In 2021, the Danish Social Democratic government tabled a bill allowing asylum seekers to be transferred to another country to process claims and provide protection. Witnessing a Social Democratic government embracing this highly... more
In 2021, the Danish Social Democratic government tabled a bill allowing asylum seekers to be transferred to another country to process claims and provide protection. Witnessing a Social Democratic government embracing this highly controversial idea, even though less than a handful of right-wing governments outside Europe had previously outsourced asylum, is puzzling. Policy diffusion theory is used to explain the underlying mechanism and analyse the justification strategies. In the face of public attention focused on the refugee protection crisis between 2014 and 2016, the Social Democrats embraced the idea of externalising asylum in order to be recognised as responsive problem solvers. Essentially, they employed three strategies to justify the policy and to mask its origin and its inconsistency with the party’s ideology: (1) referring to policy advisors as the original source of the idea; (2) reframing externalisation as a humanitarian project; and (3) shifting the narrative about Social Democratic identity.
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The evolution of the international refugee regime is ostensibly driven by three ongoing processes: the proliferation of protection frameworks, growing restrictiveness in the Global North, and the liberalization of asylum in the Global... more
The evolution of the international refugee regime is ostensibly driven by three ongoing processes: the proliferation of protection frameworks, growing restrictiveness in the Global North, and the liberalization of asylum in the Global South. Insights from the novel SACOP dataset, which provides original information on asylum policies in 195 states from 1951 to 2021, question these widely shared assumptions. Essentially, the data reveals the persistence of non-regulation in refugee protection in North Africa and Asia and highlights the global spread of restrictive policies. These findings oppose the view that the Global North and South are moving in opposite directions regarding refugee protection.
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The Safe Country Policies Dataset SACOP provides original information on the introduction and substance of Safe Country Policies (SCPs) and the establishments of National Asylum Frameworks (NAFs) in 195 countries since the adoption of the... more
The Safe Country Policies Dataset SACOP provides original information on the introduction and substance of Safe Country Policies (SCPs) and the establishments of National Asylum Frameworks (NAFs) in 195 countries since the adoption of the 1951 Refugee Convention until 2020. SACOP 1.0 covers 102 countries in Africa and Asia
Safe Country Policies have been a central tool used by states to restrict access to asylum. Despite the salience of such policies for both host states and people seeking protection, we lack a coherent conceptualization of the different... more
Safe Country Policies have been a central tool used by states to restrict access to asylum. Despite the salience of such policies for both host states and people seeking protection, we lack a coherent conceptualization of the different types of Safe Country Policies and systematic information on their adoption in all world regions. Aiming to fill these conceptual and empirical gaps, I introduce the Safe Country Policies Dataset (SACOP), which provides original information on the adoption and characteristics of Safe Country Policies in 195 states from 1951 until 2021. Drawing from this dataset, we learn that Safe Country Policies are not only widespread in the Global North but are increasingly being adopted by states in the Global South. The global spread of these policies does not only challenge the principle of responsibility-sharing in asylum governance, but it may also create new patterns of injustice between states in regions that host the bulk of displaced people.
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Not only Covid-19 has spread all over the world-the policies responding to this pandemic have also diffused rapidly across countries. In this research note, we present findings from an original dataset that features mobility restrictions... more
Not only Covid-19 has spread all over the world-the policies responding to this pandemic have also diffused rapidly across countries. In this research note, we present findings from an original dataset that features mobility restrictions in all EU/EFTA states as well as the United Kingdom during the first wave of the pandemic. We find that most countries adopted restrictions within a few days only and that restrictions on internal mobility had been introduced prior to restrictions on crossborder mobility, but that the latter have been more persistent. Furthermore, we observe an evolution from great variation of policy choices at the outset of the pandemic towards convergence. Analyzing the mobility restrictions through a policy diffusion lens, we find tentative evidence for interdependent policy-making especially in the temporal patterns of adoption. Our research note can serve a basis for future research on policy-making and policy diffusion in times of crisis.
In recent decades, we have witnessed the diffusion of policy diffusion studies across many sub-disciplines of political science. Four mechanisms of policy diffusion-learning, competition, emulation and coercion-have become widely accepted... more
In recent decades, we have witnessed the diffusion of policy diffusion studies across many sub-disciplines of political science. Four mechanisms of policy diffusion-learning, competition, emulation and coercion-have become widely accepted as explanations for how policymaking processes and policy outcomes in one polity influence those in other polities. After pointing to major shortcomings of this inductively gained set of mechanisms, we present a theoretically more coherent typology that draws on key concepts from International Relations and Policy Studies. The four mechanisms we lay down consider rationalist and social constructivist approaches equally and they incorporate symmetric and asymmetric constellations. By further distinguishing between processes confined to one policy field and those arising from links across policy fields, we present a typology of eight theoretically consistent pathways of policy diffusion. Our framework enables the aggregation of knowledge and contributes to conceptual coherence in multi-methods research.