Spatial Statism and Migration Governance in Megacities: Theoretical-Conceptual Analysis

The study examines the potential of the spatial statism concept for analyzing megacities and international migration based on a structured literature review and comparison across four criteria: the nature of governance in megacities, the position of megacities in the legal system, institutional features of megacity governance, and the role of international migration. On this basis, the approach of R. Hirschl and A. Shahar is reconstructed and its analytical capabilities in the context of modern urban and migration studies are determined. It is demonstrated that spatial statism allows for the identification of discrepancies between the functional scales of agglomerations and their formally established powers. International migration is considered as one of the factors that exacerbate these discrepancies and intensify the tension between global flows and state-centric regulatory mechanisms. In conclusion, the limitations of the concept and prospects for its application in the analysis of megacity political institutions are discussed.