The Determinants of European Cooperation on Forced Migration: an analysis of the European Union's Emergency Relocation Scheme (2015-2017)

What are the determinants of European cooperation on the issue of forced migration? What conditions explain the cooperation of the European Union (EU) Member States in policies relating to the reception of asylum seekers and refugees? The main purpose of the paper is to answer these questions based on the empirical data regarding compliance with the mandatory quotas of the EU’s Emergency Relocation Scheme of asylum seekers (2015-2017) and using the research technique known as Fuzzy Set Comparative Qualitative Analysis (QCA). The paper considers, based on the theoretical framework debated, three causal conditions to analyze whether cooperation occurred: a) the political-ideological orientation of national parties; (b) public opinion regarding the reception of forced migrants; and (c) the previous number of asylum seekers and refugees already in the national territory. It only considers conditions endogenous to the State, as it understands that they are decisive inputs in the European integration process, in accordance with the new intergovernmentalism approach. The sample includes 24 Member States of the European Union, except for Greece and Italy, beneficiaries of the Scheme, and Denmark and the United Kingdom, which are opt-outs of cooperation in policies concerning Justice and Home Affairs. The finding of the qualitative comparative analysis indicates that the combination of a favorable public opinion to the reception of refugees and a previous number of forced migrants is a sufficient condition for cooperation in EU asylum policies by the Member States. Having a left-wing party in government, however, cannot be considered a necessary condition, nor a sufficient one.