Refugee Crisis In Germany Research Articles

Refugees in Germany: Amongst Culture of Welcome and Xenophobia

The refugee crisis in Germany is a part of the European migrant crisis in connection with the immigration of high numbers of people arriving in the European Union (EU) from across the Mediterranean Sea or overland through Southeast Europe. This period reached its’ summit in 2015/2016 with over a million protection seekers arriving in Germany.The high influx of protection seekers in such a short time has caused a social debate in Germany on how to handle the high numbers of immigrants and arrange the political asylum. There are different views on the reception of migrants that range from the culture of welcome to xenophobia. This can be observed in the society, where a part of the population gets involved with the refugees’ integration, whereas another (increasing) part foments anti-immigrant sentiments. Between those beliefs, many different attitudes and behaviors towards refugees can be found.This article discusses the situation of refugees and asylum seekers in Germany, concerning the divided opinions reaching from a culture of welcome to xenophobia. It addresses the transformation that Germany is currently undergoing and gives several examples of incidents of and against refugees that affect the mindset of the German population.

Public Administration Entering Turbulent Times: A Study of Service Quality during the Refugee Crisis

ABSTRACT This study constitutes an exploratory approach to address public performance during crises. Drawing on expectancy disconfirmation and crisis theories, empirical insights into the quality of public services provided during the refugee crisis in Germany are derived. Findings show that bureaucratic structures may hinder the fast flow of information and lead to a slow response. External stakeholders, while understanding of a longer duration of administrative processes, end up dissatisfied due to this lack of information provided. These insights call into question the success of New Public Management and Governance reforms implemented over the last three decades when it comes to dynamic environments.

How New Immigration Flows Affect Existing Immigrants?

We apply difference-in-differences regressions to study the impact of the 2015 refugee crisis in Germany on the culturally closer diaspora of existing immigrants originating from Turkey and Middle-Eastern and North-African countries (TMENA). Our identification allows us to emphasize the role of immigrants' culture in estimating immigration's socio-economic impact. Additionally, we distinguish between the labor demand and labor supply effects associated with immigration, which enables us to reflect on the ambiguous labor market impact of immigration suggested in the existing literature. In particular, we find that TMENA immigrants experienced a substantial reduction in unemployment in 2015, consistent with the differential demand shock induced by refugees' consumption of culturally similar goods and services. However, the unemployment effects dissipated starting in 2016, coinciding with refugees' delayed yet incremental labor market integration. We also consider the social impact of the refugee crisis and find that while worries about immigration increased among all respondents, the increases were statistically significantly smaller among TMENA immigrants, primarily due to their cultural proximity to arriving refugees. Our results suggest that TMENA immigrants' assimilation of German identity was unaffected by the refugee crisis.

Immigration and Crimes Against Natives: The 2015 Refugee Crisis in Germany

In the 2015 refugee crisis, nearly one million refugees came to Germany, raising concern that crimes against natives would rise. Using novel county-level data, we study this question empirically in first-difference and 2SLS regressions. Our results do not support the view that Germans were victimized in greater numbers by refugees as measured by their rate of victimization in crimes with refugee suspects. Our findings are of great policy and public interest, and also of material relevance for the broader literature on immigration and crime which considers only crimes per capita or variants thereof, but never actual crimes by foreigners against natives. We show that this shortcoming can lead to biased inference.

Direct and Indirect Effects of Involvement on Hostile Media Perceptions in the Context of the Refugee Crisis in Germany and Switzerland

This article examines hostile media perceptions (HMPs) by building on recent trends in hostile media research. Our study considers the effects of people’s cognitive as well as their affective involvement on HMPs. As the media landscape has changed fundamentally since HMPs were initially identified, the role of social media is explored more profoundly. In addition, this article not only examines the direct effects of involvement and communication activities but tests for indirect effects of involvement mediated through media use and interpersonal discussions. Using data simultaneously collected from two online surveys conducted in Germany and the German-speaking part of Switzerland, the findings strengthen previous evidence that affective involvement is a stronger predictor of HMPs than cognitive involvement. In contrast, media use and interpersonal discussions had only marginal direct effects. The study provides initial evidence for the indirect effects of involvement mediated through exposure to online user comments and interpersonal discussions.

