Discriminatory attitudes towards Muslim refugees are common in liberal democracies, and Muslim citizens of these countries experience high rates of discrimination and social exclusion. Uniting these two facts is the well-known phenomenon of Islamophobia. But the implications of overlapping discrimination against citizens and non-citizens have not been given sustained attention in the ethics of immigration literature. In this paper, I argue that liberal societies have not only duties to discontinue refugee policies that discriminate against social groups like Muslims, but (...) remedial duties to citizens who are in these social groups to adopt a more welcoming stance towards the groups that they are in. Further, I argue that a fitting way of adopting this more welcoming stance is to give refugees in these groups preferential treatment in asylum and resettlement. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce the concept of policy malaise, which refers to citizens’ dissatisfaction with the way political institutions and processes handle specific problems such as the refugee issue in Germany. Based on a representative online panel survey with two waves conducted in 2016 and 2017 (N = 836), we explore the occurrence of policy malaise among the German population and its relation to issue-specific media use, trust in news media, and issue fatigue. First, the results (...) indicate that policy malaise toward the refugee issue is widespread in Germany. Second, we found that media use relates differentially to policy malaise: While high exposure to public broadcasting was negatively associated with policy malaise, we found the opposite for private broadcasting. Third, policy malaise is higher for people who experience issue fatigue and lower for people who trust the news media. Finally, trust in media reinforces the negative and positive relations between media use and policy malaise. Implications concerning the associations between policy malaise and political alienation in its broader sense are discussed. (shrink)

Along with Turkey’s changing refugee policy from the Eurocentric, secular nation-state ideology to the neo-Ottomanist one on the state level, there also exist main handicaps on the micro power level concerning the successful coordination of the refugee issue with full respect of the human rights. Economic, cultural and especially political factors play a role in the relationship between Syrians and Turkish residents. Fragmentation within the Syrian community living in Turkey is also evident. On the other hand, different (...) from the state policy, Turkish people implicitly show their reluctance towards this migration wave without creating a social turmoil. In this line, it is suggested here that Neo-Ottomanism, as a rising trend, helps a considerable majority of the society to take a moderate stance towards the immigration flux. (shrink)

This volume offers a systematic philosophical analysis of the normative challenges facing European refugee policy, focusing on whether the response to it can be based on European values. By considering the refugee policy through the lens of European values, cosmopolitan norms and universal human rights, the contributions expose the weaknesses and limitations of existing regulations and make proposals on how to improve them. The EU is often seen as a cosmopolitan project. Europe is supposed to be (...) a community of states that aspires to be guided by cosmopolitan norms. However, the idea of a cosmopolitan Europe has never been unanimously shared, and in recent years, it has come under increasing scrutiny, particularly with regard to the EU’s refugee policy. The guiding idea of this book is that a deeper philosophical understanding of the normative issues at stake can foster greater conceptual clarity and enrich political debates on the future of European refugee policy. The first part of the book revolves around the question of whether the rise in refugee numbers over the past decade has led to a crisis in the EU and, if so, how this crisis relates to or impacts European values. The second part traces the history of the discourse on “European values” and examines from a philosophical perspective how we can plausibly understand these values in terms of their moral grammar, their normative content and their implications for the behaviour of the EU and its member states. Finally, the third part puts forth recommendations for a feasible and normatively more compelling European refugee policy based on human rights, human dignity, justice and democratic self-determination as the decisive normative requirements. Cosmopolitan Norms and European Values: Ethical Perspectives on Europe’s Refugee Policy will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in ethics, political philosophy, political science, social sciences and law. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. (shrink)

“Best interests of the child” is a key concept in international law, developed by and through institutions which maintain a stake in international solidarity. This article explores the quality of that solidarity, working to understand the modes of interrelationship between peoples and institutions which it instantiates, and which it could possibly be imagined to instantiate. Focusing on one context—the way that “best interests of the child” has developed within international politics and domestic Australian politics, through an examination of the discourses (...) produced by policy-makers working within child refugee and asylum-seeker realms—this article examines the ways that this concept has relied on, and produced, racialized hierarchical ideas of what “best interests” entails. Looking through a history of Australian settler-colonial governmentality, this article explores the tensions between discourses of security and discourses of “best interests of the child,” historicizing the figure of the refugee child and reimagining the relationships of dependency and solidarity which could be produced. (shrink)

The most recent global refugee figures are staggering, with over 82.4 million people forcibly displaced and 26.4 million registered refugees. The ongoing conflict in Syria is a major contributor. After a decade of violence and destabilization, over 13.4million Syrians have been displaced, including 6.7 million internally displaced persons and 6.7 million refugees registered in other countries. Beyond the immediate political and economic challenges, an essential component of any response to this humanitarian crisis must be health-related, including policies and interventions (...) specific to mental health. This policy and practice review addresses refugee mental health in the context of the Syrian crisis, providing an update and overview of the current situation while exploring new initiatives in mental health research and global health policy that can help strengthen and expand services. Relevant global health policy frameworks are first briefly introduced, followed by a short summary of recent research on refugee mental health. We then provide an update on the current status of research, service provision, and health policy in the leading destinations for Syrians who have been forcibly displaced. This starts within Syria and then turns to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Germany. Finally, several general recommendations are discussed, including the pressing need for more data at each phase of migration, the expansion of integrated mental health services, and the explicit inclusion and prioritization of refugee mental health in national and global health policy. (shrink)

