The European Refugee Crisis: What Is It a Crisis Of?

Hoesch, Matthias

Abstract

This chapter investigates what the term “European Refugee Crisis” could reasonably mean. It starts with a conceptual analysis showing that the term is underdetermined in that it does not specify which object is in crisis. Thus, different understandings of the term can be distinguished, each of which sees one particular object as the object in crisis. The chapter critically discusses proposals for understanding the “refugee crisis”, for instance, as a crisis of refugees or as a crisis of European societies caused by refugees. It concludes that an appropriate understanding must conceive of the “European Refugee Crisis” as a crisis of the European asylum system. Finally, the chapter examines what this understanding implies for the question of how norms and values are related to the crisis.