Comprehensive Relational Model for the Study of Local Responses to the Arrival and Settlement of Forced Migrants

In the last decade a large amount of research on the divergence/congruence between local approaches to migration governance has been produced. However, the theoretical approaches that have been proposed for the study of this phenomenon have significant ontological and methodological limitations. As a result, a model that takes into account the causal capacity of all relevant explanatory factors is still lacking. The present paper aims at partially filling this gap, by proposing a holistic relational model to studying local approaches to reception and integration of refugees and asylum seekers. Departing from constructivist ontological assumptions, I propose a theoretical model that incorporates institutional opportunity structure (legal and policy framework, political actors, etc.), non-institutional opportunity structure (including relevant agents - civil society organizations, private sector actors, etc., and contextual factors – available funds, labor and housing market conditions, etc.) and discursive opportunity structure (identities and imaginaries, public discourse, etc.). Employing a process-tracing technique and undertaking a detailed analysis of both vertical and horizontal linkages/modes of interaction between these factors in a multi-level governance context, can reveal how local approaches to governing reception and integration are shaped.