Through engagement with key informants and review of ethical theories applicable to refugee policy, this paper examines the ethical and policy considerations that policy-level stakeholders believe should factor into setting the refugee resettlement ceiling. We find that the ceiling traditionally has been influenced by policy goals, underlying values, and practical considerations. These factors map onto several ethical approaches to resettlement. There is significant alignment between U.S. policy interests and ethical obligations toward refugees. We (...) argue that the refugee ceiling should be restored to historical norms, and that there exists a corresponding obligation to counter negative public perceptions about refugees and the costs of resettlement. (shrink)

This article critiques Zimbabwe's refugee policy and practice context, with a focus on the ideological underpinnings of aided income generation activities in Zimbabwe's Tongogara refugee camp. We apply the lenses of Joan Tronto's political, or democratic ethics of care, and Fiona Robinson's critical ethics of care, to conduct an ideology critique of the aid agencies' expressed goal of refugees' economic ‘self-reliance’. We demonstrate that their underlying assumptions about ‘dependency’ and ‘autonomy’, in conjunction with Zimbabwe's policy of (...) refugee encampment, are at the heart of the income generation activities’ lack of sustainability. We argue further that all caring relationships are characterised by unequal power relations, and that this needs to be acknowledged in order to enable a shared commitment to equal participation, in a partnership towards agreed-upon development goals. Moreover, the ideologies of autonomy and self-reliance must be replaced with a policy commitment to fostering interdependence as the ontological condition under which income generating activities can evolve into sustainable livelihoods. We recommend that the critical ethics of care and the radical-democratic practices for which it calls, provide an apt framework within which to reconsider the policies governing refugee support and practices, so as to foster a caring context for human wellbeing. (shrink)

Street-level bureaucracy literature ascertains that policies get made not only in the offices of legislatures or politicians but through the discretion bureaucrats employ in their day-to-day interactions with citizens in government agencies. The discretion bureaucrats use to grant access to public benefits or impose sanctions adds up to what the public ultimately experience as the government and its policies. This perspective, however, overlooks policy-making that gets done in the back offices of government, where there might not be direct interaction (...) with citizens. Furthermore, it treats discretion as inherently anthropogenic and ignores that it is exercised in relation to sociotechnical arrangements of which bureaucrats are a part. In this paper, based on extensive ethnography at national statistical institutes and international statistical meetings across Europe, I make two arguments. The first is that, statisticians emerge as back-office policy-makers as they are compelled to take multiple methodological decisions when operationalizing abstract statistical guidelines and definitions, thus effectively making rather than merely implementing policies. This is the “discretion” they employ, even when they may not interact with citizens. The second argument is that the exercise of discretion is sociotechnical, that is, it happens in relation to the constraints and affordances of technologies and the decisions of other bureaucrats in their institutions and others. (shrink)

In this chapter I focus on two problems facing immigration systems around the world, and Australia in particular. The topics addressed are chosen because each one involves important fundamental rights and because significant improvement in these areas is possible even if each state acts alone, without significant coordination with others. First, I examine refugee programmes, focussing specifically on the ‘two- tier’ refugee programmes pioneered by Australia with the introduction of Temporary Protection Visas by the Howard Government in 1999. (...) Next, I look at recent declines in refugee resettlement schemes from already stingy levels and, in relation to Australia in particular, I show how the tying of resettlement numbers to the number of affirmative asylum claims granted is both wrong- headed and counterproductive. The second area of immigration policy explored is family migration, another area where immigration systems around the world have been moving in the wrong direction, often via less than transparent administrative processes. Australia is no exception. While Australia’s family migration system is reasonably good on its face, in practice there are several factors which make the programme significantly less than satisfactory from the perspective of protecting the basic rights of migrants and, arguably more importantly, citizens. These problems can and should be fixed in straightforward ways, and since doing so would be more just, would have few— if any— significant negative consequences, and in fact would have a number of clear benefits, those changes should be made. (shrink)

Integration policies are underpinned upon assumptions that are taken for granted but that condition both the causal diagnosis and the lines of action and programs devised to respond to social challenges associated with migration and refugees movements. The so-called “European refugees crisis” of 2015 is an example of how preconceived ideas affect the analysis of social problems and the design of solutions. This crisis is the context within which the paper, first, examines the root causes of the “problem”; then, explores (...) the notions of identity and participation and the implications they had for policy; and, finally, studies two cases of relative integration success where different assumptions inform different programs and strategies. (shrink)

