Protests Revisited: Political Configurations, Political Culture and Protest Impact

Abstract

This chapter summarizes and discusses the key results of this volume. The key objectives of this book have been to analyze forms, sites, and actors of migration-related contestations in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, specifically solidarity protests against deportations, refugee protests for inclusion, and restrictionist protests against the reception of new refugees. In all three countries and in most cases, the emphasis lies on implementing specific deportations and only to a lesser degree on deportation (policies) in general, with similar actors engaging in local struggles against deportations using similar repertoires of protest forms and demands. Along with the similarities, protests nevertheless vary according to particular national and local political opportunity structures, institutional contexts, political cultures, and the degree to which deportees participate in the protests. This chapter identifies four particularly significant effects of the protests: case-specific effects, since many deportations could be prevented; movement-related effects, in terms of a broadening of protest activities; discursive effects, which lead to public awareness about deportations; and finally politicizing effects on the side of protest participants, in which immigration law enforcement, which usually takes place at a remote distance from ‘ordinary citizens,’ becomes personalized, thereby promoting taking sides to the benefit of deportable subjects.