The State Administration Database

Askim, Jostein; Steen, Anton (2020):

Trading Refugees: The Governance of Refugee Settlement in a Decentralized Welfare State

Wiley

Please note: This page may contain data in Norwegian that is not translated to English.

Type of publication:

Tidsskriftsartikkel

Link to publication:

https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9477.12158

Link to review:

https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9477.12158

Comment:

Scandinavian Political Studies. 2020, 43 (1), 24-45

Number of pages:

22

ISSN:

0080-6757

Language of publication:

Engelsk

Country of publication:

Norge

NSD-reference:

4729

This page was last updated:

20/9 2021

State units related to this publication:

Summary:

In a decentralized welfare state, central and local governments need each other to settle refugees. Using the case of Norway, the article studies how these interdependencies have been governed over time, including through the 2015–2016 refugee crisis. Norway's refugee settlement programme is a conscious hybrid of market and network governance and it has remained essentially stable for more than 20 years, despite several changes in government, large fluctuations in the number of refugees, and long periods of poor performance vis‐à‐vis settlement targets. This surprising programme stability is explained by a combination of extraordinary political adherence to the democratic value of local government autonomy, the cupidity of local governments, and abundant state economic resources during the period under study.