This paper examines potential responses to emerging ‘climate refugee’ justice issues. ‘Climate refugee’ describes migrants forced to flee their homeland due to losses and damages brought about by events linked to global climate change. These include losses and damages due to extreme weather events, severe droughts and floods, sea-level rise, and an array of pollutant contamination issues. A paradigm case if climate refugeedom is seen in the influx of Peruvian immigrants into various North American cities; seeking asylum after (...) losing access to water and agricultural resources after heavy metals were released through rapid glacial melting and contaminated these necessities in recent years. -/- The main discussion begins with a sketch of the scientific picture of the causal genesis of the apparently worsening “climate refugee crisis” and a concise discussion of new climate science research methods, Probabilistic Event Attribution studies (PEAs), that many agree can be used to determine the liability of certain countries for particular extreme events due to climate change (§1). Against that background, and after providing clarifications regarding the distinction between ‘climate refugee’ and ‘environmental refugee’ (§2), I then discuss key ethical and political issues that are unique to climate refugee cases (§3). Subsequently, I critically assess options for helping climate refugees through existing institutions (§4). I endorse pursuing responses to the most pressing climate refugee problems through the provisions for addressing climate change “losses and damages” in the 2016 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, “Paris Agreement”; which outlines “risk sharing” protocol that I contend can be used to help climate refugees who are not currently subject to existing UN policies designed to help other types of refugees (e.g. those fleeing from persecution or war). I conclude by outlining a number of ways that PEAs may aid in effectively implementing those losses and damages provisions. (shrink)

This article argues that the practical difficulties and normative dilemmas at stake in the European refugee crisis as a crisis of EU integration extend beyond refugee policies into what we may call ‘the citizenship regime’ of the European Union in ways that are consequential for refugees, member states, and the European Union. It advances arguments for the relatively rapid access to citizenship of refugees, demonstrates that this norm has at least some acknowledgment in the policies of EU member (...) states and considers what further differentiation of refugees from other classes of migrant might be a part of developing a just and legitimate Common European Asylum Regime. It argues that there are some reasons to favour a CEAS in which refugees receive EU citizenship prior to national citizenship in a member state. (shrink)

According to the UN, 65.3 million forcibly displaced people languish in camps and slums or making desperate journeys toward safety. The global community has not only failed to help many of these people; in many cases it has actively obstructed them from finding security and a new home for themselves and their families. Moral responsibilities to refugees are not exhausted by policies and actions. They also extend to how to think about the refugee crisis. Pundits, politicians, and political philosophers (...) have failed to live up to these responsibilities by perpetuating populist myths, the causes of refugees’ flight, and the policies that prevent them from resuming their lives. (shrink)

It seems that more often than not, refugees and asylum seekers are associated with the notion of ‘limbo’. This terminology is used to illustrate situations in which people are unable to access systems that would alleviate their ‘standstill’ lives. In other words, when it is said that people are in limbo, it is understood they have a sense of hopelessness. Specifically, in the media, at least three examples of ‘limbo’ are often used: limbo as a physical space, limbo as a (...) type of legal conflict or legal irreconcilability and metaphysical limbo or the type of limbo that exists in one’s mind. Unfortunately, the refugee experience is so commonly associated with the idea of limbo that it appears to be the central space that refugees ‘belong’—presumably, due to the inaccessible or unpreventable nature of their predicament, they are unable to escape their life in limbo. However, it is important to understand that limbo does not simply ‘exist’. It is something that is created. In the case of Australia, refugee limbos appear as certain types due to the restrictive nature of the Government’s laws and policies. This article explores the usage of the term ‘limbo’ in the media in order to draw attention to its overwhelming presence and map specific types of discourse and ideologies. Further, it is shown that limbo should not be considered something which is out of our control or something inherent in the refugee experience but instead, is a tool used by governments to restrict refugee access to the border and systems of protection. (shrink)

This article—a tribute to philosopher Bat-Ami Bar On—argues that states have obligations to not only resettle refugees, but also to put into place laws, policies, and procedures that are likely to ameliorate exclusionary attitudes and socio-political stances of existing members toward refugees and other forcibly displaced persons. The article begins with a recollection of Bar On, who encouraged the author to pursue the well-being of refugees as a worthy philosophical topic. The article then argues that refugee camps do not (...) serve the purpose of justice; therefore, resettlement must be sought. Resettlement, in turn, raises several questions that egalitarians must take more seriously. In the end, equitable resettlement of refugees requires a broad based ethics of inclusivity and equality that bolsters community willingness to share spaces and “live and let live” in the face of cultural differences. (shrink)

Migration was one of the most important issues in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. While Hillary Clinton promised an immigration reform that would create a path to citizenship, Donald Trump said he would deport illegal aliens, build a wall between the United States and Mexico, and suspend immigration from countries with a history of terrorism, capitalizing on some of the public’s fears through his rhetoric. We examine the ways mainstream national and regional press covered this issue from the Republican National (...) Convention through Election Day. This content analysis of 12 news outlets finds that political themes drove the coverage more than anything else, with Donald Trump or a member of his team most often serving as theme sponsor. Though about half of the stories were neutral or balanced in tone, negative stories were sponsored either by the Trump team or other actors. (shrink)

