Understanding the policy field: migration, prostitution, trafficking and exploitation

Abstract

While the debate on regulating prostitution usually focuses on national policy, it is local policy measures that have the most impact on the ground. This book is the first to offer a detailed analysis of the design and implementation of prostitution policy at the local level and carefully situates local policy practices in national policy making and transnational trends in labour migration and exploitation. Based on detailed comparative research in Austria and the Netherlands, and bringing in experiences in countries such as New Zealand and Sweden, it analyses the policy instruments employed by local administrators to control prostitution and sex workers. Bridging the gap between theory and policy, emphasizing the multilevel nature of prostitution policy, while also highlighting more effective policies on prostitution, migration and labour exploitation, this unique book fills a gap in the literature on this contentious and important social issue. Introduction -- Dora's story -- The primacy of policy in prostitution -- The goals of the book -- A reader's guide to the book -- Challenges of prostitution policy -- The stigma of prostitution and the paradox of control -- Prostitution politics as morality politics -- Paradoxes of immigration -- Obstacles to obtaining reliable numbers about prostitution and sex workers -- The ineluctable importance of the local in prostitution policy -- Analysing prostitution policy -- The local governance of prostitution: regulatory drift and implementation capture -- Policy implementation as policy formulation with different means -- Policy design and policy instruments -- Local policymaking in the Netherlands -- Local policymaking in Vienna -- Conclusion: policy implementation, morality politics and the corrosive effects of discourse -- The national governance of prostitution: political rationality and the politics of discourse -- Introduction: policy subsystems and policy streams -- National policy in the Netherlands -- National policy in Austria -- Conclusion: Designing prostitution policy -- Understanding the policy field: migration, prostitution, trafficking and exploitation -- Introduction: prostitution as a complex policy field -- Migration, prostitution and coercion -- How immigration and labour law shape the 'modern slavery' problem -- Prostitution and exploitation -- Prostitution, trafficking and exploitation: an alternative framework -- Prostitution policy beyond trafficking: collaborative governance in prostitution -- The challenges of prostitution policy revisited: harnessing a complex policy field Introducing collaborative rationality in prostitution governance -- Sex worker advocacy and the state -- Governance capacity and collaborative governance -- Is collaborative governance in prostitution policy possible? -- Summary and conclusion.