Creating legitimacy in migration and asylum processes: The gender perspective

In 2015 alone Europe received more than 1.3 million asylum claims. This surge has put questions about immigration on top of the political agenda and at the center of the public debate. Recent years have also seen a feminization in migration flows, with a rising share of female asylum applicants. Against this backdrop, this project aims at exploring the foundations for the legitimacy of migration policy from a gender perspective. Based on theories on the importance of inclusive representation in decision-making bodies we aim to test how the representation of women and minorities in these bodies affect how the public views the legitimacy of immigration policies and asylum decisions. We will test several important research questions related to this using experimental research designs in the Swedish context.