Using Aid to Control Migration

This article examines the practice of using aid to control migration, which we refer to as ‘inducement aid’. We examine two potential objections to inducement aid, each of which concerns a message that the practice communicates to two corresponding audiences: would-be migrants and other developed states. We suggest that the first objection has intuitive force but is undermined by a powerful reply. This finding seems to bolster the intuitive appeal that inducement aid might exhibit as a non-compulsory and apparently option-enhancing form of migration control. However, we argue that the second objection, which targets inducement aid in its capacity as a form of development assistance, has greater power. Developing the second objection, we argue that inducement aid threatens the establishment and maintenance of important international norms, thereby risking degrading the options of the world’s poorest people and setting back the cause of cosmopolitan morality.