Summary (English)

The percentage of asylum-seekers awarded refugee or humanitarian status varies considerably across destination countries. It is improbable that the variance can be explained simply by the merit of each asylum-seeker’s claim. A broad range of factors that have the potential to influence recognition rates are investigated in this study. These include: the conditions in the countries of origin; the destination countries’ asylum-burden, political ideology, openness to outsiders, diplomatic relationships, economic conditions, need for population replacement, the ten year average refugee recognition rate, domestic refugee legislation and administrative considerations. The findings suggest that conditions in the origin countries known to produce refugee outflows influence the way in which destination countries allocate protection to asylum-seekers. However, the amount of protection provided by destination countries is found to be impervious to refugee-generating conditions in origin countries. It will be suggested that the supply of protection is pegged at a level deemed acceptable to the destination country, with fluctuations occurring as a result of a change in domestic factors such as increasing asylum applications and growing numbers of foreigners.