The ‘unknown unknowns’: Brexit, the EUSS and the challenges of governing complexity
The ‘unknown unknowns’: Brexit, the EUSS and the challenges of governing complexity
Brexit’s project of ‘re-bordering’ Britain impacted residency rights for EU nationals in the UK. Rather than focusing on how EU nationals experience the consequences of Brexit in the UK, this paper focuses on how the key policy instrument, the EUSS (EU Settlement Scheme) described as a complex system, ‘complexifies’ EU nationals’ regularisation of their residency status in the UK. Using qualitative interviews with frontline workers involved in the EUSS application process, we analyse this complexity across three dimensions. First, how digital governance enables the EUSS’s agile approach, based on a mobile and flexible norm that generates uncertainty and confusion. Second, how outsourcing responsibility to non-governmental organisations to assist EU nationals’ application to the scheme increases diversity in the availability for help and blurs accountability. Third, the uneven and never complete distribution of knowledge generates complexity as there remain ‘unknown unknowns’. Taken together, this paper adds to the literature on complex policy systems by scrutinising the role of digital governance and outsourcing, while highlighting how these two policy dimensions can further compound the availability of policy knowledge.
Brexit, complexity, EUSS, digital governance, migration, outsourcing, EUSS, complexity, Brexit, migration, digital governance
Iusmen, Ingi
696395c1-d60e-4fbd-aa2b-98aeecaa64b2
Koren, Timo
43c91d37-ff9c-4aaa-93a8-7532fc35262f
Iusmen, Ingi
696395c1-d60e-4fbd-aa2b-98aeecaa64b2
Koren, Timo
43c91d37-ff9c-4aaa-93a8-7532fc35262f
Iusmen, Ingi and Koren, Timo
(2025)
The ‘unknown unknowns’: Brexit, the EUSS and the challenges of governing complexity.
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
(doi:10.1080/1369183X.2025.2491600).
Abstract
Brexit’s project of ‘re-bordering’ Britain impacted residency rights for EU nationals in the UK. Rather than focusing on how EU nationals experience the consequences of Brexit in the UK, this paper focuses on how the key policy instrument, the EUSS (EU Settlement Scheme) described as a complex system, ‘complexifies’ EU nationals’ regularisation of their residency status in the UK. Using qualitative interviews with frontline workers involved in the EUSS application process, we analyse this complexity across three dimensions. First, how digital governance enables the EUSS’s agile approach, based on a mobile and flexible norm that generates uncertainty and confusion. Second, how outsourcing responsibility to non-governmental organisations to assist EU nationals’ application to the scheme increases diversity in the availability for help and blurs accountability. Third, the uneven and never complete distribution of knowledge generates complexity as there remain ‘unknown unknowns’. Taken together, this paper adds to the literature on complex policy systems by scrutinising the role of digital governance and outsourcing, while highlighting how these two policy dimensions can further compound the availability of policy knowledge.
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Accepted version Unknown Unknowns JEMS
- Accepted Manuscript
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The Unknown Unknowns Brexit the EUSS and the challenges of governing complexity
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 5 April 2025
e-pub ahead of print date: 23 April 2025
Keywords:
Brexit, complexity, EUSS, digital governance, migration, outsourcing, EUSS, complexity, Brexit, migration, digital governance
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 501025
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/501025
ISSN: 1369-183X
PURE UUID: b332741d-09b2-47d8-869a-ded1ff1ebcfd
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Date deposited: 20 May 2025 17:16
Last modified: 22 Aug 2025 02:10
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Author:
Timo Koren
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