Knowledge and legitimacy in asylum decision-making: the politics of country of origin information

ABSTRACT

State institutions engage in the production of knowledge and representations about the countries of origin of asylum seekers. Building on science and technology studies (STS), critical migration studies and critical citizenship studies, this article analyzes the alignment of government Country of Origin Information (COI) with the public. We examine the different processes through which public legitimacy of asylum knowledge is fostered in three bureaucratic settings. The case studies highlight the variable legitimacy-constructing technologies and practices of publication (Norway), evaluation (United Kingdom) and consultation (European Union) vis-à-vis asylum-relevant information. We demonstrate how this shifting style in the knowledge-based governance of asylum does not consistently enhance legitimacy and stabilization of asylum-relevant information, and can provoke new forms of contestation in this environment of high-stakes policymaking. Finally, we highlight the lack of political subjectivity of asylum seekers to intervene in the production and possibly contest the legitimacy of this information about themselves and their country of origin.

KEYWORDS:

• Knowledge production
• legitimacy
• political subjectivity
• refugee status determination procedures
• science and technology studies

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the special issue editors and the anonymous reviewers for their careful and detailed engagement. This paper benefited from feedback and discussions at the Performing the Knowledge and Governance Relationship panel organized by Falk Daviter at the 2019 ECPR general conference. Thank you to Maja Zehfuss, Jenny Edkinds, Andreja Zevnik and Elena Barabantseva and other attendees during the ‘Research Away Day’ of the Critical Global Politics cluster at the University of Manchester for their feedback on an earlier iteration of this paper. Thank you also to Aoileann Ní Mhurchú for supporting this project. We owe special thanks to Martin Coward for his encouragement throughout this project and for comments on earlier versions of the paper. Jasper van der Kist’s research benefitted from grant and support from the School of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester. Damian Rosset’s research was supported by the nccr – on the move funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. It has also benefited from a grant from the University of Neuchâtel’s ‘Fonds des donations’.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Jasper van der Kist. ‘Knowing Asylum Seekers: The Chain of Country of Origin Information,’ (PhD diss., University of Manchester, 2018–21); Damian Rosset. ‘Producing Knowledge and Legitimacy: Country of Origin Information in Asylum Procedures’ (PhD diss., University of Neuchâtel, 2014–19). The authors’ contributions to this article have been as follows: JVDK contributed most substantially to the article’s successive versions, including its overall theoretical framework, and provided the empirical materials for both the British and EU case studies. DR has participated in commenting and revising the article, and contributed empirical materials for the Norwegian and EU cases.

2. Interview NOAS staff member March 2019.

3. Information and policy functions used to be separated before 2014. The merger in CPIT has been disputed (ICIBI 2017, 35).

4. Interview IAGCI member 28 January 2018.

5. Interview with IAGCI member 27 November 2018.

6. A good example of this is the IAGCI’s repeated recommendation for a greater variety of evidence, as CPIT relies more exclusively on materials that are in English (ICIBI 2017, 41–2).

7. Interview Chief Inspector May 2019.

8. Interview Chief Inspector May 2019.

9. Interview IAGCI member December 2018.

10. https://www.easo.europa.eu/information-analysis/country-origin-information. Accessed on 8 January 2020.

11. Interview EASO spokesperson December 2019.

12. Eurasil (2003–2010) and CIREA (1992–2002), which also pursued the goal of harmonizing COI.

13. Currently, EASO operates networks on Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Somalia, Syria, Ukraine and West Africa.

14. https://www.easo.europa.eu/article-4. Accessed 8 January 2020.

15. The 2019 EASO COI Report Methodology foresees the possibility to involve ‘external experts’ (EASO 2019, 23). However, this practice remains rather inconsistent, which has been criticized (cf. ARC and DCR 2019).

16. Interview EASO spokesperson February 2019.

17. These include the DCR, NOAS, ACCORD, ARC, Danish Refugee Council, and Asylos.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jasper van der Kist

Jasper van der Kist is a PhD candidate in politics at the University of Manchester. His current research project examines the role of country of origin information (COI) in European asylum systems. He works at the intersection of critical migration studies, socio-legal studies and science and technology studies. His work has been published in International Political Sociology.

Damian Rosset

Damian Rosset is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Criminological Research of the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland (SNSF-funded project #184896 “Intercepting with interpreters”). His research interests include socio-legal studies, the sociology of knowledge, the anthropology of the state, and migration studies.