Transferring Asylum Norms to EU Neighbours

This book analyses how international and non-governmental organisations have transferred international asylum norms to Ukraine despite the country’s low number of asylum seekers over the last 30 years. Various actors, local and international, state and non-state, participate in multi-scalar transfer, which involves translating, spreading, and sometimes resisting the norms. Analysing the support of and subtle forms of resistance to the legislative adoption of international norms in Ukraine’s Parliament, this research shows that adoption is shaped largely by domestic politicians’ pursuit of recognition and conditionality of international organisations such as the European Union and the Council of Europe. Non-state actors seek to influence administrative practices by adapting to resistance and structural obstacles, using top-down and horizontal confrontational and conciliatory, formal and informal approaches, often relying on personal contacts. While norm promoters try to formalise changes, the effects of the transfer attempts on state practices remain heterogeneous and unstable across actors, space, and time.

Irina Mützelburg is Researcher at the Centre for East European and International Studies in Berlin, Germany. Her research interests include NGO-donor relations, administrative practices, and migration and education policies in Ukraine. She has taught, among others, at the Humboldt University, Germany, the European University Viadrina, Germany, and Sciences Po, France.