1,720,991 research outputs found
European governments' responses to the 'refugee crisis': the interdependence of EU internal and external controls
Full text linkIn the face of the ‘refugee crisis’, many European governments, even in traditionally liberal states, unilaterally introduced a number of restrictive and, often, controversial migration, asylum, and border control policies. The author argues that past legal-bureaucratic choices on migration and asylum policies, ongoing developments in international relations at that time, the structural and perceived capacity of receiving states to cope with the refugee influx, and long-standing migration-related security concerns influenced the responses of many European governments amid the mass population movement. However, the author also suggests that the surfacing of particular policies across Europe was related to the newly elected Greek government’s attempted U-turn from similar repressive and controversial policies during that time. In this regard, the author maintains that repressive and controversial migration, asylum, and border control policies cannot simply be abolished within the context of the EU common market and interdependence of EU internal and external controls
Rationalising human rights violations in immigration enforcement: the case of Greek security professionals
No full textNo abstract available
All animals are equal: the relationship between the Cummings row and public trust in democracy
No full textThe UK public voluntarily agreed to give up fundamental rights and liberties in the fight against COVID-19 on the assumption that this suspension applied to everyone – in other words, that governance remained democratic, writes Dimitris Skleparis. This is why Dominic Cummings’s lockdown breach has stirred a heated debate and this is why the government’s handling of the situation has already reduced public trust in democracy
The politics of migrant resistance amid the Greek economic crisis
No full textThis paper focuses on a particular instance of migrant resistance: the hunger strike of three hundred irregular migrants in 2011 in Greece. It does not conceptualize the politics of migrant resistance as an isolated incidence of mobilization of irregular migrants against the government in support for their rights in existing institutions. By drawing on a set of fifty-two face-to-face semi-structured interviews with migrant protesters and organizers of the hunger strike, this paper rather argues that the politics of migrant resistance is performed in the daily lives and day-to-day activities of irregular migrants. It is performed by irregular migrants and those who stand in solidarity with them through the mundane production of information, tricks for survival, mutual care, social relations, services exchange, solidarity, and sociability, which challenge security policies and controls and establish an alternative form of life. The differential inclusion of irregular migrants in various social fields, and the leeway that this inclusion potentially creates in their daily lives and social relationships, enables irregular migrants to create ties with other agents/actors in dominated positions in their social fields, who possess and control the essential capital for the creation of these alternative modes of life
Refugee Integration in Mainland Greece: Prospects and Challenges
No full textThis policy brief provides an outline of the prospects for and
challenges to integration of international protection beneficiaries
and applicants in mainland Greece, based on emerging research
findings. It focuses on three policy areas, which are key to social and
economic integration: (1) labour market; (2) healthcare and social
welfare services; and (3) education and training. Structural factors,
such as a shrinking labour market, high unemployment rates and an
ongoing restructuring of labour relations, as well as various
bureaucratic hurdles hinder labour market access. A generally
overwhelmed and underfunded health system, the ongoing
curtailment of social welfare provisions, and a number of practical
obstacles limit access to healthcare and social welfare services.
Despite the significant progress that has been recorded in the area
of integration of refugee children in Greek schools, some practical
problems still persist, while there are still steps to be taken towards
their formal integration in school life. On the other hand, limited
progress has been recorded in the area of integration of adult
refugees in higher education and vocational training programmes.
The brief concludes that apart from objective obstacles, various
perceived issues of concern among the public, as well as the living
conditions of displaced persons who remain on the islands equally
hinder the prospects for refugee integration in mainland Greece
The Greek response to the migration challenge: 2015-2017
No full text• The SYRIZA-led coalition government attempted to perform a 180-degree turn from the rather restrictive migration and asylum policies of the previous governments.
• Very few of the SYRIZA/ANEL coalition government’s pledges actually materialised. The
long-promised policy shift was rather designed to fail as it was largely symbolic and paid no consideration to the broader context and changing policy dynamics.
• The closure of the ‘Western Balkan route’ and the activation of the EU-Turkey Statement in March 2016 interrupted the government’s attempted U-turn.
• In order to make the EU-Turkey Statement operable in the country, the government introduced laws that tightened Greece’s asylum, detention, deportation, and external border controls policies anew.
• These very laws also brought to the fore the issue of refugee integration into the Greek society. Designing and delivering measures for the integration of international protection beneficiaries and applicants appears to be particularly challenging in the current state of play.
• Three pressing issues will have to be addressed sooner or later in 2017 by the Greek State: improvement of first reception and accommodation conditions; acceleration of the examination of the international protection, relocation, and family reunification applications; integration of international protection beneficiaries and applicants in the labour market.
• The extent to which these issues will be effectively addressed depends on the ability of the Greek government and the EU to surpass certain well-known structural obstacles
Rationalising human rights violations in immigration enforcement: the case of Greek security professionals
No full textNo abstract available
(In)securitization and illiberal practices on the fringe of the EU
No full textIlliberal practices of liberal regimes have been extensively studied by critical security studies. The literature on risk emphasises the idea of imminent dangers and the logic of worst-case scenarios, which eventually unsettle the balance between security and liberty by always favouring the former in its most coercive and exceptional forms. This paper, by drawing on (in)securitization theory, attempts to explain how particular illiberal practices with respect to the control and management of immigration on the fringe of the EU become normalised. It argues that (in)securitization of immigration and illiberal practices are effects of the very functioning of a transnational field of (in)security professionals that are produced through the structural competition between different actors of this field over the definition of security and the appropriate control and management of immigration. In this respect, it uses Greece as a case study and draws on material gathered through interviews with Greek security professionals in Athens, Lesvos, Orestiada, and Alexandroupoli, and analysis of their discourse in dissertations they prepared during their study in police academies
Towards a hybrid ‘shadow state’? The case of migrant-/refugee-serving NGOs in Greece
No full textNo abstract available
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