Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

This chapter focuses on campaigns and activities against asylum seekers and refugees in the context of an increasingly aggressive right-populism and right-radicalism in Germany. Special attention will be paid to groups that, especially in the wake of the so-called refugee crisis, have attacked shelters for asylum seekers. Compared to other European countries, there have been a high number of such attacks in Germany. An organizationally fragmented but ideologically consistent right-wing movement has driven these xenophobic activities. Furthermore, their arguments have, at least in part, also resonated within sections of the conservative parties and politically non-organized segments of the population. This chapter argues that concepts and tools of social movement research can be especially useful in analyzing and explaining the recent upsurge of xenophobic sentiments and activities that are central to this broader movement.

This chapter investigates anti-migration mobilization, in particular the emergence and success of restrictionist protest activities against the establishment of accommodation centers for asylum seekers in Austria. Based on media reports, official documents, municipal gazettes and protest material, we analyze 113 protest cases in the context of rising asylum applications with the tools of social movement research, focusing on actors, repertoires, frames and outcomes of collective action. Asylum-center protest is characterized as local, small-scale, institutionalized and successful in terms of achieving its main implementation claims. Ideological and material opposition towards ethnic and cultural diversity is expressed in frames of belonging, distribution and democracy. Institutional and discursive opportunities explain the emergence of protest activities, whereas their high rate of success is to be understood by endogenous protest characteristics, in particular the specific protest network, which is dominated by institutional protagonists equipped with powerful political resources.

This chapter summarizes and discusses the key results of this volume. The key objectives of this book have been to analyze forms, sites, and actors of migration-related contestations in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, specifically solidarity protests against deportations, refugee protests for inclusion, and restrictionist protests against the reception of new refugees. In all three countries and in most cases, the emphasis lies on implementing specific deportations and only to a lesser degree on deportation (policies) in general, with similar actors engaging in local struggles against deportations using similar repertoires of protest forms and demands. Along with the similarities, protests nevertheless vary according to particular national and local political opportunity structures, institutional contexts, political cultures, and the degree to which deportees participate in the protests. This chapter identifies four particularly significant effects of the protests: case-specific effects, since many deportations could be prevented; movement-related effects, in terms of a broadening of protest activities; discursive effects, which lead to public awareness about deportations; and finally politicizing effects on the side of protest participants, in which immigration law enforcement, which usually takes place at a remote distance from ‘ordinary citizens,’ becomes personalized, thereby promoting taking sides to the benefit of deportable subjects.