom Ismailov recognized that the state had succeeded in collecting some extra roubles for the state treasury, he at the same time thought that the mechanism had failed since the patent was taken advantage of by other groups of migrants than the one it was originally intended for. Vyacheslav Sokolov, on the contrary, viewed the patent system positively - as a correction of a former deficiency in the legislation. Both of them are quite right in their observations, although their focus differs. The state evidently sought to cover a gap in its regulation. But at the same time it created a possible circumvention because the means by which it sought to cover the gap were too simplistic.
Institutionally, the state‟s migration management has also failed to be very impressive. In chapter 3, on the state management, I quoted several Russian researchers who expressed strong scepticism about the FMS as a part of the MVD. They thought that its subordination under this ministry had helped to institutionalize a negative perspective on migration. Furthermore, my informants in chapter 4 confirmed that corruption is a widespread problem among UFMS officers, and the UFMSs in general got a poor testimonial: unskilled and few personnel are leading to long queues and waiting hours for those who contact these offices.
Also within the state agencies and among their officials there are various opinions on migration and little consensus. Castles seems to be quite right when he maintains that the factors that need to be addressed when making migration policies are so multifaceted that the policies which have evolved “tend towards compromises and contradictory policies”.
97 (Castles: 2007, 31) This leads us to the next and final research question, a questions which to some degree have been addressed already.