Brick-by-Brick Integration: The Effect of Multi-Level Governance on Refugee Housing and Integration in Germany

After Chancellor Angela Merkel opened Germany’s borders in 2015 in the ‘Great Summer of Migration’, many cities were left utilising ad-hoc policy interventions and housing infrastructure that was unprepared for the level of incoming asylum-seekers. Berlin in particular experienced a significant collapse of its policy governance around asylum housing and integration benefits, leading the city government to an unprecedented direct policy partnership with consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Leverkusen, which had an existing model of refugee housing policy since 2002, utilised the institutional framework of its eponymous Leverkusen Model to expand its features and adapt the city’s response accordingly.

Housing, however, is a contentious subject around German cities because housing shortages have affected German cities for the past two to three decades since cities across the country sold off their municipal housing companies to private owners in order to compensate for budgetary shortfalls amid economic pullback. Housing thus became a focal point not just for refugee integration, but as a policy over which cities must regain some control.

This thesis contributes to a growing field of study on refugee housing, urban integration, and policy governance, centred on the refugee experience by being one of the first, if not the first comparative research of refugee housing policy utilising multi-level governance as a framework, as well as the first to study the Leverkusen Model in depth. It does so conceptually and empirically by exploring complexities around policy governance and implementation, as well as subjective experiences of housing and integration processes for refugees. Conceptually, this thesis draws from Multi-Level Governance and Integration theory literature and engages with concepts of collaborative governance, public-private partnerships, policy implementation, policy learning, interculturalism, civil society engagement and housing as an object of theorising. Empirically, this thesis provides a detailed account of refugee housing and integration policies in Berlin and Leverkusen, supported by in-depth interviews with government employees, NGO workers, and Syrian refugees. This culminates in the creation of an original theoretical framework for refugee housing policy, the first of its kind.