Germany's Refugee Policy Making Crisis: How the Clash of Normative Systems Affected the Decision Making Process

Abstract

Although Germany has had a long history of restrictive and uncoordinated immigration and integration policies, the country seemed to experience a paradigm shift during the refugee crisis in 2014/15. In the light of unprecedented support from actors across the political spectrum, the country introduced a variety of pro-refugee policies, actively welcoming and integrating refugees. However, this approach was ephemeral. Shortly after the initiation of the aforementioned liberal agenda, the country reversed its approach introducing a number of conservative policies outsourcing migration control, increasing refugee responsibilities, and decreasing requirements for deportation and repatriation. This thesis investigates the dynamics of Germany’s refugee policy making by analyzing (1) the initial liberal reaction, followed by (2) the shift to less liberal policies. The empirical findings illustrate that actors utilized different sets of norms in order to advance their preferred policy response during the decision making process. The incompleteness of rule systems and the existence of overlapping refugee and asylum norms on different levels of analysis led to arguments amongst different actors on how to interpret norms and which policies to implement. Further, both logics of appropriateness and logics of consequences figured centrally in public debates which confirms that policy decisions are a product of mixed motives.