Michael Dummett, philosopher and social critic, is also one of the sharpest and most prominent commentators and campaigners for the fair treatment of immigrants and refugees in Britain and Europe. This book insightfully draws together his thoughts on this major issue for the first time. Exploring the confused and often highly unjust thinking about immigration, Dummett then carefully questions the principles and justifications governing state policies, pointing out that they often conflict with the rights of refugees as laid down by (...) the Geneva Convention. With compelling and often moving examples, On Immigration and Refugees points a new way forward for humane thinking and practice about a problem we cannot afford to ignore. (shrink)

This comparative content analysis of Belgian and Swedish newspaper coverage of the ‘refugee situation’ in 2015 (N=898) revolves around responsibility indicators, news actor characteristics, and thematic emphasis. As they are a potential influential factor in the public-opinion formation process, the studying of media portrayals is an essential first step in investigating the dynamic interplay between media discourse and societal reactions. Belgium and Sweden differ with respect to migration policy, integration indicators, and the number of incoming refugees. They also (...) differ in terms of journalistic cultural values. As a result, they make for an excellent case study of intercultural differences and similarities in how refugees are reported on. Our analysis made clear that Belgian news coverage shows regional diversity, with Francophone Belgian journalists showing more tolerance towards migrants and thus tending to be more in line with their Swedish counterparts. Still, refugees are seldom allowed to speak for themselves. This warrants attention and action by news professionals. (shrink)

Some policies are not politically feasible. In the context of refugees, many claim it is not politically feasible to start admitting significantly more refugees into wealthy countries. In particular, it is not feasible for advocates of refugees to successfully persuade policymakers to adopt such a policy. A recent book by Alexander Betts argues that advocates should instead focus on developing the economies of lower-income countries where most refugees reside. This review essay argues that current data does not yet establish (...) whether Betts's approach is more feasible than increasing refugee admissions to wealthy states. There are good reasons to suppose increasing refugees’ admissions to wealthy states is politically feasible, if we account for the ways citizens in wealthy states are harmed when refugees are not admitted, and for the ways citizens are harmed when immigration enforcement prevents refugees from arriving. Drawing on recent books on immigration, this essay demonstrates that enforcement against refugees constrains citizens’ freedom, well-being, and ability to hold their government to account. Further research can establish if citizens’ interest in reducing enforcement can be translated into policy changes that significantly increase the number of refugees admitted. Such research is necessary before concluding that only helping refugees in lower-income countries is feasible. (shrink)

Bosnian refugee women adapted more quickly than their male partners to their host environments in Vienna and New York City because of their self-understanding and their traditional roles and social positions in the former Yugoslavia. Refugee women's integration into host societies has to be understood through their specific historical experiences. Bosnian women in exile today continue to be influenced by traditional role models that were prevalent in the former Yugoslavia's 20th-century patriarchal society. Family, rather than self-fulfillment through wage (...) labor and emancipation, is the center of life for Bosnian women. In their new environment, Bosnian refugee women are pushed into the labor market and work in low-skill and low-paying jobs. Their participation in the labor market, however, is not increasing their emancipation in part because they maintain their traditional understanding of zena (women) in the patriarchal culture. While Bosnian women's participation in low-skill labor appeared to be individual families’ decisions more in New York City than in Vienna, in the latter almost all Bosnian refugee women in my sample began to work in the black labor market because of restrictive employment policies. In contrast to men, women were relatively nonselective and willing to take any available job. Men, it seems, did not adapt as quickly as women to restrictions in the labor market and their loss of social status in both host societies. Despite their efforts, middle-class families in New York City and Vienna experienced substantial downward mobility in their new settings. Women's economic and social downward mobility in (re)settlement, however, did not significantly change the self-understanding of Bosnian women. Their families’ future and advancements socially and economically, rather than the women's own independence and emancipation remained the most important aspect of their being. (shrink)

Research has shown high levels of housing precarity among government-assisted refugees connected to difficult housing markets, limited social benefits, and other social and structural barriers to positive settlement. The COVID-19 pandemic has likely exacerbated this precarity. Research to date demonstrates the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for refugees and low-income households, including both health-related issues and economic challenges, that may exacerbate their ability to obtain affordable, suitable housing. In this context, we examined Syrian government-assisted refugees’ experiences during the pandemic, (...) asking: how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted Syrian refugees’ experiences of housing stability. To examine this issue, we interviewed 38 families in Calgary, London, and Fredericton. Using a qualitative descriptive methodology for analysis and interpretation, we found the liminality of settling as a GAR has been compounded by isolation, further economic loss, and new anxieties during the pandemic. Ultimately, for many participants, the pandemic has thwarted their housing stability goals and decreased their likelihood of improving their housing conditions. Based on our findings, we discuss potential policy and practice relevant solutions to the challenges faced by refugees in Canada during the pandemic and likely beyond. (shrink)

