Decoupling and Teaming Up: the Role of Transnational Refugee City Networks in Refugee Reception and Integration in Europe

Transnational Refugee City Networks are an important and often-overlooked set of actors in the multi-level governance of forced migration in Europe today. These networks connect cities across borders (horizontally) and with European and international organizations (vertically). Given the lack of literature on these networks this paper, a database of 25 of such networks based in Europe forms a basis for a description of the main characteristics of these networks and their functioning. It argues that a key function of these networks lies in the diffusion of norms pertaining to refugee reception and integration that differ from those of the state, for instance via emphasizing the relevance of human rights. TRCNs can play a role in enforcing alternative normative frameworks, translating global norms to the local level but also in the formulation of new norms and ways of monitoring them. In teaming up across borders and with supranational actors, cities in TRCNs are thus supported in ‘decoupling’ local policies pertaining to forced migration from – more restrictive – national policies in order to strengthen the normative basis for refugee reception and integration.