Abstract The negotiation of national control within regional free movement frameworks reveals the complex interplay between state authority and regional commitments. By comparing the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the European Union (EU), the article uncovers the mechanisms through which states seek to reconcile the promise of regional mobility with the imperative of national control by focusing on rights of entry and residence. The analysis draws on key legal documents and ninety-six interviews with representatives from national and regional institutions, as well as civil society actors. Despite significant differences in regional contexts and institutional structures, I argue that states employ strikingly similar control mechanisms in both the drafting of agreements and their implementation across all three regions. These include: the incorporation of safeguards and conditionalities, as well as the strategic omission of certain aspects in regional agreements; the selective incorporation and divergent interpretation of regional commitments at the national level; and the non-application or violation of national laws, alongside practices of ambiguous compliance. While the extent and application of these mechanisms vary depending on monitoring and corrective capacities embedded in institutional framework, they collectively reveal the negotiated nature of control in regional mobility governance. By identifying these cross-regional patterns, the article contributes to comparative scholarship on free movement and challenges the prevailing Eurocentric bias in the field.
Zoé Perko (Wed,) studied this question.