In the last decade, irregular migration flows have attracted growing attention due to the fact that, apart from being occurrences of exceptional tragedy, they feature aspects of considerable complexity, being rooted in political, ethnic, environmental, economic reasons or in a combination of them.

In this context, particular attention should be paid to the theoretical question related to the tight connection that, since centuries ago, the European political thought has established with the concept of security. This connection has also legal relevance, as made evident by those measures that States can adopt individually or collectively, through the coordination of international agencies and the European Union, to monitor and contrast migration flows, especially when irregular.

Against this backdrop, the research project intends to undertake an analysis of the different legal, political, institutional and cultural issues at stake. From a legal point of view, the research focuses on the international, European and domestic legal frameworks in the field of both the monitoring and contrasting of migration flows and the protection of human rights of the vulnerable subjects involved; from an historical-political perspective, particular attention is devoted to the development, in the context of the European political thought, of the different matrixes of the concept of citizenship and their relationship with the concept of security. With regard to a sociological perspective, the focus is on the cultural issue of the relationship between citizenship, identity and diversity. Finally, in a policy perspective, the project intends to compare different cultural, social, economic and legal strategies adopted by the European Union and different Member States in order to tackle the phenomenon of migration.