The State Interest and International Norm Dialectic: A Cross-National Empirical Analysis of the Advent of an Opportunistic Humanitarian Protections Regime for Refuge Seekers
| Project/Area Number |
19K13640
|
|---|
| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
|
| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
|---|
| Review Section |
Basic Section 06020:International relations-related
|
|---|
| Research Institution | Sophia University |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
細木 一十稔ラルフ 上智大学, 総合人間科学部, 助教 (00820557)
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
2019-04-01 – 2025-03-31
|
| Project Status |
Granted (Fiscal Year 2023)
|
| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,340,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥540,000)
Fiscal Year 2021: ¥390,000 (Direct Cost: ¥300,000、Indirect Cost: ¥90,000)
Fiscal Year 2020: ¥780,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥180,000)
Fiscal Year 2019: ¥1,170,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥270,000)
|
|---|
| Keywords | rights / humanitarian protections / asylum seekers / refuge / international norms / cross-national analysis / OECD / desert / asylum policy / norms / Europe / comparative research / refugees |
|---|
| Outline of Research at the Start |
This study 1) marries the theoretical contributions of sociology and international relations, and 2) using a cross-national dataset and comparative methods, 3) empirically examines the mechanisms through which state interests and international normative pressures interact to shape the recent policy developments in many OECD countries that involve offering “pseudo” refugee protections (instead of formal refugee recognition) that allow states to dictate the conditions for protections while satisfying global obligations to protect the vulnerable.
|
| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The pandemic and the health risks it posed inevitably altered the course of this project in its early stages. The main thrust of the project has remained unchanged, but portions of the initially planned data collection/analysis methods framework needed adjustments from one that relied heavily on on-site interview/archival data collection/analysis, to one that espouses the use of secondary/quantitative data collection/analysis and theoretical elaboration. These adjustments necessitated an extension to the project’s initially proposed duration.
Significant progress was made over the last year, putting the project on track for completion by the end of fiscal year 2024: 1) On July 3, I presented my research at the 2023 IMISCOE Conference and received helpful comments. 2) To further solidify the theoretical underpinnings of this project’s analysis, in 2022, I embarked on research for a paper that a) highlighted the theoretical purchase of sociological neoinstitutionalism and the World Society Theory perspective for global-comparative research; and b) reviewed and analyzed the usage and content of these perspectives within Japanese sociology over time. This paper was published in the Japanese Journal of Sociology in January of 2024. 3) The Immigration Policies in Comparison (IMPIC) Project’s (funded by the WZB Berlin Social Science Center; PI: Marc Helbling) second wave dataset to which I contributed Japanese immigration/refugee policy data, became available in March 2024. This allows for the use of updated secondary data in this project’s final analysis.
|
| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
As mentioned above, due to the personal health risks and constraints imposed by the pandemic, data collection and method of analysis necessitated adjustments - hence the need to extend the project’s duration. Significant progress was made over the last year, and the project is progressing on schedule for completion by the end of fiscal year 2024.
|
| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In this project’s final year, I will use the second wave IMPIC data and insights from sociological neoinstitutionalism and World Society Theory to 1) analyze how state interests and global normative logics interact in shaping cross-national variance in humanitarian protections for refuge seekers; and 2) prepare a journal article manuscript explicating my findings.
In this project’s ongoing analysis, globally institutionalized cultural factors such as international human rights norms (tentatively) do seem to partially explain cross-national variance in humanitarian protections for refuge seekers. But when considering how and why such global normative logics might matter in the way that they do, the explanation is less clear and inconsistent across disciplines and theoretical perspectives, suggesting an area that warrants further inquiry.
For example, do international human rights norms matter because the spirit of such norms is rooted in a global-historical cultural/value system that is deeply institutionalized in today’s modern world; do they matter because norm entrepreneurs manage to effectively mobilize and frame their legitimacy; do they matter because of broader socially-constructed understandings of deservingness that are rooted in logics of (for example) luck egalitarianism; or do they matter due to a combination of the above - or yet another reason? As I wrap up this project this year, I would also like to brainstorm ways to further unpack this empirical inquiry and theoretical exploration in future research.
|
Report
(5 results)
Research Products
(10 results)
