Department of Political Science and Public Administration

Doctoral Dissertation in progress

«New Intergovernmentalism and European Integration: A Study in Migration and Refugee Crises, 2012-2022»

Commencement date: January 16, 2024

Executive Summary / Abstract

This research will mainly focus on examining and identifying the connections between the European integration theory of new intergovernmentalism and the management of the Migration and Refugee Crises by the EU during the decade of 2012-2022. The starting point of my study will be the analysis of the European integration theories, specifically the state-centric models and the new intergovernmentalism theory that has emerged in the past 15 years, with a clear emphasis on new intergovernmentalism’s six pillars or hypotheses that form the theory’s base, in order to advance and elaborate the norms derived from the theory, and then further assess the unfolding events, the reform of asylum policies and the decisions made by the EU in regards to the management of the massive refugee influx and Migration crises, both after the Eurozone Crisis in 2012-2016 and then the migration crisis that followed the Russian aggression in Ukraine and the explosion of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2022. The end goal is to test the relationship between new intergovernmentalism and the EU crisis management process, confirm or reject new intergovernmentalism’s core pillars and potentially propose new norms to expand the theory. The study intends to gather data and relevant information surrounding the new intergovernmentalism theory and the crisis management processes that occurred in the Migration and Refugee Crises during 2012 and 2022, produce original presentations and analyses of the above crises and, particularly for the recent events in the Russian-Ukrainian War, fill in the gaps and create the missing pieces to construct the complete puzzle of the Refugee Crisis analysis and its relationship with new intergovernmentalism. The importance of this research lies not only in its originality but also in the potential crucial advancement of the European Integration Theory and deep-dive analysis of one of the biggest humanitarian and political crises that the EU has faced after its establishment.

Keywords: new intergovernmentalism, Migration and Refugee Crisis, Russian-Ukrainian War 2022, European Integration Theory, Migration, Refugee Crises