School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
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ItemResponsibility, Refugees, and Crisis: An Analysis of the German Government’s Response to the 2015-2016 Asylum Governance Crisis( 2022)This thesis examines how the German government responded to the arrival of asylum seekers in 2015 and 2016, focusing on changes in German asylum policy as the result of a profound reconsideration of state responsibilities. The administrative, political, and social pressures associated with the arrival of 1.2 million asylum seekers created a crisis of governance for the German government. This “asylum governance crisis” challenged the German government’s management of asylum and forced displacement. In response to these pressures, the German government introduced a combination of expansive and restrictive changes to asylum legislation. By developing a typology of state responsibilities and associated state obligations in asylum governance, the thesis analyses how shifts in the German government’s management of tensions among responsibilities shaped German asylum governance. The thesis compares responsibilities and related obligations underlying German asylum governance in the pre-crisis (1945-2014) and crisis-response (2015-2018) periods to identify how state responsibilities shaped asylum legislative innovation and redesign. The thesis finds that the German government’s management of tensions among state responsibilities altered policy goals and delineated the boundaries of policy instrument development in responding to the crisis. The government sought to achieve an equilibrium among a number of often overlapping and often competing policy options using a logic of deservingness and a utilitarian rationale, which ultimately shaped asylum governance. The thesis contributes to the asylum governance literature by developing an innovative framework for analysing policy change through the lens of responsibility. Furthermore, the findings of this thesis are significant because they demonstrate how strategies and instruments of governance are used to navigate among the many responsibilities in asylum governance. Such insights are useful for understanding how states might respond to asylum governance crises in the future.
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ItemThe Challenges to Reforming the Dublin System: A Critical Assessment of the Institutional Constraints on EU Asylum Policy-Making( 2020)The EU’s current system for distributing responsibility for asylum seekers, known as the Dublin Regulation, has failed to fulfil its core objectives of preventing secondary movement and ensuring swift and equal access to protection procedures for all asylum seekers. The system has had a harmful effect on refugee protection and human rights in EU member states. The system has also been widely denounced for unfairly disadvantaging frontline member states by concentrating the ‘burden of responsibility’ on countries that are geographically located as countries of first entry. Despite its problematic operation, relatively few studies have examined why the Dublin system has been maintained. This thesis seeks to explain why EU policy-makers continue to maintain the core responsibility principles of the Dublin system. Further it examines what have been the main impediments to pursuing policy change. The thesis investigates the factors contributing to policy continuity regarding the Dublin system by tracing the decision-making process across three negotiating periods (2001-2003; 2008-2012; 2016-). The thesis conceptualises the Dublin system’s history of policy failure as a case of institutional failure. It argues that the Commission, the Parliament and the Council failed to agree to durable solutions at key points of re-negotiation. This thesis argues that the institutional context within which decision-making takes place has shaped policy outcomes by constraining actor behaviour and strategies during the policy-making process. Institutionalist explanations of policy continuity regarding the Dublin system have been relatively under-explored in comparison with preference-based and rational choices approaches (Armstrong 2016; Thielemann and Armstrong 2013; Mouzourakis 2014; Bosso 2016). The thesis focuses on two features of the EU institutional context that acted as drivers and impediments to reform: the formal distribution of power and resources among the policy actors; and the inter-institutional norms, procedures and customary practices that structure the decision-making process. A major finding of this thesis is that decision-making regarding the Dublin system continues to be characterised by a culture of intergovernmentalism, which has privileged national governments and their interest in the policy process. This has prompted the Commission, Parliament and successive Council Presidencies to adopt pragmatic approaches to reform aimed primarily at accommodating the various national interests. As a result, the re-negotiations have been characterised by continuity regarding the responsibility principles of the Dublin system
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ItemFrom conflict to cooperation: the transformation of Australian foreign policy towards the European Union( 2017)Given the emphasis placed on the US alliance and engagement with the Asia-Pacific region, Australian foreign policy can appear restricted in its focus. Australia’s approach to relations with the European Union (EU) reflects this situation, as they attracted limited attention and were centred on a number of bilateral disputes up until the early 1990s. This thesis, which examines the period up until the announcement of the opening of free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations in 2017, argues, however, that Australia over the past two decades has forged an increasingly close relationship with the EU. This development has involved an emphasis on substantive cooperation in areas such as foreign and security policy, aid delivery, economic and trade matters, and climate change. Two case studies, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Eurozone crisis, are used to demonstrate the transformation of Australian perceptions of the EU. This has seen the EU transitions from an actor behaving in a manner contrary to Australian interests to now being a politico-economic ally. These case studies also demonstrate how Australia’s past emphasis on bilateral disputes has been largely overcome with the signing of substantive bilateral agreements predicated on shared interests.
