Authors: Frown Rausis and Sandra Lavenex, University of Geneva (UNIGE
The paper digs into how European states and EU institutions negotiate the return of people without valid residence permits to non-European countries. It treats these Intergovernmental Return Frameworks as both legal instruments and organizational processes, then builds a framework to make sense of them. On the legal side, it sorts IRFs by how binding they are and how broad their policy scope is, landing on four types that capture the messy mix of arrangements and agreements used in practice. On the organizational side, it looks at how internal coordination within states shapes their diplomatic behaviour, sketching four negotiation styles that vary in centralization and tone.
Empirically, the study maps how widespread these return frameworks have become and shows that countries differ sharply in how they organize themselves. Case studies from Europe, Georgia and Nigeria hint that the quality of internal coordination influences external negotiating outcomes and, ultimately, the success of return diplomacy.