Refugees Welcome? Reforms of German Asylum Policies Between 2013 and 2017 and Germany’s Transformation into an Immigration Country

Abstract

This article focuses on the asylum policies of the third government of Angela Merkel, which was in power from 2013 to 2017. Chancellor Merkel's decision in the autumn of 2015 to open German borders for a large number of refugees received worldwide attention and can undoubtedly be viewed as a bold and humanitarian decision. However, this article argues that Merkel's choice was also part of an ongoing transformation of Germany into a modern immigration country. Using the concept of a spillover effect as its theoretical lens, the article shows that the asylum policies of the third Merkel government were heavily influenced by former decisions in the fields of integration and labour migration. Together, these represented a liberal re-orientation of German immigration policies. Part of this process was a diffusion of guiding principles, key terms, policy instruments and political activities between the various subfields of German immigration policies. As a result, and despite ongoing restrictive tendencies, Germany has changed from a self-declared non-immigration country into an official immigration country that welcomes certain groups of immigrants.