Contested Hospitality: Comparing local Dynamics of migration-related Protest before, during and after the “Summer of Migration” 2015 in Germany

Ample research documents an intense politicization of the issue of (forced) migration in recent years. For Germany, it has been argued that conflicts have sharpened in the course of the rapid increase of asylum applications from 2015 onwards. Yet, empirical evidence focuses on large protest events or migration-related protest dynamics at the national level. The local level of contention around migration has so far rarely been systematically assessed, and hence, comparisons of migration-related protests across different localities and over time within Germany are still missing. This gap is remarkable since life worlds in general and protest activity, in particular, are strongly influenced by everyday experiences and practices in the immediate spatial environment, where individuals are socialized into groups, embedded in social networks, develop identities and perceive social reality. Against this background, we present evidence on patterns of migration-related protest in two middle-sized German towns between 2014 and 2018. We explore the dynamics of migration-related protest over time, including the salience of migration in comparison to other issues of social conflict, the dynamics of protest pro and against migration, as well as the interaction patterns of the actors involved. We begin with a temporal analysis of 582 protest events identified in local newspaper sources. Empirical evidence suggests latency periods before and after a period of visible mobilization activity around the “summer of migration” in 2015 – yet with marked differences between the two cities when it comes to the differentiation of pro and anti-migrant protest activity. From a perspective conceptualizing collective action as (civil society) networks, we thus ask how this cycle of contention is related to the structures of interaction among actors in each city. To do so, we collected the digital public communication (around 76,000 homepage posts, Facebook posts, and Tweets) of those actors who were involved in migration-related protests between 2014 and 2018 in each city. With that, we assume that digital platforms are essential tools of (interorganizational) political communication that render interaction patterns and thus social structure visible. We employ a comparative social network analysis based on these actors’ interactions in the periods before, during, and after visible mobilization activity (N = 877 references). This mixed-methods approach allows us to assess not only if and how the “summer of migration” 2015 has affected local conflict dynamics, but also if this supposed “critical juncture” in recent German history has lastingly modified the relational patterns of civil society in these two localities.