Christof Roos

The global economic crisis as a critical juncture? The crisis’s impact on migration movements and policies in Europe and the U.S.

The current global economic crisis has resulted in the strongest recession in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries since the Great Depression in the early 1930s and the 1970s oil shocks. This special issue sets out to explore how the most recent economic crisis impacted immigration and immigration-related policy in the United States of America and in European countries that are part of the OECD. The crisis of the late 2000s was offset by the collapse of the subprime US housing market, destabilising the financial system and leading to a sovereign debt crisis. The shock was marked by a “sudden […] deterioration of most, or all, key macroeconomic indicators” such as the gross domestic product (GDP) growth, the unemployment rate, the level of inflation, and the public debt (Starke et al. 2013, 5). The GDP in OECD countries shrank by 3.49% in 2009, whereas it previously had grown by around 2 to 3% annually. Additionally, the unemployment rate in the OECD rose from 5.9% of the total labour force in 2008 to more than 8% in 2009 and subsequent years. During that time, the youth unemployment rate in the European Union (EU), the number of unemployed 15 to 24 year olds, increased steeply from 15 to more than 20%. In countries that were heavily affected by the crisis such as Greece and Spain youth unemployment rose from 20 to over 50% between 2008 and 2012 (OECD 2016). This resulted in a decline in demand for labour force. Common wisdom holds that economic recessions and high unemployment have an impact on the decisions of migrants to move, as well as on governments to consider restrictions in immigration policy. Yet, empirical findings on the crisis-migration nexus are sometimes contradictory and while some find a clear causal link between the crisis and changes in migration patterns and policies, others refute its existence.

Norms matter! The role of international norms in EU policies on asylum and immigration

AbstractThis Article investigates how international norms impact on eu asylum and immigration policy. To this end we scrutinize the assumption that the robustness of international norms indicates the quality of eu integration. Drawing on international norms literature we argue that four characters define an international norms’ robustness: specificity in definition, binding force, coherence with domestic law and international law, and concordant understanding among actors. Our analysis covers three eu policy areas, asylum policy, family reunification policy, and labour migration policy. Across the three areas international norms had varying degrees of robustness at the time of eu negotiations. The findings show that presence and robustness of international norms on asylum or immigration regulation are reflected in eu legislation. Given that there are more robust norms available on questions of status than on reception conditions or asylum procedures, the qualification directive was much easier to agree on than the reception conditions or the asylum procedures directive which were much more characterized by hard bargaining. The international norm, right to family life, was sufficiently robust and was codified in eu law. However, both the international norm and the eu law do not provide for clear admission criteria. On labour migration, robust international norms with regard to equality provisions for migrant workers are mirrored in eu legislation on residence rights of migrants. With regard to conditions of admission, the absence of international norms indicates little to no eu legislation.

A “border for the people"? Narratives on changing eastern borders in Finland and Austria

Abstract The fall of the Iron Curtain and the border regime of the European Union have changed perceptions of borders. This study compares border narratives on two Eastern borders in Austria and Finland in order to find out how such narratives picture the changing functions of the borders. The qualitative data gathered from interviews with border policy actors in both countries reveals that the shared narrative of the Iron Curtain is in the process of being substituted by a narrative which suggests a “border for the people”, a border managed according to the border‐crossers demands. However, this emphasis on mobility depends on the section of the border the interviewee focuses on. Land borders are connected with the classical security and control functions of borders to stop unwanted border crossings. Yet, the border crossing points are meant to enable and encourage wanted flows. The same border can have very different functions, depending on where the observer is focusing. Analytically, those differing foci have to be distinguished in order to better interpret border narratives.1

Circumventing deadlock through venue-shopping: why there is more than just talk in US immigration politics in times of economic crisis†

ABSTRACT This article addresses the question of how the financial and economic crisis that hit the USA in the late 2000s impacted immigration policies. We find that the crisis has not significantly changed dynamics. Instead, it has highlighted and aggravated persisting trends. Drawing on Kingdon’s multiple streams model and combining it with the notion of two-level games, we find that while the policy stream and the problem stream would call for both restrictive and liberalising changes, the political stream impedes change: the fact that Congress has been divided for a long time over comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) impedes any restrictive or liberalising changes. With problems resulting from current policies being intensified through the global economic crisis, however, actors favouring either restrictive or liberal policy change look for alternative venues to pursue their policy aims. Through legislative changes on the state level or via executive orders by the president, policies can be changed on a lower level without CIR.

Liberal cosmopolitan norms and the border: Local actors’ critique of the governance of global processes

Liberal cosmopolitanism provides a set of norms that calls for the openness of borders. Freedom of movement, equality in opportunity and hospitality define a liberal framework for a state’s ruling over the access of foreigners to the territory. However, in states’ execution of border and immigration control these normative ideals seem not to apply. Accounts of border and immigration policy and discourse document a bias towards exclusion, restriction and securitization. It looks as if this normative political theory has no bearing on the real world. This is the starting point for an exploration into the public discourse on liberal cosmopolitan norms and the border. The study finds that most collective actors consider the application of the norms to be utopian. Still, they heavily draw on these norms as a means to critique domestic policies that attempt to regulate global mobility. These are considered to be morally wrong or insufficient for providing equality in opportunities, solidarity, or protection. Actors’ interpretation of key norms such as equality, hospitality and social justice varies significantly which calls for empirical as well theoretical work on the often Janus-faced implications of putting cosmopolitan norms into practice.