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ItemPromoting values in the European Union’s free trade agreements: institutional competition in negotiations with Canada and Singapore( 2016)This thesis explores how competition among EU institutions shapes the promotion of its values-based foreign policy interests through trade negotiations. It argues that the EU’s human rights and sustainable development values are in tension with commercial interests in trade policy. These tensions are explored through an analysis of decision-making processes among EU institutions during FTA negotiations with Canada and Singapore. Throughout decision-making in these negotiations, institutional competition has diminished the EU’s coherence in advancing values-based foreign policy interests.
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ItemFederal governance in the European Union( 2007)Since the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1951, the European Union has emerged from a limited economic confederation to a supranational federal polity. There is, however, little work based in federal theory that seeks to understand the European Union as a federation nor the process by which that was achieved. Federal theory gives us two means of understanding federal government – federalism as techne and as telos. Federalism as techne informs us of the institutions and structures involved in federal governance. Federalism as telos provides the ideas, norms and values of federalism. Thus it is possible to speak of the federal idea (telos) and the institutions that embody it (techne).The process of federalisation of the European Union has seen the separation of these strands. Federal ideas do not necessarily lead to federal governance regimes; federal governance outcomes are not necessarily based on federal ideas. The European Union has adopted, over time, federal governance structures due to pragmatic concerns with institutional efficiency, bargain implementation, defection from agreement, and the equality of member states. The institutions created by the member states have themselves contributed to the federalisation process. Rarely has the federalisation process moved forward due to a belief in the value of federation itself.
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ItemA critical analysis of the European Union as an international environmental leader: opportunities, limitations and the quest for legitimacy( 2007)The ability of states to tackle global environmental problems, and to manage the natural resources within their territories sustainably, is severely hampered by the imperative of international competitiveness and the perceived trade-off between that and environmental protection. To alleviate that trade-off the international community of states has turned to ‘collective action’ as the most appropriate means available. Despite a myriad of promising domestic and multilateral initiatives, tangible outcomes to date have been very limited. It is under these circumstances that the role of an international environmental leader becomes essential. Following fifty years of intense political and economic integration the European Union (EU) has emerged as an actor in international affairs in its own right, and as an international environmental leader. In the wake of the United States' withdrawal from environmental multilateralism, the EU's leadership in international environmental politics is all the more important. The focus of this study has been to critically assess the EU's environmental leadership, both in terms of how it has emerged as a leader, and what limitations might prevent it from enjoying greater leadership in the future. The study examines the political, economic, legal and institutional dynamics within the EU that have enabled the EU's leadership, as well as developments internationally that have encouraged the leadership of a supranational entity in international politics. Drawing on a conceptual framework which identifies three types of leadership, with varying degrees of sustainability, the study analyses the EU's engagement in international fora and its chosen methods of leadership. The study focuses particularly on the limitations on the EU to demonstrate ‘leadership through exemplary action’. The hypothesis of this research is that the EU's distinctive governance arrangements and unique position as a supranational entity have encouraged the development of progressive environmental policy domestically, which has consequently led to its leadership in international environmental politics. However, the use of unsustainable modes of leadership (particularly ‘leadership through material inducements’) to gain compliance from other actors is not sustainable in the long term, and its significant implementation deficit undermines its credibility as a leader.