Nikolas Karoutsos is a PhD researcher in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute (EUI). His research focuses on migration governance, labour mobility, and the performative politics of migration, with particular attention to how states combine border control with openness to labour migration. His PhD research examines these dynamics in Greece and Türkiye. He holds a Master’s in Transnational Governance from the European University Institute (2023–2025), where he specialised in migration governance, and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Freie Universität Berlin (2018–2021).
His publications include work on legal migration pathways, Mediterranean migration governance, and the politics of migration management. His Master’s thesis, From Borders to Pathways: Greek Policymakers’ Perceptions of the Link Between Legal Pathways and Irregular Migration, examines how policymakers in Greece understand the relationship between legal migration pathways and irregular migration. He has also co-authored the policy brief A Mediterranean Perspective on Current Migration Governance with Kristin Fabbe, Markos Karavias, and Sebene Eshete, and contributed the book chapter “Façade Fictions in European Migration Management” with Kristin Fabbe.