The Family Reunification Directive

The family reunification directive aims to regulate family related immigration. A foreigner’s desire to stay because of family ties to a resident migrant has become the most important reason for entering Europe (Groenendijk 2006: 215). Since the 1970s when many European countries stopped recruiting migrant workers, the family component in immigration movements to Europe has become significant. Foreign workers decided to stay and not return to their countries of origin. Then they started having families in their destination countries. In most cases this meant that spouses, children, and relatives moved to Europe (Mau and Verwiebe 2010: 113). The family reunification trend started in the 1970s and has not stopped since then. In the late 1990s when the Commission began formulating its policy, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reported in its annual publication on international migration trends that immigration “related to family reunion and to family members accompanying workers predominate[s]” in Western countries (OECD 1998: 18). Immigration of family members comprised half or even two-thirds of the total immigration in Austria, France, the Netherlands, and Sweden (OECD 1999, 2000).1 Thus regulating the family component in immigration movements covers a big share of overall immigration.

Souveränität oder Solidarität? Die Reformbemühungen um das krisenhafte EU-Grenzregime

Das Kapitel untersucht die schwierigen Bedingungen einer Reform des EU-Grenzregimes. Insbesondere das Dublin-Abkommen, das die Zustandigkeit der Mitgliedstaaten fur Fluchtlingsschutz in der EU festlegt, gilt als reformbedurftig. Folgen des Abkommens sind eine Ungleichverteilung der Kosten fur das gemeinsame Gut Fluchtlingsschutz, die nur von einem Teil der EU-Mitgliedstaaten getragen werden. Der Beitrag nennt Grunde fur diesen Status quo der unsolidarischen Lastenteilung. Ein Mechanismus zur Umverteilung von Fluchtlingen, so das Argument, wurde durch Faktoren wie die Pfadabhangigkeit von Politiken als auch Entscheidungsmustern, der Konsensorientierung der Mitgliedstaaten und dem Interesse an Souveranitatserhalt, verhindert. Die neuerlich angestosenen Reformvorhaben erlauben eine Uberprufung dieser Faktoren. Der Autor stellt fest, dass trotz graduellen Politikwandels und einer Abkehr von Konsensentscheidungen seit der sogenannten „Fluchtlingskrise“ des Jahres 2015, die ungleiche Verteilung der Lasten im Grenzregime institutionalisiert bleibt. Das Interesse der Mitgliedstaaten an Souveranitatserhalt steht substanziellem Politikwandel entgegen und perpetuiert die grundsatzliche Krisenhaftigkeit des EU-Grenzregimes.

EU politics on labour migration: inclusion versus admission

Two European Union (EU) directives on labour migration were adopted in 2009 and 2011. The EU scheme to attract highly qualified migrants, the so-called ‘Blue Card’ directive of 2009, allows member states broad flexibility in implementation. In contrast, the directive on a single permit for migrant workers and their rights of 2011 is far less flexible. It does significantly reduce the scope for derogations at a national level to a minimum. How can this variance in output be explained? Institutional rules are shown to be a key factor. The involvement of the European Parliament as co-legislator alongside the Council limited member states’ influence on legal outputs. The comparison of policy outputs between the two cases points to differences in actor orientations: rather than seeking to increase labour migration into the EU by defining expansive admission conditions, the common EU policy seeks to include migrant workers by defining their rights.

EU Directives for Migrant Students and Researchers

The migration of students and researchers has been viewed positively by most EU member states, even at times when their general immigration policies were restrictive. For example, the three largest recipients of “educational migrants” in the EU — France, Germany, and the UK — initiated active recruitment policies for international students in the late 1990s (Kuptsch 2006: 35). In 2001 more than 200,000 foreigners studied in the UK, almost 200,000 in Germany, and 150,000 in France (OECD 2004: 3). The expansive stance on foreigners entering and residing in a country for educational purposes can be explained by the fact that people admitted under this category stay temporarily rather than permanently since these migrants’ residence permit is usually tied to the completion of a university degree or participation in a research project. The internationalisation of education, which has been enabled by transnational administrative and social networks for students and researchers, further limited hurdles to such mobility. Thus the movement of students and researchers was considered to be international mobility and not immigration (Kolb 2006: 119).

Actor Preferences in EU Immigration Policies

Policy studies demand an understanding of actors and institutions. It is essential to identify and examine the agents that shape policy. States, as well as institutional actors and social groups, have their own and presumably differing interests with regard to a certain policy. The output of policy-making is determined not only by actors’ interests but also by institutional factors. The latter specify how actors interpret and pursue their interests and how actors interact with each other in establishing policy (Howlett and Ramesh 2003: 52–53). The general definition of an institution is borrowed from neo-institutionalism, which states that institutions are “shared concepts used by humans in repetitive situations organized by rules, norms, and strategies” (Ostrom 1999: 37). Scharpf (2000: 77–78) uses a similar definition, which identifies institutions as rules and norms that guide actors’ behaviour. Strategies are thought of as the results of the positive or negative incentives produced by a rule or norm. Generally, the study of institutions focuses on the impact on actors’ behaviour. The perspective provided by “actor centred institutionalism” shows how this institutional determination of actors is concretely conceptualised (Mayntz and Scharpf 1995). Actors are constituted by institutions, although their actions and preferences are not necessarily completely determined by them (Mayntz and Scharpf 1995: 47).