Paper details

Paper authors	Daniel F. Lorenz
In panel on	States and Humanitarian INGOs: Principles, Politics, and Identities
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

The paper examines the shifting relationships and emerging conflicts between the EU, different member states, humanitarian international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) as well as domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the refugee and migrant crisis 2015/16.
The influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants into Europe overwhelmed the capacities of responsible services in several European countries, resulting in multiple humanitarian and political crises. Responses to these situations in varying European contexts differ significantly due to a great variety of actors with very different principles and their un-intended interplay. While the crisis situation was predominated securitized and “managed” as an issue of border control by some states creating new conflicts among them (Alexander 2017) others as well as the EU Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) responded rather to the resulting political instability and humanitarian needs in Europe with new approaches and instruments (de Radigues/Gammarelli 2016) – re-intensifying other crisis situations, e.g., in Greece. Being confronted with multiple crisis situations (I)NGOs needed to carry out their largest operations in many European countries under the umbrella of international humanitarian aid involving respective practices, standards, and funding which created an unprecedented hybrid situation and so far unknown frictions.

This is a joint paper by Daniel F. Lorenz and Cordula Dittmer

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