From Accountability Practices to Mechanisms: The Effects of Formalised Social Accountability on Interest Organisations for Asylum Seekers in Norway and Germany

This paper focuses on social (horizontal) accountability in asylum policy, offering a comparative discussion of how recent reforms have influenced the role of interest organisations in Norway and Germany. In our analysis of changes in formal and actual accountability relations, the main focus is set on two central interest organizations: the Norwegian Organisation for Asylum Seekers (NOAS) and the German Pro Asyl. Both countries have recently experienced immigration administration reforms affecting social accountability. NOAS now has a formal role in asylum processes through what might possibly be characterized as integrated organizational participation. Such participation “signifies that organizations have formal rights to influence governmental decisions through routine participation in policy-making bodies” (Olsen 1983: 148). This was made possible by the reform in 2001 introducing an Immigration Appeals Board (IAB), a court-like body dealing with appeals of rejections for asylum by the Norwegian Directorate for Immigration. In the IAB, lay persons appointed on the suggestion of NOAS serve as board members. The lay persons are independent and do not represent NOAS. In Germany, appeals of rejections are handled by administrative courts which do not ascribe a similar formal role to interest organizations. However, due to the immigration law of 2005, hardship commissions were established in all federal states with a right to recommend that individual immigrants should be granted a residence permit. The composition of these hardship commissions differs, with ProAsyl being represented in North Rhine-Westphalia. Thus, the main research question of this paper is what effects the particular institutional framework of newly formalized social accountability has on interest organisations in the two countries, notably NOAS and ProAsyl. We also discuss why reforms in formal accountability relations occur, and explain why the observed differences between the two countries arise. Our analysis is supported by interviews and policy documents.