Access for Refugees into Higher Education: Paving Pathways to Integration

The 2015–2016 refugee crisis in Germany has made its universities more aware of the student services that it must provide for all of its students, not just new refugee entrants once they overcome asylum application, credentialing, and placement hurdles to access or continue university studies. A newly published study by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has provided evidence-based findings that showcase how the country is monitoring the process of refugee access to higher education, and offers important lessons for other countries facing refugee and migrant inflows.

Access for Refugees into Higher Education: Paving Pathways to Integration

The 2015–2016 refugee crisis in Germany has made its universities more aware of the student services that it must provide for all of its students, not just new refugee entrants once they overcome asylum application, credentialing, and placement hurdles to access or continue university studies. A newly published study by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has provided evidence-based findings that showcase how the country is monitoring the process of refugee access to higher education, and offers important lessons for other countries facing refugee and migrant inflows.

Racial boundaries, stigma, and the re-emergence of “always being foreigners”: Iranians and the refugee crisis in Germany

ABSTRACT The 2015 refugee crisis is at the center of public and political discourse across Europe, especially among nations that have accepted refugees. Utilizing ethnographic fieldwork and 48 in-depth interviews conducted in 2011 and 2016 with Iranians in Hamburg, Germany, this paper considers how the refugee crisis impacts the racial boundaries between Germans and immigrant communities. It details how the crisis has made ethnic nationalism, Islamophobia, anti-foreigner prejudice and racism more pronounced and salient throughout Germany. The interviews demonstrate that this climate affects Iranians in several ways: they cite feeling more threat and stigma, as well as experiences of marginality, perpetual foreignness, and discrimination. This research contributes to sociological scholarship on migration and race by examining how critical international events influence and shape processes of racialization, identity and belonging, and social boundaries and hierarchies.

The Flüchtlingskrise in Germany: Crisis of the Refugees, by the Refugees, for the Refugees

This essay explores the various ways in which the discourse about the refugee crisis in Germany was charged politically. While some interpreted it as an economic opportunity and saw the extraordinary events as signs of a positive change in Germany’s culture of receiving migrants, others saw the refugee crisis as a further event in the downward spiral of cultural decline.

Migration as Social Seismograph: an Analysis of Germany’s ‘Refugee Crisis’ Controversy

This article tests the hypothesis that the attitude towards migration can be understood as a social seismograph for the degree of a society’s degree of democratisation. In this article I present my hypothesis and analyse the constellation of arguments within the public controversy following the so-called refugee crisis in Germany. I work out the internal problematics structuring the three main polarisations in this discourse. Most of the contributions analysed here are interventions rather than academic texts (albeit often authored by academics) making practical suggestions to cope with what they respectively relate to different definitions of crisis. Methodologically, this article is based on a thorough reading of essays and books and their relation to one another, with view to the current conjuncture. Understanding this ‘crisis’ after 2015 requires an approach attentive not only to the different ‘politics of polarisations’ within the public controversy but also to the real and phantasmal dimensions of the crisis. Although the figure of the refugee has began to occupy a central role in the discussion of migration policy, the debate has, I demonstrate, surprisingly little or nothing to do with migration whatsoever, but rather speak to the degree of required democratisation.

The 2015 Refugee Crisis in Germany: Concerns About Immigration and Populism

This paper investigates the effect of the refugee crisis, and the related government’s asylum policy, on concerns about immigration of the German population. Exploiting exogenous variation in survey interview timing of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), I employ a difference-in-differences strategy to estimate the short-term causal effect of the refugee crisis on concerns about immigration. The estimated effect is substantial, representing an increase in concerns of around 22%, compared to the pre-refugee crisis baseline level. Interestingly, I find that this increase was twice as large for East Germans, compared to West Germans. In a second section, I show concerns about immigration are positively correlated with political support for the relatively new, right-wing populist party Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD). However, using the variability in concerns generated by the refugee crisis, I find no evidence of a causal effect of concerns on political preferences in the short term.

The gap between here and there: Communication and information processes in the migration context of Syrian and Iraqi refugees on their way to Germany

Set against the background of the so-called refugee crisis in Germany in 2015/16, this article asks about the subjective value that refugees give different sources of information and examines whether they were making informed decisions during the various stages of their transit. Between November 2015 and April 2016, four focus groups and 36 in-depth interviews were conducted with Syrian and Iraqi refugees, as well as interviews with Iraqi experts in the media and civil society sectors, based on the theoretical concepts of network and broadcast feedback developed by Bakewell and Jolivet. The results show that, unlike the mass media, personal network and narrowcast feedback were the most important sources of information for the study's participants. While most of the interviewees felt adequately informed both before and during their transit, it was mainly after the refugees arrived in Germany that they experienced a deficit of information.

