Chapter 9 Multilevel governance of the “refugee crisis” in Germany

"This book provides a comparative overview of asylum seekers’ reception throughout Europe by adopting a theoretical framework based on an analytical approach to the notion of multilevel governance. It challenges the tendency of the multilevel governance literature to overlook political controversies and conflicts and questions the assumption that it represents the best policymaking arrangement for promoting policy convergence. In doing so, it explores the functioning of the reception component of the Common European Asylum System in centralised states and federal/regional states and analyses its implementation at both national and local levels. The book reveals the heterogeneous development of reception policies not only across Member States but also within each country where solutions adopted at the local level generally diverge substantially. Furthermore, the overall centralization of policymaking on reception regardless the institutional structure, seems to leave little room for MLG arrangements tailored to specific localities and triggers tensions between central governments and local authorities. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of migration and asylum studies, immigration, (multilevel) global governance and more broadly to comparative politics, European studies/politics, and public policy.

Transnational Social Capital in Migration: The example of Educational Migration between Bulgaria and Germany

Focusing on student migration from Bulgaria to Germany, this article examines what types of social capital are accumulated, transformed and implemented through migration, who profits from the investment, and how. The empirical work consists of 60 narrative biographical interviews with migrants and returnees to Bulgaria. The research reveals that the accumulation and investment of social capital takes place throughout the migratory trajectory - starting well before leaving - and is embedded in a transnational social space. Transnational networks exist as family, peer and professional networks, and all of them have a specific meaning for the migrants. Family networks are naturally present; they provide bonding social capital and thus have a stabilizing function for the individual’s identity. Professional networks have a strongly bridging function, helping the young migrants to manage status transitions. After return the transnational social capital acquired during the migratory stay helps returnees to re-integrate and find their way into the Bulgarian labour market. It also encourages them to pursue activities which are meaningful for civil society development, or for innovative (social) entrepreneurship. Thus, transnational social capital helps migrants to align their biographical development to the future, considering the post-transformative environment of Bulgaria, thereby helping to manage transformative changes and supporting societal modernization processes

Locational Choice and Secondary Movements from the Perspective of Forced Migrants: A Comparison of the Destinations Luxembourg and Germany

In 2015 and 2016, the enormous increase in asylum seekers travelling along the Balkan Route confronted the Member States of the European Union with an exceptional pressure on national asylum systems. Since then academic literature has revealed a reappraisal of the Common European Asylum System at regulative and policy implementation level, notably regarding the fair distribution of asylum seekers across Member States and regions. Yet we know very little about the locational choices of forced migrants or how those choices evolved and transformed during their journey. In this paper, we aim to shed light on those decision-making processes and (individual, subjective) locational choices based on the aspiration-ability model, drawing from a series of qualitative interviews with migrants held in Luxembourg and Germany in the context of the H2020 project CEASEVAL. We focus on the migrants' journeys to their actual recipient countries, highlighting mobility trajectories from the moment of first departure and on the process of decision-making regarding their choice of location. Then, we examine further mobility aspirations, which may lead to secondary mobility within or out of the country of residence. In the concluding section, we discuss the consequences of our findings for migration and asylum politics against the background of the "autonomy of migration" framework

Transnacionalni društveni prostori poljskih migranata u Leipzigu (Njemačka)

