THE INFLUENCE OF INTERCULTURAL FACTORS ON ASYLUM DECISION MAKING IN THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

In 2011, in Republic of Macedonia, 740 applications for asylum were submitted in front of the Section for asylum (SfA), Ministry of interiori. Vast majority of them were submitted by applicants coming from the world’s most vulnerable countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. However, none of these applicants was granted with convention statusii (meaning refugee status) or complementary protection statusiii (according the Law on Asylum and Temporary Protectioniv, Article 4-a- subsidiary protection).This study is designed as an experimental research with a goal to examine whether intercultural factors such as gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion and language, have influence on the asylum decision- makingv, at the same time allowing us to fabricate the profile of the so- called “new asylum seekers”. As a sampling group (respondents) we will use all asylum seekers that applied for asylum in Republic of Macedonia from 01 of January till 31 of December 2011, therefore the research does not claim to be representative for the comparative previous period before 2011. The researched sample is represented by twenty four nationalities, including both men and women, from a range of age groups. Additionally, through examination of four individual cases from 2011, selected on the basis whether an interview was conducted with the asylum seeker, particular attention will be addressed to the process of communication in the asylum cases, as a form of intercultural communication