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Bureaucracy and the politics of time in state-business relations: Waiting to recruit migrant labour in Mauritius

Theory and Society volume 52, pages 333–352 (2023)Cite this article

Abstract

Time is money. According to E.P. Thompson, this saying lies at the core of the logic of capitalism. And yet, in the vast literature on state-capital relations, the strategic value of time has remained relatively neglected compared to rent distribution and monetary exchanges. Elaborating on the recruitment of migrants by employers and their intermediaries in Mauritius, this article explores the role of bureaucratic time and delays in businesses’ access to the fundamental resource for economic accumulation: labour. It reveals a bifurcated bureaucratic pathway, a two-speed logic in the Mauritian bureaucracy of migration. On one side is the lengthy and unpredictable process of administering the authorisations to recruit foreign workers; on the other appear what I term the “shortcuts through the red tape”, the exemptions to the bureaucratic procedures and delays that benefit politically connected actors. Drawing on this case study, I contend that the politics of waiting, inherent to bureaucratic routine, matters in the relations between business and the state.

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Notes

  1. Harold Walter, Minister of Labour, in Debates of the Legislative Assembly, 28 April 1970, second reading of Non-Citizens (Employment Restriction) Bill, vol. 2 (pp. 622 − 23), Port-Louis.

  2. Recruitment of Workers Act, Act 39/1993.

  3. Keertee Coomar Ruhee, Minister of Civil Service Affairs and Employment, in National Assembly Debates, 23 November 1993, First session, Debate n.31 (pp. 3367), Port Louis.

  4. Data issued from Statistics Mauritius, (2020), Labour, Historical Series, Port Louis.

  5. A person can apply for Mauritian citizenship after a period of residence of five years.

  6. Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment, (2016), Guidelines for work permit applications (pp. 6), Employment Division.

  7. Sect. 4 of the Non-Citizens (Employment Restriction) Act, 1973.

  8. Interview with an agent recruteur, 16 January 2019.

  9. Evident for instance in interviews with various trade unions leaders, conducted between 2018 and 2019.

  10. For instance, an article was published in a local newspaper titled “A Mafia-type network in recruitment: Workers from Bangladesh vampirised” [“Un circuit mafieux entourant le recrutement: des travailleurs bangladais vampirisés”]: Dinally, E., Le DéfiMédia (7 October 2019).

  11. Interview with an agent recruteur, 14 July 2018.

  12. Interview with an agent recruteur, 8 February 2019.

  13. Daby, P. (26 October 2016), Firemounts Textiles Ltd: “La main-d’œuvre étrangère est plus chère que l’ouvrier mauricien”, Le DéfiMédia.

  14. Interview with the President of MEXA, 25 June 2018, Port Louis, Mauritius; interview with the Director of MEXA, 18 July 2018, Port Louis, Mauritius.

  15. Jugnauth, P. (2017), Budget Speech 2017–2018: Rising to the challenge of our ambitions (pp. 10), Port Louis: Republic of Mauritius.

  16. Ramgoolam, N. (2014), Budget Speech 2014–2015: Building a better Mauritius, creating the next wave of prosperity (pp. 30), Port-Louis: Republic of Mauritius.

  17. Interview with an agent recruteur, 12 January 2019.

  18. Interview with a state official of the Ministry of Employment, 13 February 2019.

  19. Interview with an agent recruteur, 12 January 2019.

  20. Interview with an agent recruteur, 14 July 2018.

  21. Interview with an agent recruteur, 7 February 2019.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and Johan Lindquist for his precious suggestions on an earlier version of the article, as well as the institutional support received from the Centre for International Studies (Sciences Po – CERI). I am also grateful to the useful comments received from the participants of the “Seeing Politics through Intermediation and Intermediaries” study-day organised in November 2020 at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, where a draft of the article was presented.

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    Lucas Puygrenier

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Puygrenier, L. Bureaucracy and the politics of time in state-business relations: Waiting to recruit migrant labour in Mauritius. Theor Soc 52, 333–352 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-022-09479-z

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Keywords

  • Bureaucracy
  • Brokers
  • Migration
  • State-Business Relations
  • Time
  • Waiting