The ‘Bosnian Refugee Crisis’ and the ‘Immigration Crisis in Europe after the Arab Spring’: A comparative study of German and Austrian asylum discourses and policies

More and more asylum seekers are fleeing every year. Current and future global challenges will only reinforce this trend. Moreover, recent history shows that at certain times an exceptional number of people seek asylum in certain regions. The right to asylum is an internationally agreed legal and moral obligation. However, as states have the sovereignty to provide protection to certain displaced people, the international refugee protection regime is not decisive for the application of the agreed obligations. In Europe, the further development of the European Economic Community into a supranational Union has added another regulatory level, which was assigned national competences and established a regional protection regime. Due to the EU's capacity to advocate norms and values as well as its geopolitical position, many people flee or immigrate to this regional protection regime. In this paper, I ask about differences in two European countries that have taken in large proportions of people seeking asylum in Europe during both the ‘Bosnian Refugee Crisis’ (1992-1995) and the ‘Immigration Crisis in Europe after the Arab Spring’ (2015/2016). How did the discourses and laws in Germany and Austria change and how was refugee protection applied? With my constructive analysis, I offer historical interdisciplinary findings for a political field of international relations that is constantly changing due to the salience of the topic. My theoretical design allows me to include framing, values and norms, as well as national interests in my analysis. National regimes have undergone changes towards similar regimes as a result of the experience and creation of the CEAS. Nevertheless, both regimes have been destabilised during the crises and by what are presented as appropriate national interpretations of obligations.