This thesis explores the experiences of applicants for Refugee Status in the United Kingdom who had, at the time of the research, waited for between two and nine years for the conclusion of the asylum process. Despite extensive lamentation of the delays endured by asylum applicants in having their claims assessed, little social scientific scholarship has substantively and critically engaged with this phenomenon, or even with waiting as a universal condition. The present study fills this gap in knowledge, conceptualising waiting as an informative, consequential phase in the quest for protection, hope and security. The study is based on twelve months of participant observation among asylum seekers living in Glasgow under the dispersal regime. Narratives and tacit aspects of everyday life are presented to both draw a multi-dimensional ethnographic picture and acknowledge the asylum seekers’ agency. Their waiting entails a focus on negative and positive, concrete and symbolic objects, which are located in the future. However, their inability to affect or predict the arrival of these objects produces uncertainty and passivity. Asylum seekers narrate overwhelmingly negative experiences of asylum policies, such as dishonouring encounters with immigration authorities; social dislocation; enforced poverty; interrupted life cycles; and an inability to settle and belong in the UK. Yet despite the mutually reinforcing effects of UK policy and of waiting, asylum seekers have benefited from formal support structures provided under Scottish policy. Individuals have been able to re-construct social ties; pursue educational opportunities; enhance personal security; gain greater control over their ‘cases’; and undertake selective socio-cultural adaptation. They have also utilised a discourse of ‘integration’ circulating in Scotland to garner public support for their struggles for recognition and the right to remain. The thesis concludes by reflecting on changes occurring after a form of Leave to Remain was granted, and assesses the extent to which people were able to realise the ‘normal lives’ for which they had been waiting.

Thesis (doctoral)--Europa Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), 2008.

Territorial Asylum Abstract The aim of this thesis is to analyze territorial asylum, as an important institute of international law. Territorial asylum is analyzed on three levels; therefore, three different aspects of this institute are examined. The determined levels are as follows: history of territorial asylum, its legal regulation, and examination of existence of the right of asylum. As of now, the institute of territorial asylum and refugee issue are often mistaken or misused. For this reason, this thesis focuses on finding similarities and differences of the territorial asylum and refugee issue in perspective of the analyzed levels. This thesis is divided into three chapters corresponding to the selected levels. The first chapter analyzes the history of territorial asylum. It describes its origin and subsequent development from ancient history to modern times, ranging from religious asylum to gradual formation of territorial asylum, including brief analyses of diplomatic asylum as specific form of asylum typical for South America. This is followed by an analysis of history of refugee issue, as a relatively modern institute, including historical circumstances essential for its development. In this chapter, the research question, whether the historical development of the territorial asylum influenced...

As immigration to Europe continuously increase, so does governments efforts to control and manage these moving populations, and their national borders. Today, returning migrants without a residence permit is often regarded as a natural measure within the immigration control apparatus, but the means to ensure return, the populations targeted and their legal rights have changed over time. This thesis aims to understand the developments of return policies in the case of Norway, from 1988-2010. By combining the analytical approach of governmentality with theorisations about deportations and migration policy development, I seek to understand how the return regime has been established and transformed. The analysis is based on policy documents as the main material, and the qualitative content analysis reveals that the return regime has developed from several measures initiated to achieve control over different challenging and unforeseen situations that arises throughout the period. Short term solutions create problems in the long run, and the solutions add on to create and establish the return regime.

Post-reunification developments in German society, including the intensification of racism and nationalism, and the question of German identity, have led to a wide-ranging international debate. My thesis discusses some of the controversial issues and arguments raised, in an effort to understand the specific forms of contemporary German racism. The legal status and the political economy of asylum seekers are analysed, as are the debates leading to the mid-1993 change in Germany's Basic Law. Until then, a unique right which guaranteed asylum had existed. Its insertion into (West) Germany's provisional constitution in 1949 had been more ideologically than altruistically motivated. The change in legislation, primarily aimed at appeasing the racists, had the immediate effect of curbing numbers. Focusing on East-West migration, Germany's constitutional policy of accepting ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe is scrutinised. Previously a tool in the Cold War armoury, this open-armed approach was curtailed by an embryonic immigration law. In the aftermath of the collapse of 'communism' and German reunification, the integration of foreigners and of east- and ethnic Germans raised new questions about their respective rights. An examination of the changing terms of debate about citizenship and identity in German society reveals the different consequences for both citizens and non-citizens. Through briefly comparing German with French citizenship, the peculiarity of the former, and the framework for assessing the current 'dual nationality versus naturalisation' controversy, is established. Political and theoretical interest in German identity has resurfaced. In determining the key components of post-war identity, I found that anti-communism had stood out in serving as a negative reference point; now it is increasingly being replaced by racism. The mixture of biological and political factors in the new make-up of German collective identity appears to leave no room for foreigners. The critique of the contemporary German Left's approach to racism and identity is backed up by events in the city state of Bremen, particularly around the 1991 local elections, which - alongside fascist successes - revealed the Left's difficulty in sustaining a consistent anti-racism. The conclusion indicates that the issues of asylum, immigration and ethnic Germans had required serious answers before 1989. Reunification catapulted them to centre stage. The lack of a coherent theory and strategy is reflected in the ad-hoc, contradictory nature of policies dealing with the various categories of migrants. The 'solutions' proposed within the context of the German nation state are finally contrasted with those currently discussed at the European level.

No description available.