The underlying idea of the notion ‘environmental refugee’ is simple: environmental problems make certain regions less fit for human habitation and people are therefore forced to migrate. However, much of the debate on environmental refugees is polarised. It is argued that this polarisation follows from two different perspectives. The first points to the responsibility of industrial countries with regard to their contribution to environmental problems. The second is interested in policies towards particular refugees. With regard to the latter perspective, (...) there are two fundamental problems with the notion ‘environmental refugee’: the environmental cause cannot be easily disentangled from other causal factors and the idea of environmental cause covers too many substantially different subgroups. These problems can be met by a more refined classification. The debate is focused for the most part on one category, namely ‘deterioration refugees’. The main problem of this group is that they cannot be distinguished from the broader group of economic migrants. However, there is a subgroup of deterioration refugees in which the environmental cause can be separated from other causes, thus reinforcing this group’s claim to be helped. (shrink)

“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.”The American election of 2016 was, in its vitriol, polarization, and outcome, unlike any in recent memory. This paper addresses and critiques the anti-refugee rhetoric and policies, as well as their uncritical uptake, which developed around the candidacy of Donald Trump. My intent is to examine and confront the fact that some of this election cycle’s cruelest, most violent, and most racist rhetoric was reserved for (...) Syrian refugees, and to consider some possible responses to such speech in the future. This anti-refugee rhetoric, I suggest, both contributed decisively to Donald Trump’s victory and created potentially lasting toxic... (shrink)

Michael Dummett, philosopher and social critic, is also one of the sharpest and most prominent commentators and campaigners for the fair treatment of immigrants and refugees in Britain and Europe. This book insightfully draws together his thoughts on this major issue for the first time. Exploring the confused and often highly unjust thinking about immigration, Dummett then carefully questions the principles and justifications governing state policies, pointing out that they often conflict with the rights of refugees as laid down by (...) the Geneva Convention. With compelling and often moving examples, On Immigration and Refugees points a new way forward for humane thinking and practice about a problem we cannot afford to ignore. (shrink)

This article considers the meanings attached to refugeehood, repatriation and liberal citizenship in the twentieth century. Refugees are those who have been unjustly expelled from their political community. Their physical displacement is above all symbolic of a deeper political separation from the state and the citizenry. ‘Solving’ refugees’ exile is therefore not a question of halting refugees’ flight and reversing their movement, but requires political action restoring citizenship. All three ‘durable solutions’ developed by the international community in the twentieth century (...) – repatriation, resettlement and local integration – are intended to restore a refugee's access to citizenship, and through citizenship the protection and expression of their fundamental human rights. Yet repatriation poses particular challenges for liberal political thought. The logic of repatriation reinforces the organization of political space into bounded nation–state territories. However, it is the exclusionary consequences of national controls over political membership – and through this of access to citizenship rights – that prompt mass refugee flows. Can a framework for repatriation be developed which balances national state order and liberal citizenship rights? This article argues that using the social contract model to consider the different obligations and pacts between citizens, societies and states can provide a theoretical framework through which the liberal idea of citizenship and national controls on membership can be reconciled. Historical evidence suggests that the connections in practice between ideas of citizenship and repatriation have been far more complex. In particular, debate between Western liberal and Soviet authoritarian/collectivist understandings of the relationship between citizen and state played a key role in shaping the refugee protection regime that emerged after World War II and remains in place today. Repatriation – or more accurately liberal resistance to non-voluntary refugee repatriation – became an important tool of Cold War politics and retains an important value for states interested in projecting and reaffirming the primacy of liberal citizenship values. Yet the contradictions in post-Cold War operational use of repatriation to ‘solve’ displacement, and a growing reliance on ‘state-building’ exercises to validate refugees’ returns demonstrates that tension remains between national state interests and the universal distribution of liberal rights, as is particularly evident when considering Western donor states’ contemporary policies on refugees and asylum. For both intellectual and humanitarian reasons there is therefore an urgent need for the political theory underpinning refugee protection to be closely examined, in order that citizenship can be placed at the centre of refugees’ ‘solutions’. ☆ The article is based on a paper given at a workshop on Citizenship organized by the Centre for History and Economics and held at Robinson College, Cambridge on 14–15 July 2008. It draws largely on archival research undertaken for my Ph.D., The Politics of Refugee Repatriation in the Twentieth Century, which was completed in July 2009 at the University of Cambridge. My particular thanks to Melissa Lane and Matthew Gibney for their help in developing these arguments, and to the archivists at UNHCR and the League of Nations Archives at UNOG. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe German state permitted about one million refugees to enter Germany in 2015–2016, although many were subsequently denied refugee status. Germany adopted an ‘integration’ and ‘welcome’ politics, an important, if imperfect, model for a European refugee policy. The integration of refugees required the joint activity of state, of civil society, of the public sphere and of refugees themselves. Civil society initiated a vast amount of essential care work and solidarity with refugees pursued especially, but not only, by (...) women, yet civil society and refugees had no say in refugee policies. German refugee policy and practice raised many normative issues, producing an intense and vigorous national debate about them, in which philosophers and theorists were active. Among the questions debated were whether Germany had accepted ‘too many’ refugees, the acceptability of the costs of the policy, the risks of harm to the least well off, the purported risks to safety, security and the social order and the purported threats to German culture. I first describe German state policies, practices and civil society efforts and then turn to normative debates. I discuss the limits of the German discourse and suggest how it needs to be expanded. (shrink)

