Far Right Politics and the Shaping of Migration Policy: Austria and Germany’s Divergence

This paper examines the underlying explanatory factors in Germany and Austria’s disparate reactions to the migrant crisis in Europe. Although the EU has established the parameters for dealing with migration and the refugee crisis, Germany has circumvented European Union law in order to accept more refugees, whereas Austria has made efforts to accept as few asylum seekers as possible. Despite the two country’s apparently similar demographics and economies, each has circumvented EU law in order to pursue one of the most accepting and one of the most hostile asylum policies in Europe. Germany has welcomed migrants and ignored the Dublin Agreement in order to accept more refugees, without requiring processing at their country of entry. On the other hand, Austria has made efforts to accept as few asylum seekers as possible, going so far as to reintroduce border controls in the border-free Schengen Area, placing the burden of refugees on other countries. Although the economic impact of Germany’s aging and declining population is often used to explain its openness to refugees, this does not explain why Austria, facing the same demographic realities, has been so loath to accept migrants. Instead, this paper posits that differences in the influence of radical right-wing populism in the two countries, informed by divergent denazification processes and past immigration trends, provides the basis for understanding Germany and Austria’s dichotomous asylum policies.