Organising for Exclusion? Making sense of asylum policy in the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom

‘Organising for exclusion?’ is a comparative study of the response of the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom to asylum seekers within the context of their relationship to each other and their membership of the European Union (EU). Through documents which cover the period from 1990 to June 2017, together with interviews with actors directly engaged in making or seeking to influence asylum policy in both states, this thesis challenges the view of the state as impotent, faced with waves of people seeking to cross its borders that the state is unable to control. It questions this narrative from the viewpoint of those responsible for the asylum policies in both states and argues that Ireland and the UK have achieved their objectives, by reducing the numbers of asylum seekers and, critically, the state’s obligations towards those in need of international protection. It argues that, in so doing, Irish and UK policy makers have created policy that has sidestepped the state’s legal and moral obligations to refugees, whilst presenting the image of being willing hosts to the ‘most vulnerable’.
‘Organising for exclusion?’ draws upon theories of immigration and refugees, of the state and state traditions and of regional governance in the form of the EU. It applies historical institutionalism and situated agency to the empirical material and uses sensemaking to identify the ways in which actors created or understood the framework set for them and the actions that this led to. The study focuses on the governance of asylum and the role of the state in the creation of the ‘asylum seeker’ as it is seen through the reflections and actions of those responsible for asylum policy.