One phenomenon of globalisation is the transnationalization of migrants and migrant communities, creating new social fields and new identities between country of origin and country of settlement. This paper presents the preliminary results of a research project on transnational migration between Poland and the German city of Leipzig. It aims to identify aspects of transnationality and wants to show the transnational social spaces inhabited by the migrants. The analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data is done along a model of transnationality, differentiating between three spheres which refer to physical, cultural and identity movements of the migrants. It provides some empirical evidence of the interdependency between migration motives, duration of migration and several socio-economic variables on the one hand and the variations of transnationality on the other. The paper also raises the question of the implications of transnationalization for the European nation building process and suggests that transnational identity formations might serve as a model for a future European citizenship.Transnacionalizacija migranata i migrantskih zajednica, koja pritom stvara nova društvena polja i nove identitete između zemalja podrijetla i zemalja naseljavanja, fenomen je svojstven globalizaciji. U radu su predstavljeni preliminarni rezultati istraživačkoga projekta o transnacionalnoj migraciji između Poljske i njemačkoga grada Leipziga. Namjera je identificirati aspekte transnacionalnosti i prikazati transnacionalne društvene prostore nastanjene migrantima. Analiza kvalitativnih i kvantitativnih podataka slijedi model transnacionalnosti, te razlučuje tri sfere koje se odnose na fizička, kulturna i identitetska kretanja među migrantima. Izloženi su neki empirijski dokazi međuovisnosti migracijskih motiva, trajanja migracije i nekoliko društveno-ekonomskih varijabli s jedne strane, te varijacije transnacionalnosti s druge. Postavlja se i pitanje implikacija transnacionalizacije na proces izgradnje europske nacije te se sugerira da bi oblici transnacionalnoga identiteta mogli poslužiti kao model za buduće europsko državljanstvo

Chapter 6 The multilevel governance of asylum seekers’ reception in Germany and the role of the local level

"This book provides a comparative overview of asylum seekers’ reception throughout Europe by adopting a theoretical framework based on an analytical approach to the notion of multilevel governance. It challenges the tendency of the multilevel governance literature to overlook political controversies and conflicts and questions the assumption that it represents the best policymaking arrangement for promoting policy convergence. In doing so, it explores the functioning of the reception component of the Common European Asylum System in centralised states and federal/regional states and analyses its implementation at both national and local levels. The book reveals the heterogeneous development of reception policies not only across Member States but also within each country where solutions adopted at the local level generally diverge substantially. Furthermore, the overall centralization of policymaking on reception regardless the institutional structure, seems to leave little room for MLG arrangements tailored to specific localities and triggers tensions between central governments and local authorities. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of migration and asylum studies, immigration, (multilevel) global governance and more broadly to comparative politics, European studies/politics, and public policy.

Transnationale Perspektiven

Während die theoretische Reflexion transnationaler Theorieansätze in der Migrationsforschung weit fortgeschritten ist, bestehen nach wie vor große Defizite bei der empirischen Operationalisierung ihrer Basishypothesen. Der Band möchte diese Erkenntnislücke verkleinern helfen. Er wendet die transnationale Forschungsperspektive auf das empirische Beispiel polnischer Migranten in Leipzig an und identifiziert verschiedene Typen transnationaler Lebensformen sowie die wesentlichen Einflussfaktoren für deren Herausbildung. Die Ergebnisse der Studie tragen zur Präzisierung und Systematisierung des Transnationalismus-Diskurses bei und zeigen den besonderen Nutzwert - aber auch die Grenzen - einer transnationalen Forschungsperspektive gegenüber »klassischen« Theorieansätzen

Polnische Migranten in Leipzig Eine transnationale Perspektive auf Migration und Integration. Empirischer Forschungsbericht

Die Zunahme internationaler Migrationsbewegungen ist eines der wichtigsten Phänomene des ausgehenden 20. und des beginnenden 21. Jahrhunderts. In den vergangenen Jahrzehnten stieg die Anzahl von Menschen, die sich längerfristig außerhalb ihres Geburtslandes aufhielten, von 82 Mio. im Jahr 1975 über 175 Mio. im Jahr 2000 auf annähernd 200 Mio. im Jahr 2005, was einem Anteil von 3 % an der Weltbevölkerung entspricht.1 Neben dieser quantitativen Veränderung internationaler Migrationsprozesse ist jedoch auch eine qualitative Veränderung in den Voraussetzungen, Verläufen und individuellen Organisationsformen von Migration auszumachen: Parallel zu der lange Zeit dominierenden Form internationaler Migration als einmaligem und endgültigem Mobilitätsvorgang entwickelte sich eine transnationale Form der Migration, die geprägt ist durch mehrfache Verlagerungen des Wohnsitzes über internationale Grenzen hinweg und durch die Aufrechterhaltung intensiver sozialer Bezüge zwischen Herkunfts- und Ankunftsort.2 Eine Reaktion auf diese Veränderungen ist der Wandel der Forschungsperspektive in der internationalen Migrations- und Integrationsforschung, die sich zunehmend auf die transnationalen Bezüge von Migranten und die Folgen dieser Verbindungen für die Migranten selbst sowie für die Herkunfts- und die Ankunftsgesellschaften ausrichtet. Die Theorieansätze zur transnationalen Migration und zu transnationalen sozialen Räumen sind dabei die Ausgangsbasis für empirische Arbeiten zu dem Phänomen

