External borders and internal freedoms: how the refugee crisis shaped the bordering preferences of European citizens

Abstract

The idea that internal inclusion requires external exclusion features prominently in many theoretical accounts of modern statehood and citizenship. In a similar vein, it has been argued that internal freedom of movement in the European Union requires strict immigration control at its external borders. This article sheds light on the relationship between internal de-bordering and external re-bordering, making two main contributions. First, we theorise the idea of an integration-demarcation conditionality based on the European Union's symbolic legitimacy and functional needs. Second, we test the common belief that public support for free movement within Europe depends on a restrictive border regime for non-European immigration. For this purpose, we assess how the external shock of the 2015 refugee crisis shaped the bordering preferences of European citizens. We find that the crisis primarily increased citizens' support for external re-bordering, and did not substantially undermine their support for internal free movement. Thus, the large-scale arrival of refugees has not led to a general backlash against open borders and immigration but has, rather, increased public support for the European model of combining internal freedoms with external controls.

Rebordering Europe: external boundaries and integration in the European Union

“…Genschel and Jachtenfuchs observe a similar sequence of internal and external rebordering of the movement of persons in the Corona crisis, but also an internal debordering of solidarity that failed to materialize in the migration crisis. At the level of citizens, Lutz and Karstens (2021) find that the migration shock of 2015 strengthened preferences for external rebordering without undermining support for internal debordering, thus generating public support for effective integration. Whereas populist parties generally share an anti-immigration agenda, Henke and Maher (2021) do not find a consistent and distinctive pattern for their positions on European defence integration.…”

“…The contributions to this collection do not represent a selection of comparative cases designed to test the analytical framework, but explore a variety of EU bordering issues, actors and processes at different levels: the migration (Kriesi et al, 2021) and Corona pandemic crises (Genschel & Jachtenfuchs, 2021), the preferences of EU citizens in response to the migration crisis (Lutz & Karstens, 2021) and of populist parties on EU defence policy (Henke & Maher 2021), parliamentary discourses on enlargement (Bélanger & Schimmelfennig, 2021), EU regulatory agencies (Lavenex et al, 2021), and EU collective action on defence, migration and the neighbourhood policy (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, 2021).…”

Opting for opt-outs? - National identities and support for a differentiated EU

“…A large literature investigates the individual-level drivers of support for European integration (see Basile and Olmastroni 2020;Gabel 1998;Gabel and Palmer 1995;Hobolt and Wratil 2015;Hooghe and Marks 2005;Karstens 2020a;Lutz and Karstens 2021 for examples). Broadly speaking, this literature distinguishes three mechanisms through which support or opposition to EU integration is formed.…”

Opting for opt outs? - Untangling the role of identity in shaping support for differentiated integration

“…A large literature (Basile and Olmastroni, 2020;Gabel, 1998;Gabel and Palmer, 1995;Hobolt and Wratil, 2015;Hooghe and Marks, 2005;Inglehart and Rabier, 1978;Karstens, 2020;Lutz and Karstens, 2021) investigates support for uniform European integration and the utilitarian and identarian foundations of such support.…”