“NGOs as Political Actors in the Multi-Level Governance of the Ceuta Border.”

This thesis examines the political role played by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) within the multi-level governance (MLG) of migration at the Ceuta border, a critical hotspot of EU border externalization. It departs from the observation that the tension between national and European security priorities and the legal duty to protect migrants' human rights has produced a significant institutional gap in migration management, a gap increasingly filled by NGOs. Moving beyond their conventional depiction as humanitarian service providers, the thesis argues that NGOs behave as de facto political actors, reshaping border dynamics among the EU, Spain, and Morocco. Guided by the research question of how far NGOs fill the governance gaps produced by EU externalization policies and Spanish-Moroccan bilateral agreements, and how the interplay among institutional, socio-pastoral, and grassroots organizational models generates a fragmented yet functional MLG system, the thesis develops a four-pillar analytical framework, theoretical, contextual, actor-based, and methodological. The theoretical pillar discusses the evolution of MLG and its intertwined dynamics with civil society; the contextual pillar draws on securitization theory to explain how framing migration as a threat produces a liminal, institutionally anomalous space in Ceuta; the actor-based pillar differentiates NGOs by organizational mandate; and the methodological pillar applies process tracing, hoop, straw-in-the-wind, smoking-gun, and doubly decisive tests, to establish causal links between the 2026 migration crisis and NGO integration into local governance. Empirically, the thesis draws on primary and secondary sources, documentary and journalistic triangulation, and an in-depth case study of three NGOs active in Ceuta (ASCS, No Name Kitchen, Luna Blanca). It contends that NGOs' inclusion in decision-making is not incidental but structurally necessary for a transition from a securitized border regime toward a more inclusive governance model that better protects migrants' rights.