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What is the use of research in public debates and policy-making on immigration and integration? Why are there such large gaps between migration debates and migration realities, and how can they be reduced? Bridging the Gaps: Linking Research to Public Debates and Policy-making on Migration and Integration provides a unique set of testimonies and analyses of these questions by researchers and policy experts who have been deeply involved in attempts to link social science research to public policies. Bridging the Gap argues that we must go beyond the prevailing focus on the research–policy nexus by considering how the media, public opinion, and other dimensions of public debates can interact with research and policy processes. The chapters provide theoretical analyses and personal assessments of the successes and failures of past efforts to link research to public debates and policy-making on migration and integration in six different countries—Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States—as well as in European and global governance debates. Contrary to common public perceptions and political demands, Bridging the Gaps argues that all actors contributing to research, public debates, and policy-making should recognize that migration, integration, and related decision-making are highly complex issues, and that there are no quick fixes to what are often enduring policy dilemmas. When the different actors understand and appreciate each other's primary aims and constraints, such common understandings can pave the way for improved policy-making processes and better public policies that deal more effectively with the real challenges of migration and integration.

What is the use of research in public debates and policy-making on immigration and integration? Why are there such large gaps between migration debates and migration realities, and how can they be reduced? Bridging the Gaps: Linking Research to Public Debates and Policy-making on Migration and Integration provides a unique set of testimonies and analyses of these questions by researchers and policy experts who have been deeply involved in attempts to link social science research to public policies. Bridging the Gap argues that we must go beyond the prevailing focus on the research–policy nexus by considering how the media, public opinion, and other dimensions of public debates can interact with research and policy processes. The chapters provide theoretical analyses and personal assessments of the successes and failures of past efforts to link research to public debates and policy-making on migration and integration in six different countries—Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States—as well as in European and global governance debates. Contrary to common public perceptions and political demands, Bridging the Gaps argues that all actors contributing to research, public debates, and policy-making should recognize that migration, integration, and related decision-making are highly complex issues, and that there are no quick fixes to what are often enduring policy dilemmas. When the different actors understand and appreciate each other's primary aims and constraints, such common understandings can pave the way for improved policy-making processes and better public policies that deal more effectively with the real challenges of migration and integration.

Strong claims have been made about the incompatibility between large-scale migration and advanced welfare states. The free movement of workers within the European Union (EU) offers an interesting case for the study of the fiscal effects of unrestricted labor migration in different types of welfare states This article therefore investigates the alleged tension between advanced welfare states and liberal migration policies by analyzing how the fiscal effects of EU migrants vary across European welfare state regimes. In contrast to arguments commonly made in public debates, we argue and explain why theoretical reasoning should lead us to expect limited differences in fiscal effects of EU migrants in different welfare states. The empirical analysis, covering twenty-nine countries during 2004–15, shows that the net fiscal impact of EU migrants in the different welfare state regimes of West European countries is positive, and we find no major differences in the fiscal impacts of EU migrants across Western regimes. These results from the EU case cast doubts on the claim that advanced welfare states are incompatible with large-scale immigration because of adverse fiscal effects, and on the idea that broad institutional characteristics of welfare states have substantial consequences for the fiscal impact of migration.

The new European Commission will inherit an impasse in efforts to reform the European asylum system as well as concerns about practices in the management of the EU's external border that contradict humanitarian standards and may even be illegal. While the number of asylum seekers who manage to reach EU territory is now lower than in previous years, it may be low precisely because of those problematic practices, including abuse of irregular migrants along the Western Balkan route, limited search and rescue capacity in the Central Mediterranean, and EU cooperation with the Libyan coast guard even though migrants returned by it to Libya have been abused. In this 2019 MEDAM Assessment Report, we present insights from MEDAM research and policy dialogue since 2016 to explain how closer cooperation among EU member states and with countries of origin and transit can improve outcomes for all stakeholders.

