Refugee rights or refugees as threats? Germany’s new Asylum policy
| Date | 01 August 2018 |
| Author | Asli Ilgit,Audie Klotz |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148118778958 |
| Published date | 01 August 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148118778958
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2018, Vol. 20(3) 613 –631
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148118778958
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Refugee rights or refugees
as threats? Germany’s new
Asylum policy
Asli Ilgit1 and Audie Klotz2
Abstract
On-going Mediterranean migration highlights serious tensions over asylum policy in Germany,
among European Union members, and with neighbouring states. Yet commentaries thus far lack a
clear understanding of these complex dynamics and their policy implications, because each typically
relies on only one of two analytically distinct frameworks: either refugee rights or refugees as
threats. Instead, we integrate these frameworks. Specifically, we juxtapose securitisation theory
with the coalition literature from migration studies in order to analyse societal contestation in
Germany’s responses to the Syrian refugee crisis. We conclude that, despite tactical political shifts,
Germany’s commitment to rights remains fundamental because of a resilient coalition of political
parties, economic actors, and rights advocates. Insights about Germany, the country arguably most
responsible for pushing a common European Union approach to refugees, also help us understand
better regional dynamics.
Keywords
Asylum, European Union, Germany, political coalitions, refugees, rights, securitisation, Syria crisis
Introduction
‘I understand that many of us are feeling insecure at the moment’, said German Interior
Minister Thomas de Maiziere at a news conference in July 2016, before announcing his
order of greater police presence across the country (Kirschbaum, 2016). The minister’s
statement came after a series of deadly attacks in a week – three of them involving refu-
gees as alleged perpetrators – heightened public anxiety. Anti-immigrant sentiments and
scepticism over the government’s handling of the refugee crisis had already spiked since
reports of mass sexual assaults and thefts during the 2015 New Year’s Eve celebrations in
Cologne claimed perpetrators to be foreign nationals. While more and more people
1Department of Political Science and International Relations, Cukurova University, Adana, Turkey
2 Department of Political Science, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University,
Syracuse, USA
Corresponding author:
Audie Klotz, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244,
USA.
Email: aklotz@maxwell.syr.edu
778958BPI0010.1177/1369148118778958The British Journal of Politics and International Relations X(X)Ilgit and Klotz
research-article2018
Original Article
614 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 20(3)
demanded stricter limits on migration (Ehsan, 2016), politically motivated crimes against
asylum seekers increased sixteen times from 2013 to 2015 (Amnesty International, 2016).
Tapping into these anxieties, a new anti-immigrant party, the Alternative für Deutschland
(AfD) grew rapidly, gaining seats in 13 (out of 16) Länder since its founding in 2013.
In the face of this escalating backlash, many electoral observers predicted that
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policy would result in her political downfall.
However, Merkel did not back off her principled stand. Instead, she defended the con-
stitutional guarantee of rights for those fleeing war and persecution, insisting that
Germany would not lose sight of ‘our cohesion and sense of community as well as our
way of life, our openness and our willingness to take in people who are in need’
(Dearden, 2016). At the peak of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015, Merkel sent special
trains to accept thousands of people stranded in inhospitable Hungary, thereby offi-
cially suspending enforcement of the European Union’s (EU) Dublin regulations, which
require asylum claims to be made in the first safe transit country (including any other
EU member, such as Hungary). In reaction, some critics even called her Volksverrater,
a ‘traitor of the people’ (Raymunt, 2016). Yet Merkel easily survived the September
2017 federal elections, albeit with a weakened party position. Those elections posi-
tioned the AfD to enter the Bundestag (federal parliament) for the first time as the third
biggest party, with more than 12% of the vote.
Many pundits misread public debates and their implications for refugee policy, we
argue, because they gave excessively narrow attention to electoral dynamics. Instead, by
focusing on political institutions and societal contestation more broadly, we explain
Merkel’s resilient commitment to refugee protections, despite its electoral risks, as the
interplay between securitisation and de-securitisation processes. Refugee rights remain
more firmly entrenched than the AfD’s rise or Merkel’s tactical shifts suggest, because the
predominant coalition – comprising key economic interests and rights advocates,
cemented by centrist political parties – has so far successfully blocked rhetorical attempts
to construct refugees as a threat. Specifically, we show how the scope of public debates
and policy reforms in Germany resulted from two distinctive yet interacting processes:
discursive contestation, as highlighted by securitisation theory, and coalitional politics, as
highlighted by the immigration literature.
Furthermore, our analysis provides insights into EU refugee debates and policies,
because Germany has been the country arguably most responsible for pushing a common
approach. Polarisation in Germany, driven by rising populist hostility towards refugees
and asylum seekers, parallels similarly serious disagreements across Europe (Smale,
2015). The cacophony of responses spans Hungary building a razor-wire fence along its
borders with Serbia and Croatia, while Italy’s military search-and-rescue operation,
Operation Mare Nostrum, aimed at reducing the death toll off its coast. As part of an
attempt at more comprehensive responses, the EU replaced Operation Mare Nostrum
with its Joint Operation Triton (carried out by Frontex, the European Agency for the
Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of
the EU) in November 2014. Led by Germany, the EU then reached a voluntary Joint
Action Plan with Turkey in late 2015, to readmit rejected asylum applicants who had
transited via their territory.1 Building on this model, the EU has negotiated similar bilat-
eral ‘burden-sharing’ agreements with other Mediterranean neighbours, most recently
with Libya in February 2017.
Like the punditry on German elections, EU commentaries lack sufficient understand-
ing of these dynamics within Europe and their policy implications across the region,
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