Governing Migration and Refugees in Times of Populist Resurgence
In current public debates, (irregular) migrants/ refugees are subject to divisive politics, a process in which in particular political elites mobilize fears and use this group as scapegoats in emotionally charged political campaigns. Arguably, the politicization of issues related to migration and refugees has been a driving force behind the rise of the radical right in many Western democracies. Yet, the governance of migration and refugees is largely removed from a rational process of democratic coordination, cooperation, contestation, and conflict resolution. It is hard to imagine a field of public policy making in which one would find a similar disjuncture between a highly polarizing politicization of the issue on the one hand and the lack of pragmatic-effective program or policy development on the other.
The hybrid event took place at the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria on April 2nd. It considered policies governing irregular migration and refugees from a comparative (transatlantic) perspective. The questions addressed were:
What are promising ways of approaching this politically thorny issue from a policy perspective?
What has worked, which approaches have proven to be effective and suitable/desirable in terms of their outcome on the ground?
Dr. Asad Kiyani, University of Victoria, Dr. Scott Watson, University of Victoria, Dr. Axel Kreienbrink, Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, Germany
Moderated by: Dr. Norbert Eschborn, Konrad Adenauer Foundation Canada
Dr. Natascha Zaun, Leuphana Universität, Germany, UK, Dr. Dagmar Soennecken, York University, Dr. Christian Leuprecht, Royal Military Collage of Canada
Moderated by: Dr. Oliver Schmidtke, Centre for Global Studies, University of Victoria
The vent was co-financed by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria
