Abstract
Between 2015 and 2016, the Netherlands experienced an asylum crisis, one that directly affected organizations working with refugee reception and integration. Besides civil society and governmental organizations (CSOs and GOs), the period also saw individuals coming together to form emergent CSOs (ECSOs). We look at these organizations to determine whether their work brought a shift in Dutch practice and policy with regarding refugee reception. We also examine literature concerning crisis governance, participatory spaces, and refugee reception governance. Finally, we investigate the views and experiences of individuals from selected organizations that played an active role during the crisis. This explorative research is based upon a qualitative and interpretative study involving panel discussions, document analysis, and interviews, conducted between 2017 and 2018 by the Refugee Academy at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. We show circumstantial and interorganizational elements that enhanced and hampered interactions between ECSOs, CSOs, and GOs. We argue that shared activities during the crisis may have created possibilities for durable forms of collaboration and for the inclusion of civil society groups in a debate mostly dominated by GOs.
Highlights
Between 2015 and 2016, the relatively steep increase in the arrival of asylum seekers in Europe affected the ecology of organizations working with refugee reception
Based on our qualitative and interpretative study conducted in 2017–2018, we address the following questions: what were the experiences of emergent civil society organizations (CSOs) (ECSOs), CSOs, and governmental organizations (GOs) during the 2015–2016 asylum crisis? Did their cooperation help bring about a more fundamental shift in Dutch refugee reception?
When asked what the organizations had experienced during the crisis in relation to other stakeholders, participants recognized that GOs interacted with and learned from the work and practices of ECSOs, CSOs, or other governmental counterparts: Governmental organizations learned a great deal by going into the field and working with initiatives and municipalities
Summary
Between 2015 and 2016, the relatively steep increase in the arrival of asylum seekers in Europe affected the ecology of organizations working with refugee reception. The swift establishment of temporary asylum seeker centres was soon followed by public outcry in some areas These circumstances gave added importance to the contributions of civil society organizations (CSOs) already working in refugee reception, especially since collaboration between them and governmental organizations (GOs) was crucial for effective crisis management (Boersma et al, 2018). Emergent civil society organizations (ECSOs) involved groups of individuals who came together for a specific purpose because the established CSOs were too formalized to provide support for their particular concerns These groups often gave rise to new foundations or grass root organisations with small financial aid from funds or local governments.
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