Go west : internal migration in Germany after reunification

The paper wants to shed light on the phenomenon of internal migration in Germany after the fall of the iron curtain. Since German reunification, the eastern part of Germany lost a large share of its population due to internal migration. Whereas in the beginning, departures were spread evenly over all age and educational groups and were accompanied by a significant counter-stream, in the course of time the negative migration balance was mainly produced by younger people at the beginning of their professional career. The paper describes the development of internal east-west migration in detail and presents primary data on the profiles of young migrants drawn from a research project during the years 2004-2007 (in this research project, financed by the German Research Foundation DFG, data were gathered from 1,200 migrants aged between 18-35 who moved from the federal state Sachsen-Anhalt to the western part of Germany). Hereby, special emphasis will be given to the methodological implications of studying selective migration processes. Final conclusions are drawn regarding the regional assessment and theoretical classification of this migration process, but also on the theoretical and methodological constraints of mobility research.Seit der deutschen Wiedervereinigung hat Ostdeutschland beträchtliche Bevölkerungs­verluste aufgrund von innerdeutschen Wanderungen zu verzeichnen. Während der Migrationsstrom zunächst relativ gleichmäßig über alle Bevölkerungsgruppen hinsichtlich Alter und Bildungsstand verteilt war und überdies von einem signifikanten Gegenstrom begleitet wurde, hat er sich im Laufe der 1990er Jahre ausdifferenziert. Die negative Wanderungsbilanz ist heute vor allem durch die Abwanderung junger Menschen zu Beginn des Erwerbslebens gekennzeichnet. Der Beitrag bietet eine detaillierte Beschreibung der innerdeutschen Ost-West-Wanderung und präsentiert empirische Primärdaten zu den Profilen junger Ost-West-Migranten aus Sachsen-Anhalt (die Daten stammen aus einer durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG finanzierten Studie zur innerdeutschen Ost-West-Wanderung, die 1.200 junge Abwanderer zwischen 18 und 35 Jahren umfasste). Die abschließende Generalisierung gibt Hinweise bezüglich der spezifischen geographischen Kompetenzen – aber auch der Fallstricke – im Bereich der internationalen und intra-nationalen Migrationsforschung

Transnationale Perspektiven: Eine Studie zur Migration zwischen Polen und Deutschland

Während die theoretische Reflexion transnationaler Theorieansätze in der Migrationsforschung weit fortgeschritten ist, bestehen nach wie vor große Defizite bei der empirischen Operationalisierung ihrer Basishypothesen. Der Band möchte diese Erkenntnislücke verkleinern helfen. Er wendet die transnationale Forschungsperspektive auf das empirische Beispiel polnischer Migranten in Leipzig an und identifiziert verschiedene Typen transnationaler Lebensformen sowie die wesentlichen Einflussfaktoren für deren Herausbildung. Die Ergebnisse der Studie tragen zur Präzisierung und Systematisierung des Transnationalismus-Diskurses bei und zeigen den besonderen Nutzwert - aber auch die Grenzen - einer transnationalen Forschungsperspektive gegenüber "klassischen" Theorieansätzen