An increase in global violence has forced the displacement of more than 70 million people, including 26 million refugees and 3.5 asylum seekers. Refugees and asylum seekers face serious socioeconomic and healthcare barriers and are therefore particularly vulnerable to physical and mental health risks, which are sometimes exacerbated by immigration policies and local social discriminations. Calls for a strong evidence base for humanitarian action have encouraged conducting research to address the barriers and needs of refugees and asylum seekers. Given the (...) role of epigenetics factors to mediate the effect of psychological and environmental exposures, epigenetic modifications have been used as biomarkers for life adversity and disease states. Therefore, epigenetic research can be potentially beneficial to address some of the issues associated with refugees and asylum seekers. Here, we review the value of previous and ongoing epigenetic studies with traumatized populations, explore some of the ethical challenges associated with epigenetic research with refugees and asylees and offer suggestions to address or mitigate some of these challenges. Researchers have an ethical responsibility to implement strategies to minimize the harms and maximize the short and long-term benefits to refugee and asylee participants. (shrink)

Restrictive border protection policies directed toward managing the flow of refugees coming into neoliberal democracies (and out of failing nation-states) are a defining feature of contemporary politics. In this book, Verónica Tello analyses how contemporary artists-such as Tania Bruguera, Isaac Julien, Rosemary Laing, Dinh Q. Lé, Dierk Schmidt, Hito Steyerl, Lyndell Brown and Charles Green-negotiate their diverse subject positions while addressing and taking part in the production of images associated with refugee experiences and histories. Tello argues that their practices, (...) which manifest across a range of contexts including Cuba, the United States, Australia and Europe, represent an emergent, global paradigm of contemporary art, 'counter-memorial aesthetics'. Counter-Memorial Aesthetics, Tello argues, is characterized by its conjunction of heterogeneous signifiers and voices of many times and places, generating an experimental, non-teleological approach to the construction of contemporary history, which also takes into account the complex, disorienting spatial affects of globalization. Spanning performance art, experimental 'history painting', aftermath photography and video installation, counter-memorial aesthetics bring to the fore, Tello argues, how contemporary refugee flows and related traumatic events critically challenge and conflict with many existing, tired if not also stubborn notions of national identity, borders, history and memory. Building on the writings of such thinkers as Michel Foucault and Jacques Rancière, this book offers a useful concept of 'counter-memory' for the twenty-first century. It shows how counter-memorial aesthetics is not only central to the nexus of contemporary art and refugee histories but also how it can offer a way of being critically present with many other, often interrelated, global crises in the contemporary era. (shrink)

Employment is critical for refugees’ positive integration into a receiving country. Enabling employment requires cross-sector collaborations, that is, employers collaborating with different stakeholders such as refugees, local employees, other employers, unofficial/official supporters, and authorities. A vital element of cross-sector collaborations is trust, yet the complexity of cross-sector collaborations may challenge the formation and maintenance of trust. Following a theory elaboration approach, this qualitative study with 37 employers and 27 support workers in Germany explores how employers’ experiences in cross-sector collaborations on (...) refugees’ labor market integration affect their trust in other stakeholders in this cross-sector space. Specifically, we explored employers’ perceptions of trust breaches, and how these perceptions affect their further engagement in cross-sector collaborations on refugee integration. Based on our findings, we propose a process model that describes how unmet collaboration expectations and negative assessments of collaborators’ attitudes and behaviors lead to perceived trust breaches which, in turn, lead to employers’ hesitancy to hire refugees and/or to engage in cross-sector collaborations. In doing so, we extend existing theory on trust within organizations to the cross-sector context of refugee integration, uncovering context-specific meanings to trustworthiness dimensions and illustrating how breaches of different trustworthiness dimensions can interact. Moreover, we show how social policies, resources, and trustors’ perceived vulnerability in collaborations shape their risk perceptions. This study highlights the central role of trust for refugee integration and illustrates how missing goals and process clarity endanger sustainable collaborations. (shrink)

Calls to recognize a right of return are a recurring feature of refugee crises. Particularly when such crises become long-term, advocates of displaced people insist that they be allowed to return to their country of origin. I argue that this right is best understood as the right of refugees to return, not to a prior territory, but to a prior political status. This status is one that sees not just any state, but a refugee's state of origin, take (...) responsibility for safeguarding their welfare. This entitlement I characterize as an institutional right: a right that presupposes, and is a necessary feature of, a particular institution. The institution of which the right of return is an indispensable part is the international political system that sees authority exercised by sovereign states. The institutional argument for a right of refugee return presupposes two basic factual claims about states: they play a central role in safeguarding rights and they pursue exclusionary policies of border control. Importantly, the institutional view presupposes only that states do perform both functions, not that they are justified in doing so. On a purely normative level, the institutional account assumes little more than the moral equality of human beings. (shrink)

