International law or national identity? How the German and Polish governments framed whether to accept Syrian and Ukrainian refugees

Over the last decade, the EU has been a destination of two of the largest refugee movements worldwide. Following the eruption of the Syrian civil war and other conflicts in the Middle East and Northern Africa, the EU received approximately 2.4 million asylum applications between 2015 and 2016. Then, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU hosts around 3.8 million Ukrainians registering for temporary protection as of early 2023.

While Germany currently hosts the largest number of both Syrian and Ukrainian refugees in the EU, Poland hosts the second largest number of Ukrainian refugees but refused to take in Syrian refugees. Their different responses make Germany and Poland excellent cases to study how countries differentiate between refugee groups of different origins. In our study, we found that this has to do with the way national governments frame the national identity of their own country as well as the characteristics of the refugees.

Who are we? Who are they? Analysing political actors’ stances toward refugees

To answer our question, we analyzed government statements and debates in the German and Polish parliaments. We focused on debates on the admission of Syrian refugees in 2015-2016 and of Ukrainian refugees in 2022. To analyze these debates, we used a novel schema of interpretation developed as part of a cross-national comparative analysis of political debates on the admission of refugees in six countries.

Admitting refugees implies opening the borders of the state to people who have previously not belonged to a society and claim to need protection. Consequently, we argue that two dimensions are key to understand political actors’ stance on the admission of refugees:

1. Who are we? – their definition of the identity and characteristics of the host nation, and
2. Who are they? – their definition of the identity and characteristics of the refugees.

We identified six frames that are typically used to define the ‘we’ and the refugees: they can be framed in economic, cultural, moral or legal terms, in terms of security risks or from the perspective of international relations.

The framing of the Polish government

The right-wing Polish Law and Justice government employed mostly communitarian frames – emphasizing national sovereignty and cultural homogeneity – resulting in a preference for Ukrainian over Syrian refugees.

Read the full blog post here.