Crisis situation and crisis policymaking: a comparison of Germany and Hungary in two refugee crises

Abstract

ABSTRACT Why was policymaking in the 2015–16 refugee crisis so conflictual, while policymaking in the Ukrainian refugee crisis of 2022 proved consensual? We argue that the crisis situation – the problem pressure, policy-specific institutional context of crisis policymaking at the EU level, and the resulting political pressure – made a crucial difference. Based on a Policy Process Analysis (PPA) dataset that systematically tracks the policy debate, we test and corroborate our argument by comparing the policymaking in two countries that differ sharply in their domestic asylum policies and their attitudes toward the EU: Hungary and Germany. However, the country-specific contexts still make a difference: in spite of the similarity regarding crisis-specific policymaking in the two countries, the policy outcome varies between them, independently of the crisis, as a result of the differences in domestic asylum policies and EU attitudes.