Electoral competition dynamics and Syrian refugee discourses and policies in Germany and France

ABSTRACT

Among European countries, Germany has implemented the most generous policies toward Syrian refugees. Contrarily, its main partner within the EU, France, viewing the refugee crisis primarily as a matter of security, has avoided them. I argue that these divergent approaches are closely linked with electoral competition dynamics. Electoral competition dynamics have shaped the expected outcomes of adopting pro-Syrian refugee policies for ruling centrist parties in these countries. The risk posed by the centrist right-wing voters’ shift to the far-right due to the enactment of pro-refugee policies for CDU in Germany was eased to a great extent by a type of cordon sanitaire, other parties’ exclusion of Alternative for Germany (AfD) from coalitions. However, the electoral risk posed by the rise of a Populist Radical Right Party (PRRP), the National Rally (RN), against the Republic on the Move (LREM) has been higher in France. As a result, centrist French Presidents have been electorally more constrained or vulnerable in adopting generous refugee policies. By comparatively analyzing the Syrian refugee discourses and policies in Germany and France, this study permits us to better evaluate and understand the domestic sources of refugee politics in liberal democracies.

KEYWORDS:

• Syrian refugees
• electoral competition dynamics
• party politics
• Germany
• France

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 PRRP refers to a family of parties that share a core ideology that includes at least a combination of nativism, authoritarianism, and populism (Mudde, 2013, p. 218).

2 For foundational insights, see Bernard R. Berelson, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, and William N. McPhee, Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954); and Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper, 1957).

3 The dataset is available at the following repository: https://dataverse.harvard.edu/file.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/AOVSGV/WZAEBC&version=1.0

4 https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/

5 I computed a weighted average to equalize the frequency of the coded speeches and policies in the dataset.

6 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_15_6134

7 https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/europes-border-crisis/71-dead-refugees-found-truck-austria-highway-officials-n417536

8 This process started with the new Citizenship Law passed in 1999 by which the birth-right citizenship (jus soli) replaced the ethnocultural citizenship model (jus sanguinis) and ‘the foreigner problem’ (Auslanderproblem) took an inclusive turn.

9 After implementing a series of worker recruitment programs in the 1970s, France has focused on stemming and deterring immigration. One-quarter of the foreigners who have entered France since 1990 have since left the country (220,000 out of 850,000 entries since 1990).

10 https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/09/meet-eric-zemmour-frances-far-right-presidential-contender.html

11 Terminologies for Germany were derived from the UNHCR report on the forms of asylum and humanitarian protection in Germany which is available at https://help.unhcr.org/germany/asylum-in-germany/forms-of-asylum-and-refugee-protection/. This basic classification might be further supported with the information on what types of rights each status provides to the people seeking humanitarian protection.

12 Terminologies for France were derived from the UNHCR’s resettlement handbook for France which is available at https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/protection/resettlement/5322ca479/unhcr-resettlement-handbook-country-chapter-france.html. Again, this basic classification might be further supported with the information on what types of rights each status provides to the people seeking humanitarian protection.