International Migration Review
Who Governs Migrant Precarity? Intermediated Exclusion Under Conditions of Intensified Vulnerability
2026-08-06
Who governs migrant precarity, and through what mechanisms is it sustained in contemporary labor migration regimes? This article conceptualizes intermediated exclusion as a governance logic through which accountability is displaced, producing migrant precarity. Drawing on a nationwide employer survey (n = 3,747) and qualitative evidence from labor brokers, local officials, and migrant workers in Taiwan, it identifies three modes of delegated governance: institutional outsourcing, household-level ambiguity, and hybrid flexibility. These arrangements shift responsibility away from the state, embedding precarity through wage opacity, dependence on brokers, and the policing of ‘runaway’ cases. The article shows that delegated governance not only fails to protect migrant workers, but also contributes to the organization of vulnerability through dispersed forms of authority. Beyond Taiwan, the findings suggest that migrant precarity is less an exception than a patterned outcome of how labor migration governance is enacted in practice.