Conflicting Government Responses to Rejected Asylum Seekers
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CONFLICTING GOVERNMENT RESPONSES TO REJECTED ASYLUM SEEKERS Two levels of government, two competing logics of appropriateness Floortje Lauriks, 5872561 Conflict Resolution and Governance, University of Amsterdam First and second reader: A. van Heelsum and J. van Doomernik June 26st, 2015 TABLE OF CONTENT 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 2 1.1 Relevance ..................................................................................................................... 3 1.2 Scope of this research .................................................................................................. 4 1.3 Structure of this thesis ................................................................................................. 4 2. Decision-making: an institutional approach ....................................................................... 6 2.1 Interpretative theories on decisions and actions .......................................................... 6 2.2 Different organisations, different logics .................................................................... 12 2.3 Research questions .................................................................................................... 15 3. Methods ............................................................................................................................ 16 3.1 Data collection ........................................................................................................... 16 3.2 Analysis ..................................................................................................................... 17 4. Developments and government responses ....................................................................... 19 4.1 Local responses .......................................................................................................... 21 4.2 National responses ..................................................................................................... 24 5. The logic of municipalities ............................................................................................... 26 5.1 Local logics of appropriateness ................................................................................. 26 5.2 A local perspective ................................................................................................... 36 6. The logic of the national government .............................................................................. 39 6.1 National logic of appropriateness ............................................................................. 39 6.2 A state’s perspective .................................................................................................. 51 7. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 56 8. Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 60 1 1. INTRODUCTION In early 2012, a group of rejected asylum seekers set-up camp outside the asylum centre in Ter Apel and they later moved on to several Dutch cities. It has made the problem visible of rejected asylum seekers who remain in the Netherlands, yet are not entitled to public services and facilities and are excluded from housing and employment. There are a growing number of rejected asylum seekers who have been expelled from the state’s asylum centres and are now residing illegally in the Netherlands. Instead of living in the shadows of society, they decided to openly protest the exclusionary and restrictive measures of the asylum policies and make their current living situation visible. After the protest campsites were evicted, the rejected asylum seekers moved to squatted buildings or stayed in churches that opened their doors. From the beginning, the Dutch government made it very clear that there will be no additional facilities for rejected asylum seekers, there were existing facilities for those who are willing to cooperate with their return. However, the municipalities were still faced with large groups of rejected asylum seekers living on the streets of their city. Multiple municipalities decided (step-by-step) to start providing municipal shelter facilities. These municipal actions were in direct opposition of the wishes of the national government, resulting in tensions between the two government levels. Eventually, due to a growing political pressure and (inter)national attention for the issue, the two coalition partners of the national government agreed on a nationwide plan to provide basic shelter facilities to the rejected asylum seekers under several conditions. However, these plans have been strongly criticised by many city administrators (VNG, 2015). This research aims to understand why the municipalities and the national government responded in such opposing ways to the issue of rejected asylum seekers. At first sight, the divide does not seem to be caused by political preferences alone, since many of the local public officials who criticised the plans of the national government were members of the same political parties. City administrators from across the political spectrum have argued in favour of the provision of government facilities and services, stating that local governments are paying the bill for the failure of national government to provide a conclusive return system (VNG, 2014). In turn, national administrators have condemned the practices of municipalities, arguing that it undermines the policy goals. Instead of finding a shared solution, the issue has resulted in an antagonistic relationship. This raises the question: why have the Dutch municipalities and national government responded differently to the issue of rejected asylum and how can these differences be explained? 2 In order to understand the competing governmental behaviour, this research examines the decision-making processes that led to the different government responses. Political party alignment seems insufficient in explaining the discrepancies, as both left-wing and right-wing local public officials have opposed national policies. A more compelling answer may be found in the different organisational environments of the municipalities and the national government. The two levels of government are inherently different and this might have led to the development of two distinct logics on what the appropriate response to the issue of rejected asylum seekers should be. The logic of appropriateness theory of March and Olsen (2004) proposes that decision making is not just an objective calculation of the best available options, but that actors incorporate what they deem appropriate for them to do in a certain situation. The organisation for which one works can influences the decision-making process, as it offers a context for thinking and acting (Argyris & Schön, 1996). This research adopts an interpretative institutional approach to find out if this can contribute to a better understanding of the causes of conflicting decisions in government responses. 1.1 RELEVANCE Theoretically, this study aims to consolidate on the theory of logic of appropriateness. This theory has gained considerable conceptual attention in analysing institutions and organisations (Olsen, 2007), but only a few scholars have shown how a logic of appropriateness can be operationalised and recognised in concrete examples. This research hopes to contribute by applying the theory to a specific case. Furthermore, the importance of organisational environments in understanding how public services function has been underestimated (Jordan, Strath & Triandafyllidou, 2010). The influence of the organisational environment is often researched by psychosocial and organisational scholars in relation to businesses, but has not significantly been applied to administrative science. This research hopes to add to this analytical concept by exploring the influence of the organisational environment in determining the salience of one logic of appropriate action over the other in policy practices. Socially, this study aims to contribute to resolving the precarious situation that currently exists in which local and national government levels openly contradict one another, leading to administrative tensions. It has become necessary to find shared solutions, not only because a continuation of the current impasse would be undesirable in governance terms, it would be imperative to ensure that the rejected asylum seekers will not be stuck indefinitely in the precarious situation they are in now. A better understanding of what causes these different beliefs and more insight on the underlying factors that influenced the decisions could 3 contribute to resolving the problems between the municipalities and the national government. Understanding the causes of a conflict can direct attention to opportunities to intervene in the process and enable actors to resolve the conflict and cooperate. It could improve the likelihood of creating a new shared understanding, leading to shared solutions. 1.2 SCOPE OF THIS RESEARCH It is not a completely new phenomenon that rejected asylum seekers live in illegality instead of returning to the country of origin, but it started to receive more political attention since the campsite of protesters outside Ter Apel. That is why this research focuses on the time frame between then, early 2012, and the