Sandra Lavenex

Sandra Lavenex is Professor of European and International Politics at the University of Geneva and vice-Dean of the School of Social Sciences. She is also regular Visiting Professor at the College of Europe.


Her research focuses on EU asylum and migration policies and the diffusion of EU norms and practices to third countries and international organizations. Her more recent projects compare regional migration/asylum governance initiatives worldwide and analyse the nexus between trade and migration policies, with a focus on economic agreements. In addition, she works on the diffusion of democratic standards in international governance.


Her main book publications include "Safe Third Countries. Extending the EU Asylum and Immigration Policies to Central and Eastern Europe" (1999); "The Europeanization of Refugee Policies: Between Human Rights and Internal Security" (2001); "Migration and the Externalities of European Integration" (co-edited with E. Uçarer 2002); "Multilayered Migration Governance: The Promise of Partnership" (co-edited with R. Kunz and M. Panizzon 2012); "Democracy in the Age of Globalization and Mediatization" (with HP Kriesi, et al. 2013); and "EU Democracy Promotion by Functional Cooperation: The European Union and Its Neighbourhood" (with T. Freyburg, F. Schimmelfennig, T. Skripka and A. Wetzel 2015). Her recent publications include "Regional Migration Governance" in Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism 2016; "Multileveling EU external governance: The role of international organizations in the diffusion of EU migration policies" in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 2016; and "The Migration-Trade Nexus: Migration Provisions in Trade Agreements", in Handbook of the International Political Economy of Migration 2015.

She has served as consultant to the European Parliament, the European Commission, the OECD, and the Swiss government.

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