Between Humanitarian and Political Realism: Anthropological Perspective on the Refugee Crisis in Germany


 
 
 The article historicizes the German ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015 in the context of post-World War II politics of migration and asylum in the country, focusing particularly on the reactions to the ‘crisis’ of 1992. That time, government reacted to more than 400,000 refugees from the Balkan wars with severe restrictions of the right to asylum, framed also within the ‘Dublin Regulation’ of the European Union. It is argued that German politics of immigration was mostly a kind of Realpolitik that subordinated humanitarian considerations to closed-border politics geared at keeping migrants out. Summer 2015, however, saw elements of humanitarianism in German refugee politics, understood, following Didier Fassin, as the introduction of moral sentiments into politics. This ‘humanitarianism’ was mostly accredited to Chancellor Angela Merkel. Yet the commitment of thousands of members of the German public ensured the sustainability of a ‘welcome culture’ intended to accommodate refugees, government politics quickly reverted to new restrictions that keep immigrants for many months or even years in a limbo of waiting. While to some extent government’s humanitarian discourse continues it becomes apparent that humanitarian politics is often a cover up for ulterior political motives. It is concluded that marking the events of 2015 as a refugee crisis enables in the first place the legitimization of politics of restriction like the externalization of EU borders into North African countries.
 
 

Jobs, Crime, and Votes a Short-Run Evaluation of the Refugee Crisis in Germany

Millions of refugees made their way to Europe between 2014 and 2015, with over one million arriving in Germany alone. Yet, little is known about the impact of this inow on labor markets, crime, and voting behavior. This article uses administrative data on refugee allocation and provides an evaluation of the short-run consequences of the refugee inow. Our identification strategy exploits that a scramble for accommodation determined the assignment of refugees to German counties resulting in exogeneous variations in the number of refugees per county even within states. Our estimates suggest that migrants have not displaced native workers but have themselves struggled to find gainful employment. We find very small increases in crime in particular with respect to drug offenses and fare-dodging. Our analysis further suggests that counties which experience a larger inux see neither more nor less support for the main anti-immigrant party than counties which experience small migrant inows.

Jobs, Crime, and Votes: A Short-Run Evaluation of the Refugee Crisis in Germany

Millions of refugees made their way to Europe between 2014 and 2015, with over one million arriving in Germany alone. Yet, little is known about the impact of this inflow on labor markets, crime, and voting behavior. This article uses administrative data on refugee allocation and provides an evaluation of the short-run consequences of the refugee inflow. Our identification strategy exploits that a scramble for accommodation determined the assignment of refugees to German counties resulting in exogeneous variations in the number of refugees per county within and across states. Our estimates suggest that migrants have not displaced native workers but have themselves struggled to find gainful employment. We find very small increases in crime in particular with respect to drug offenses and fare-dodging. Our analysis further suggests that counties which experience a larger influx see neither more nor less support for the main anti-immigrant party than counties which experience small migrant inflows.

The Costs of the Refugee Crisis in Germany – An Investment in the Future?

In einem finanzokonomischen Modell zeigt sich, dass der „fiskalische Break-even-Point“ 2031 moglich ist. Dann konnten erstmalig die Steuern und Abgaben der erwerbstatigen die Kosten der nicht erwerbstatigen Fluchtlinge ubersteigen. Der „okonomische Break-even-Point“ kann bereits 2025 erreicht werden, wenn die Bruttowertschopfungsbeitrage der dann erwerbstatigen Fluchtlinge die Kosten der Versorgung und Integration der nicht erwerbstatigen Fluchtlinge ubersteigen. Voraussetzung sind hohe Investitionen in die individuelle Qualifizierung und eine flexible Anwendung arbeitsmarktpolitischer Instrumente.

Minor Notices

Previous articleNext article FreeCurrent LiteratureMinor NoticesPDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 23, Number 3Mar., 1897 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/327503 Views: 63Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref Journal History This article was published in the Botanical Gazette (1876-1991), which is continued by International Journal of Plant Sciences (1992-present). PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Kathleen Kürschner Rauck "Not in My Backyard!" the 2015 Refugee Crisis in Germany, SSRN Electronic Journal (Jan 2020).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3697189