_This article discusses some of the normative bases for the recent (2020) Norwegian policy prioritizing LGBTIQ+ refugees in refugee admissions. It argues that, when properly interpreted, this policy is compatible with the UNHCR vulnerability selection criteria but is not independently supported by it. Combined with some of the broader moral principles guiding refugee admissions – including both state-based and refugee-based reasons in refugee resettlement – the article provides qualified support for the Norwegian policy (...) of LGBTIQ+ refugee prioritization. Drawing from some of the specifics of LGBTIQ+ refugee resettlement and integration, the article nevertheless points to certain limitations of such a policy in so far as refugees’ own agency is concerned. The article emphasizes the need to listen to refugees’ own voices in the selection and resettlement processes, including cases where the default position of LGBTIQ+ prioritization may be overridden by LGBTIQ+ persons’ own interests in being resettled elsewhere__._ _Keywords_: LGBTIQ+, Norwegian refugee policy, priority setting, refugee selection, LGBTIQ+ integration. (shrink)

‘Framing the Refugee’ looks at the power of representation of liberal political theory with regard to refugees. In the author’s view, legal and political arbitrariness lies in the representing of refugees as lacking agency. His key point is that liberalism fails to conceive of refugees as politically capable actors, and he is thus complicit in the arbitrary neutralisation of their emancipatory potential and participatory powers. This paper emphasises the moral justifiability of that state of affairs by seeking some answers (...) to the question of why liberal political theory construes a concept of the refugee that does not contain any element of political agency. Most obviously, the author acknowledges that refugees perform a significant social role in contemporary societies and are hence active members in them. Nonetheless, they remain neglected in their political role by most political theory. What does it mean to have political agency for the author? It means to have the power of self-representation, that is, of being allowed and even enabled by a given legal system to bring about change in the political order, or at least to participate in that change. But the author also calls attention to the role of ‘theory’ in addressing this downside of the contemporary liberal democratic order. Theory becomes even more crucial at times of urgency, that is, when theorists have a moral responsibility to deepen their philosophical imagination, as Hannah Arendt so forcefully noted. The theoretical task of ‘re-framing’ the refugee entails reconfiguring political philosophy and its traditional categories of sovereignty, citizenship and nationality. The liberal inability to accommodate the political agency of many members of the political community – especially of non-nationals – is a sign of the historical contingency of the current rules of political membership. This inability makes evident the imperative of rethinking politics in ways that avoid the arbitrariness of treatment and aim instead at equality and justice. If political leaders can re-write the rules of membership to suit their own ideological agendas, the same demand should be addressed by – indeed demanded from – political and legal theorists. However, this is not as easy as it seems, according to the author. In his view, political theory is confronted with fundamental challenges, the most obvious one being that ‘theory’ is usually unequipped to defeat its own ‘topology’. Note that in saying this the author is raising a more pressing concern about arbitrary law-making: it may be that arbitrariness – especially the arbitrary treatment of aliens by the sovereign state and by liberal democracies in particular – is inscribed in the very DNA of liberalism. No matter how odd this may seem, the author advances the view that ideas, however creative of a new order, or transformative of a given status quo, never appear in "free form", and are instead deeply rooted in a structure that constrains our imagination. The challenge is thus to develop a meta-theory that reconceptualises the very way liberal political theory frames marginalised sectors of society – such as the "poor" – as a product of an international economic order that robs those sectors of their agency as the very condition of its internal functioning. We must therefore question how the very idea of the refugee is produced, because it symbolises the construction of an inside and an outside that is complicit with the arbitrary play of legal statuses involved in migration policy. The author’s main point regarding this is that certain groups are sidelined by economic, political and social systems because they are already excluded from theoretical systems to start with. Keywords: refugees, agency, political theory, migration. (shrink)

EU states agreed on 23 September to implement a refugee quota system which will distribute 120,000 refugees across the EU, despite four member states – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia – voting against the proposal. Luc Bovens and Anna Bartsch write that regardless of the wider debate over whether a quota system is justified or not, it is vital that the ‘distribution key’ determining how many refugees are assigned to each state is fair. They argue that the (...) distribution key proposed by the European Commission is ill-conceived and regressive, and that a fairer system with recalculated quotas may go some way toward convincing the dissenting states to support the system. (shrink)

The paper explores the basis of the responsibilities we owe to refugees. That we have such responsibilities is a very widely shared intuition: the need of those fleeing from persecution seems to call out for a response on our part. But what exactly are our obligations to such people? Who are they owed to and why do we have them? The paper argues in favour of a human rights approach to refugee protection that includes the requirement of the implementation (...) of a burden sharing scheme. DOI 10.17879/95189441435. (shrink)

Many affluent states seek to discharge their responsibilities to refugees through extraterritorial policies, which limit the number of refugees that they admit whilst contributing to protection in...

