When populist governments become assertive: The role of politicisation in explaining deadlock of EU asylum policymaking with Natascha Zaun, Assistant Professor in Migration Studies at the European Institute at LSE

Date: 
23 November, 2021 - 12:30 - 14:30

CEE General Seminar

Sciences Po via Zoom, Compulsory Registration

Recent scholarship on governments in the Council of the EU has demonstrated that governments respond to citizens’ opinions when legislating at the EU level. Some evidence suggests that they do not only respond to the general public mood about the EU, but also to positions the public holds on specific policy proposals. Populist governments should be particularly responsive to opinions of the public, as this is their very design. Studying the case of the deadlocked Dublin IV negotiations, this paper asks whether populist governments are more responsive to public opinion than mainstream governments and how they respond if Eurosceptic concerns would make them oppose European cooperation whereas anti-immigrant positions would suggest they favour more cooperation with a view of redistributing asylum-seekers to other member states. We find that, overall, both mainstream and populist governments respond to public opinion, but they differ in style: Populist governments are more intransigent and vocal in their opposition to specific content of EU legislation, even undermining formal and informal norms of EU decision-making. When facing a conflict between Eurosceptic and anti-immigrant positions, our analysis shows that Eurosceptic positions trump.

ZaunSpeaker

Natascha Zaun, is Assistant Professor in Migration Studies at the European Institute at LSE. She specialises in EU and international migration governance and EU policymaking.

Discussion

Marie Moncada, Sciences Po, CEE

Natasha Wunsch, Sciences Po, CEE

Chair

Virginie Guiraudon, Sciences Po, CEE, CNRS

For more information: contact.cee@sciencespo.fr 

Compulsory Registration

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