The Europeanization of What? Migration, Asylum and the Politics of European Integration

Abstract

While the notion that ‘Europe matters’ is commonplace in contemporary debates about migration and asylum, little has been said about how the European Union’s specific institutional and policy content might actually affect politics and policy in member states (and non-member states, too). Does the EU’s distinct institutional setting mean that it is distinct from other regional or international organizations? Does the EU’s capacity to turn treaties between states into laws that bind those states create the potential for far-reaching effects on the domestic migration and asylum politics of its members? Are we seeing policy convergence between member states as a result of EU action? Does the content of EU action on migration and asylum mean, perhaps, that there is something distinctly European about the measures that have been introduced by the EU and its member states? These issues concern the motives for, and the impacts of, European integration, as well as relations between EU action and that taken in other parts of the world. These questions must be examined closely if the contemporary politics of migration in Europe and the scope for their ‘Europeanization’ are to be understood. To do so we must go beyond the assumption that there is some simple linear process by which EU competencies are straightforwardly translated into domestic political change in the member states. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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