Director of AMIS, Nils Holtug, is part of a new research project, titled RESPOND

With the goal of enhancing the governance capacity and policy coherence of the EU, its member states and neighbours, RESPOND is a comprehensive study of migration governance in the wake of the 2015 Refugee Crisis. Bringing together 14 partners from 7 disciplines, the project probes policy-making processes and policy (in)coherence through comparative research in source, transit and destination countries.

RESPOND analyses migration governance across macro (transnational, national), meso (sub-national/local) and micro-levels (refugees/migrants) by applying an innovative research methodology utilizing legal and policy analysis, comparative historical analysis, political claims analysis, socio-economic and cultural analysis, longitudinal survey analysis, interview-based analysis, and photovoice techniques. It focuses in-depth on (1) Border management and security, (2) International refugee protection, (3) Reception policies, (4) Integration policies, and (5) Conflicting Europeanization and externalization. We use these themes to examine multi-level governance while tackling the troubling question of the role of forced migration in precipitating increasing disorder in Europe. In contrast to much research undertaken on governance processes at a single level of analysis, RESPOND’s multilevel, multi-method approach shows the co-constitutive relationship between policy and practice among actors at all three levels; it highlights the understudied role of meso-level officials, and it shines a light on the activities of non-governmental actors in the face of policy vacuums. Ultimately, RESPOND will show which migration governance policies really work and how migrants and officials are making do in the too-frequent absence of coherent policies.

Adhering to a refugee-centred approach throughout, RESPOND will bring insights to citizenship, gender and integration studies, ensure direct benefit to refugee communities and provide a basis for more effective policy development.