This paper analyses whether and how the fiscal effects of EU migrants vary across European countries with different institutional regimes. In public debates on free movement, it is often claimed that different national institutions, especially welfare states and labour market regulations, lead to variations in the fiscal impacts of EU migrants across European countries. There are also some theoretical reasons why one might expect this to be the case, although the multidimensionality of national institutional configurations makes it difficult to formulate strong theoretical expectations. This paper is, to the best of our knowledge, the first cross-country empirical analysis of these issues. Distinguishing between five different institutional regimes covering 29 countries, our analysis of the links between national institutions and the fiscal effects of EU migrants is made possible by a unique new data set on the fiscal effects of EU migrants across almost all EEA countries (Nyman and Ahlskog 2018). ; The REMINDER project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research & innovation programme under grant agreement no 727072.

This paper analyses how national welfare institutions and normative attitudes to welfare vary across EU/EFTA countries, and how national welfare institutions are linked to welfare attitudes, a long-standing question of comparative welfare state research. Our focus in this paper is on the concept of 'reciprocity' in welfare institutions and welfare attitudes, an important, and, we argue, under-researched issue that has been at the heart of recent debates about common EU policy-making, especially about whether and how to reform the current rules for free movement of workers in the EU. More specifically, the paper uses data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and a newly-constructed dataset of the characteristics of welfare institutions in 24 EU countries to address three questions: How do social protection programmes in EU member states differ with regard to reciprocity? How do normative attitudes to reciprocity in welfare programmes vary across EU member states? And finally, how are these normative attitudes linked to the actual design of welfare state programmes? We find substantial cross-country differences in social protection programmes in relation to the concept of reciprocity, considerable variation in normative attitudes to reciprocity, and that there is a clear correlation between the two. That national institutions matter for normative attitudes around core welfare state programmes may have significant consequences for views about free movement among European populations, with potentially important repercussions for the politics around free movement in the EU. ; The REMINDER project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 727072.

In this 2019 MEDAM Assessment Report, we present insights from MEDAM research and policy dialogue since 2016 to explain how closer cooperation among EU member states and with countries of origin and transit can improve outcomes for all stakeholders. Crucially, short of establishing a new Iron Curtain on the EU's external border or continuing to tolerate abuses, there is no way that either individual member states or the EU as a whole can insulate themselves from irregular migrants and asylum seekers. Yet, if crossing the EU border enabled all irregular migrants to remain in the EU for good, the integrity of EU visa and asylum policies would be undermined. Thus, close cooperation with countries of origin for the return and readmission of their citizens who have no right to remain in the EU is crucial. Still, it is typically not in the interest of countries of origin to limit the mobility of their citizens. Cooperation between the EU and countries of origin must therefore cover a wide enough range of policies to ensure that all parties consistently benefit from the policy package and have a strong incentive to meet their commitments. We emphasize more EU support for refugees hosted by low- and middle-income countries and more legal employment opportunities for non-EU citizens in the EU. Rethinking EU asylum and migration policies along these lines requires extensive consultations and negotiations among stakeholders in Europe and in countries of origin and transit. Our 'insights' are meant to inform and stimulate such conversations. However, sustainable reforms will come only as the result of stakeholders working out the details and developing a sense of ownership of the necessary reforms. Our first set of insights relates to popular attitudes toward immigration and the structure of public preferences for asylum and refugee protection policies (section 2 of this report). Next, we explain how the EU and countries of origin and transit can all benefit from cooperating on border management, refugee protection, and expanding legal labor migration to the EU (section 3). Finally, we consider the implications for cooperation among EU member states and the long-standing plans for reform of the European asylum system (section 4). ; MEDAM is funded by Stiftung Mercator. ; Chapter 1: Introduction – Chapter 2: Public attitudes to immigration and asylum policy preferences in the EU – Chapter 3: Cooperation with non-EU countries to manage migration to the EU – Chapter 4: Implementing flexible solidarity – Chapter 5: Conclusions