Urban residents have the potential to play a key role in helping to facilitate ecological resilience of wilderness areas and ecosystems beyond the city by helping ensure the migration of nonhuman climate refugee populations. Three ethical frameworks related to this issue could determine whether we have an ethical duty to help nonhuman climate refugee populations: ethical individualism, ethical holism, and species ethics. Using each of these frameworks could support the stronger view that policy makers and members of (...) the public have a moral duty to mitigate the impacts of climate induced migration, or the weaker claim that these impacts should be taken into account when making land-use and planning decisions in urban contexts. (shrink)

This paper is the first of two in a series. In this paper, we identify mental health needs and challenges in the age of COVID-19 among Nepali-speaking, Bhutanese resettled refugees in the USA. We argue for a public health justice framework that looks critically at social determinants impacting mental health (SDIMH) barriers, which negatively impact our Bhutanese population, and serves as a theoretical foundation toward public policy and law that will inform healthcare decisions and fair treatment of resettled refugees (...) at the clinical bedside and in the community. We first describe our Bhutanese refugee population and the critical mental health issues that, for many, originated during political persecution and violent ethnic cleansing initiatives, or while living in refugee camps prior to resettlement to the USA. We present a social justice framework emerging from an extensive literature review and incorporating core social determinants specific to mental health in the age of COVID-19, which are guided by the social determinants of economic stability; neighborhoods and physical environment; education; nutrition and exercise; community and social context; healthcare system; and legal system. We illustrate specific SDIMH of our resettled Bhutanese refugees during the pandemic, followed by a second paper that details recommendations for applying the SDIMH in a collective effort to address specific barriers to mental healthcare and support. (shrink)

Crises of forced migration are, unfortunately, nothing new. At the time of the writing of this paper, at least two such crises were in full swing – mass movements from the Middle East and parts of Africa to the E.U., and major movements from Central America to the Southern U.S. border, including movements by large numbers of families and unaccompanied minors. These movements are complex, with multiple causes, and it is always risky to attempt to craft either general policy (...) or philosophical positions in response to salient crises. However, both of these instances do bring to the foreground important questions about the proper purpose and extent of refugee protection as a means of dealing with crises of forced migration. In particular, both of these instances force us to consider what role persecution on the basis of a protected ground – race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion – ought to play in granting refugee protection, and whether our response to those in danger should change if the agents of persecution are non-state actors. This paper is not primarily about the problems arising from Syria or Central America. In a way similar to how hard cases make bad law, I contend that a too central focus on salient crises tends to lead to bad theory and often to bad general policy. However, if I am successful in my goal of clarifying the place of persecution and non-state action in refugee protection, then we may in turn be better able to think clearly about our current crisis situations. -/- In this paper I will first draw on my previous work on the normative logic of the refugee convention to argue that, while persecution should play an important, and even central, role in our thinking about refugees, this importance is shallow and pragmatic rather than deep and fundamental. Next, I will show how this conclusion supports the claim that harms amounting to persecution by non-state actors may ground an asylum claim, at least in some cases, both when the state is unwilling and when it is unable to protect its members. I consider two cases: first, instances where the authority and power of the state has been usurped by another power, and second, when the state has (implicitly or explicitly) delegated its power or authority to non-state actors. I will show how this leads to extending asylum to a broader range of people than traditional accounts would. -/- (To download this paper, please use the link from SSRN below.). (shrink)

ABSTRACTTurkey hosts the world’s largest community of displaced Syrians. According to UNHCR, there are more than 3 million registered Syrians in Turkey as of 2018. Since the beginning of the conflict in Syria in 2011, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party has followed an open-door policy, which was accompanied by a discourse emphasizing religious solidarity and humanitarian values. However, the arrival of Syrian refugees has become entangled with the existing identity debates and conflicts in Turkish politics. The AKP’s discourse (...) on Syrian refugees has become intertwined with its positive self-representation as the defender of all oppressed people and its attempts to reconstruct the Turkish nation along more Islamic lines. The article analyses parliamentary debates and presidential speeches in order to unravel AKP discourses on Syrian refugees. Drawing upon the Discourse Historical Approach in Critical Discourse Analysis, the article puts forward two arguments. First, the refugee issue has become a constitutive component of AKP identity and a discursive tool to reconstruct the nation along more Islamic lines. Second, Turkey’s refugee policy has become a source of pride and enabled the AKP to claim moral superiority both vis-à-vis the West and its political opponents at home. (shrink)

This article explore the limitations of progressive and feminist legal change through a study of the development of gender-based refugee policy in Canada. I argue that the actual impact of feminist and progressive legal change is determined in interaction with the wider bureaucratic and administrative contexts of its implementation; administrative strategies and bureaucratic procedures may, in fact, capably undermine the potentially expansive effects of progressive jurisprudence. As I will show, feminist legal interventions in Canada’s refugee policy (...) did not increase actual access to refugee protection. Not only were these interventions delivered in a decidedly limited administrative form, they occurred simultaneously with highly innovative and coordinated bureaucratic practices that limited the access of large groups of refugee claimants to protection. Thus, while the Canadian refugee system expanded jurisprudentially, access to this system was tightly restricted through administrative and bureaucratic measures. (shrink)