Immigration has become one of the most contentious issues in Europe. Following the war in Syria, an unprecedented number of people have crossed the external borders of the European Union (EU) to claim asylum in one of the member states. Sweden is one of the member states that has received the highest number of refugees per capita, and in 2014 and 2015 Sweden received the highest number of refugees since the Balkan wars. This thesis seeks to argue that there has been a securitization of asylum seekers and refugees, particularly those of Muslim origins, in Sweden the result of which has been that refugees and asylum seekers are increasingly viewed and described in terms of security rather than in humanitarian terms in public discourse. The securitised discourse presents Sweden as being at risk of a system failure and collapse due to the high number of refugees and asylum seekers and the pressure they put on the Swedish society and welfare system. While characterizing forced migration as a security issue and a potential threat have negative implications for asylum seekers and refugees, as this thesis aims to show there is also a hidden risk of this securitization of refugees and asylum in its impact on the resident population. Lack of security, actual or perceived, can for example lead to anxiety and fear, and to the feeling of being under threat. In relation to the arrival of asylum seekers and refugees, this fear could potentially contribute to a rise in xenophobia, nationalistic tendencies and policies, and perhaps even racism. As such, fear is a risk that must be taken into account.

Informed by particular theories of migration and of new global migrations as problematic European states, pulled by both exclusionary particularist and inclusionary universalist tensions, have taken increasing measures to restrict access to ‘unwanted’ forced migrants to their territories and welfare states. To these ends governments have devised welfare policies for forced migrants which are simultaneously mechanisms of deterrence and internal immigration control, in tension with their obligations to protect refugees. These are systems of ‘Welfare as Control’. 1990s UK legislation has increasingly eroded and separated asylum seekers’ social rights, culminating in the “qualitative leap” (Cohen, 2001) of the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act (IAA), which introduced a separate and inferior welfare ‘safety net’ for asylum seekers, explicitly designed to control their migration externally and internally. These legislations have implicated welfare and social care workers in implementing welfare fraught with tensions of control. In their 1999 IAA New Labour extended this to utilise voluntary sector agencies to implement key sections of the deterrent ‘safety net.’ An intensive ethnographic case study grounded in critical realism was undertaken with a voluntary sector organisation in this contradictory positioning of delivering Welfare as Control, as a Reception Assistant for the Home Office’s National Asylum Support Service (NASS). Using observation and gathering insider accounts and documents over eight months in 2002-2003, the ethnography explored the lived experiences, practices and understandings of service providers and people seeking asylum, in this everyday world at Refugee Arrivals Project. The setting resonated with tensions, dilemmas and compromises. RAP’s autonomy was constrained by NASS’ chaos, bureaucratic dominance and imperative to restrict and control access to welfare, compromising the organisation’s ability to address clients’ often ‘complex and multiple’ needs. Asylum seekers experienced “anormalised” (Geddes, 2001) lives, loss of autonomy and dignity in Reception, feeling they were “hanging” out of control in multiple uncertainties, with those the safety net was designed to protect, often least protected. Although RAP used their discretion and ethical urges to increase the “informal gain” and fill the gaps of social rights in practice, (Morris, 2002), their integrity was threatened. This research contributes to a new ‘Sociology of Forced Migration’ (Castles, 2003) and has implications for all voluntary and public sector agencies and workers embroiled in delivering ‘Third Way’ policy generally, but specifically Welfare as Control.

This thesis maps the values that have guided the asylum policy decisions of Australia's political leaders over the past half-century, drawing on archival records and interviews with former immigration ministers and senior public servants. For comparative purposes, it also maps the values shaping the views of asylum among leaders of a supra-national organization (the European Commission) and of a major non-government organization (the Jesuit Refugee Service). The findings support the view that a culture of control permeates Australian asylum policy decisions, and that the quest for control stems from perceptions of national interest as articulated in immigration and foreign policy. However, beneath this it shows the primary values shaping policy to be nation building and good governance in the case of the Australian leaders, and (European) community building in the case of European Commission leaders. Building on a 'caring for us, caring for them' conundrum found running through the values of all three groups of leaders, and seeking a secular equivalent to the faith-inspired relational approach of the Jesuit Refugee Service leaders, the thesis explores the contribution an ethics of care might make to asylum policy design, delivery and evaluation. It argues that such an approach, in which care is conceived as a value, process and practice rather than a sentiment or theory, is well suited to the area, especially when refined to provide for the work of empathy and imagination. It concludes by considering the potential implications for Australian asylum policy if an ethics of care were adopted. The primary goals of the thesis are a better understanding of the issues involved in asylum policy, and the articulation of an ethical approach potentially as engaging of policy insiders as of policy spectators.

This thesis looks at justice and home affairs (JHA) policy-making in the European Union (EU). JHA refers to those areas which have traditionally been the domain of interior and justice ministries on the national level and which are now dealt with on the EU level on the basis of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and includes areas such as immigration and asylum, visa policy and police co-operation. In short, this thesis aims to examine why the governments of the member states chose to start co-operating on these issues within the EU, what the nature of this co-operation is and what does it tell us about the EU in general. The thesis looks firstly at the forms of JHA co-operation prior to the TEU and how this led to the national governments deciding to give it a Treaty basis within the EU. There is then an account of how the negotiations on the TEU developed and resulted in JHA being governed by a set of Treaty provisions quite different to those for other policy areas. This is followed by two case studies looking in detail at how JHA policy was made after the TEU entered into force; these deal with visa policy and immigration and asylum. To help in this, two theoretical approaches, taken from political science studies of European integration, are used, namely neofunctionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism. These allow us to identify the extent to which the same processes and factors influence JHA policy-making as in more traditional areas of Community policy-making, and allow for conclusions to be drawn on what JHA policy-making can tell us about wider issues of European integration.