AbstractThis article proposes a new approach to the political theory of migration: the ethics of migration policy dilemmas. The core of this new approach lies in identifying specific policy dilemmas of central relevance to policy makers and other stakeholders in the field, and then submitting these dilemmas to systematic theoretical analysis. We conceptualize policy dilemmas as involving hard choices between competing moral goals and distinguish this kind of dilemma from other types of ethical choices, such as conflicting means, dirty hands, political feasibility, and politics dilemmas. We argue that, besides enlarging the range of questions asked by political theorists of migration, our approach of engaging normatively with hard policy dilemmas can help mitigate the negative political and societal effects of reductionist political positions that seek to negate the existence of competing moral goals. We make the case for a multidisciplinary approach to the normative analysis of hard ethical dilemmas, transcending both explanatory and interpretive analyses in the spirit of an applied normative political theory that aims to be action guiding.

The protection of asylum seekers and refugees has become one of the most politically divisive issues in the European Union, yet there has been a lack of research on public preferences for asylum and refugee policies. This article analyzes which policies Europeans prefer and why. We advance a theoretical framework that explains how asylum and refugee policies that use limits and conditions enable individuals to resolve conflicting humanitarian and perceived national interest logics. Using an original conjoint experiment in eight countries, we demonstrate that Europeans prefer policies that provide refugee protection but also impose control through limits or conditions. In contrast to the divisive political debates between European Union member states, we find consistent public preferences across European countries.

The protection of asylum seekers and refugees has become one of the most politically divisive issues in the European Union, yet there has been a lack of research on public preferences for asylum and refugee policies. This article analyzes which policies Europeans prefer and why. We advance a theoretical framework that explains how asylum and refugee policies that use limits and conditions enable individuals to resolve conflicting humanitarian and perceived national interest logics. Using an original conjoint experiment in eight countries, we demonstrate that Europeans prefer policies that provide refugee protection but also impose control through limits or conditions. In contrast to the divisive political debates between European Union member states, we find consistent public preferences across European countries.

First published: 23 April 2021 ; The protection of asylum seekers and refugees has become one of the most politically divisive issues in the European Union, yet there has been a lack of research on public preferences for asylum and refugee policies. This article analyzes which policies Europeans prefer and why. We advance a theoretical framework that explains how asylum and refugee policies that use limits and conditions enable individuals to resolve conflicting humanitarian and perceived national interest logics. Using an original conjoint experiment in eight countries, we demonstrate that Europeans prefer policies that provide refugee protection but also impose control through limits or conditions. In contrast to the divisive political debates between European Union member states, we find consistent public preferences across European countries. ; With the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. The research for this paper is part of the Mercator Dialogue on Asylum and Migration (MEDAM), an international research and policy initiative funded by Stiftung Mercator. ; The article is a published version of EUI RSCASWP; 2019/73

What preferences do people have for cross-country cooperation on irregular migration and refugee protection? Existing research improves our understanding of how voters react to large-scale inflows of asylum seekers, like those experienced by European countries in 2015–2016, and the type of asylum seekers and policies preferred by European citizens. We know less, however, about people's views concerning a particular European Union (EU) response to the so-called 'refugee crisis', namely the cooperation with Turkey in March 2016 to stem inflows of asylum seekers and other migrants. To study such views, we build on several strands of the international relations literature exploring key determinants of public preferences for international cooperation on cross-national issues, namely (a) sociotropic concerns, (b) humanitarian considerations, and (c) perceptions of fairness and reciprocity. Our research design leverages conjoint experiments conducted simultaneously in Germany, Greece and Turkey. We find that the three factors indeed play a role in explaining preferences in the three countries. Moreover, while respondents are favourable to several core features of the current EU–Turkey migration deal (regarding the return of irregular migrants, financial aid to refugees, and border controls), we also find evidence of public support for increased cooperation on resettlement and EU support to Greece to deal with migration, which goes beyond the status quo. In certain aspects of cooperation, public preferences seem to respond to interactions between policy dimensions that capture reciprocity. These findings have important implications for research on public preferences for asylum and migration policies and public support for international cooperation more generally.