Asylum Policies and Protests in Austria

Merhaut, Nina; Stern, Verena

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-74696-8_2

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…The majority of anti-deportation protest events in Austria emerged on a sub-national level within local communities (cf. Merhaut and Stern 2018). Our data suggest that protests addressing national or regional political authorities entail more substantive protest demands, aimed at reforms of policies and/or enforcement practices.…”

Section: Findings: Overt Conformist and Covert Reformist And Aspiratimentioning

confidence: 99%

Contesting the deportation state? Political change aspirations in protests against forced returns

Hadj-Abdou

Rosenberger

2019

Ethnic and Racial Studies

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Deportation of immigrants is a high-ranking issue on political agendas across Europe. Political authorities, however, face a challenge regarding forced returns: affected migrants, organized activists and concerned citizens are standing up for deportees. Do these protests contest the nation state’s sovereignty, expressed in the right to carry out deportations of foreign citizens? How far-reaching are protesters’ ambitions for political changes? Based on a developed typology of change aspirations, this article explores this topic by studying anti-deportation protests in Austria. It combines qualitative data from interviews with protesters with longitudinal data covering protest events from 1993 to 2013. Expanding previous research, the study finds that protests often refrain from demanding fundamental political change, instead they demonstrate overt conformism for tactical purposes. At the same time, protesters develop grievances about deportation policies and practices in the course of protest developments – they have covert reformist ambitions.

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Section: Findings: Overt Conformist and Covert Reformist And Aspiratimentioning

confidence: 99%

Contesting the deportation state? Political change aspirations in protests against forced returns

Hadj-Abdou

Rosenberger

2019

Ethnic and Racial Studies

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“…In what environment and under what parameters does asylum-center protest appear? Restrictionist protest in Austria is embedded in a comparatively moderate civic protest culture (see Merhaut and Stern 2018), restrictive migration policies, a significant anti-migrant mobilization driven by the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), and centralized decision-making procedures, leaving only few competences to the local level.…”

Section: Contextual Determinants Of Asylum-center Protestmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protest Against the Reception of Asylum Seekers in Austria

Haselbacher¹,

Rosenberger²

2018

IMISCOE Research Series

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“…The study refers to Austria's political system, a national context characterized by a high level of party dominated political culture, a strong negative politicization of the issues of immigration and asylum, and a weak protest culture from below (Merhaut & Stern, 2018). As we show, this context makes anti-asylum protests much more permeable to party involvement than pro-asylum protests.…”

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confidence: 92%

Party activism: the permeability of the asylum protest arena in Austria

Hadj-Abdou

Rosenberger

2019

Social Movement Studies

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This article contributes to the growing field of studies on party–protest linkages that highlight the dynamic nature, complementarity and fuzziness of the parliamentary arena and protest arena. Taking the policy field of asylum, it investigates, first, the conditions for the permeability of the protest arena for party activism and, second, the ways in which party activism shapes and transforms the protest arena. The empirical observations refer to Austria, which has a political framework with highly politicized immigration, strong political parties and a weak protest culture. Methodologically, the paper combines a protest event analysis with two in–depth case studies on protests. The authors argue that the openness of the asylum protest arena for parties is characterized by modest protest demands, and depends on the dominant political position as well as the decision making structure regarding the protest issue. The article demonstrates that pro-asylum protests are less open to political parties than anti-asylum protests, which are in tune with the dominant political position on asylum in Austria. The findings also show that anti–asylum protests are not only more likely to attract the involvement of political parties, but also tend to become instrumentalized for party–competitive ends. Pro–asylum protests, in contrast, keep their substantive, grievance–focused orientation even when political parties step in.

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Asylum Policies and Protests in Austria

Cited by 13 publications

References 10 publications

Contesting the deportation state? Political change aspirations in protests against forced returns

Contesting the deportation state? Political change aspirations in protests against forced returns

Protest Against the Reception of Asylum Seekers in Austria

Party activism: the permeability of the asylum protest arena in Austria

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