Admir Skodo
Independent Researcher, Broader Migration Consulting, Department Member
A Guide to the Anomalous Position of Palestinians in the Modern Refugee Regime
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Without mass immigration Europe risks becoming a continent without people
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This report explores the fundamentally multistakeholder nature of resettlement systems and the importance of robust coordination at all stages of the resettlement process. The analysis draws on interviews with local, regional, national,... more
This report explores the fundamentally multistakeholder nature of resettlement systems and the importance of robust coordination at all stages of the resettlement process. The analysis draws on
interviews with local, regional, national, and international resettlement stakeholders, primarily in Argentina, Finland, Germany, Spain, and Sweden (countries that represent a mix of long-standing and newer resettlement players and that have programmes with different features), as well as findings from a related, forthcoming Migration Policy Institute study on resettlement partnerships in the United States. The present report begins with an overview of how different countries make decisions about the design and operation of their resettlement programmes, including which stakeholders and factors shape these decisions. It then examines what coordination mechanisms exist—or could be created—to organise the work of the many actors involved in these systems. The report concludes with recommendations for improving coordination between resettlement stakeholders in ways that would benefit both refugees and the communities in which they settle.
interviews with local, regional, national, and international resettlement stakeholders, primarily in Argentina, Finland, Germany, Spain, and Sweden (countries that represent a mix of long-standing and newer resettlement players and that have programmes with different features), as well as findings from a related, forthcoming Migration Policy Institute study on resettlement partnerships in the United States. The present report begins with an overview of how different countries make decisions about the design and operation of their resettlement programmes, including which stakeholders and factors shape these decisions. It then examines what coordination mechanisms exist—or could be created—to organise the work of the many actors involved in these systems. The report concludes with recommendations for improving coordination between resettlement stakeholders in ways that would benefit both refugees and the communities in which they settle.
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Fredssamtal pågår sedan förra året mellan USA och talibanerna om en lösning på den långa, blodiga konflikten i Afghanistan. Om parterna lyckas komma överens kan det betyda att talibanerna kan återkomma till makten – ett scenario som... more
Fredssamtal pågår sedan förra året mellan USA och talibanerna om en lösning på den långa, blodiga konflikten i Afghanistan. Om parterna lyckas komma överens kan det betyda att talibanerna kan återkomma till makten – ett scenario som särskilt oroar kvinnor och hazarer i landet.
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Drawing on unique sources from the Swedish Migration Agency Archive, this article examines how Afghan asylum seekers and refugees fared in their encounter with Swedish internal and external controls of people seeking protection from... more
Drawing on unique sources from the Swedish Migration Agency Archive, this article examines how Afghan asylum seekers and refugees fared in their encounter with Swedish internal and external controls of people seeking protection from persecution during the Cold War. Within a theoretical framework that draws on the concept of statist logic, the history of refugeehood, interactionist sociology and critical legal studies, two key findings are presented and discussed. First, Afghan refugees and asylum seekers encountered multidirectional restrictive control measures despite Sweden’s strong support of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, and despite the low numbers of Afghan asylum applicants in Sweden. Second, a focus on how immigration controls affected one specific national group reveals a broader pattern of how internal and external controls of asylum seekers in the 1980s, under the aegis of the Swedish state, were distributed between state, non-state and international organizations. The article provides a critical history that sheds new light on the situation following the ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015–16, when over 40,000 Afghan asylum seekers entered Sweden. In doing so, the article ties in to a burgeoning development within refugee studies that seeks to include a historical perspective, since such an inclusion is necessary to identify continuities and changes that remain highly relevant for understanding, assessing and offering real alternatives to today’s dominant approaches to refugee governance, policy, experiences, social and political practices and discourses.
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The changes to Swedish asylum law since 2015 are dramatic, to be sure, but they have a historical context and are part of a complex set of migration policies. This country profile begins with an overview of historical and contemporary... more
The changes to Swedish asylum law since 2015 are dramatic, to be sure, but they have a historical context and are part of a complex set of migration policies. This country profile begins with an overview of historical and contemporary migration trends and debates, and then discusses two of the most vital migration policy areas today: asylum policy following the refugee crisis of 2015-16, and labor immigration policy post-2008 reform. In doing so, this article shows that Sweden has had a complicated and by turns welcoming and restrictive attitude to immigration—a historical dynamic that continues to shape Swedish migration policy.
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In 2015 Afghans were the second largest group of asylum seekers in Sweden (and Europe). In this article, I analyze interviews conducted in early 2017 in Scania County with six adult male Afghan asylum seekers, an executive officer at the... more
In 2015 Afghans were the second largest group of asylum seekers in Sweden (and Europe). In this article, I analyze interviews conducted in early 2017 in Scania County with six adult male Afghan asylum seekers, an executive officer at the Swedish Migration Agency, the head of a private asylum seeker camp, and a voluntary worker. I show how the asylum seekers made their way to Sweden not so much through a premeditated choice, but by the combined effect of a worsened security situation in Afghanistan since the 2014 withdrawal of foreign troops, increasingly harsh measures against Afghans in Iran and Pakistan, and the migrant smuggling industry. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's social theory, I then focus on practices surrounding the interviewed Afghans in the time encompassing their arrival, asylum application, and waiting for a decision in a privately run asylum seeker camp. I introduce the concept of asylum capital as a means to spell out the opportunities and constraints for being granted asylum in Sweden as an Afghan.
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The concept of mass immigration is politicized. Rather than registering reality objectively, it is used to further particular interests of the state as well as powerful non-state organisations.
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An analysis of the the links between the privatization of public services, the growth of the prison industry, and public education in the US since the 1980s
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This article provides a comparative analysis of the practices of immigration detention since the 1980s.
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There are double standards underlying the difficulties faced by Afghan asylum seekers in the West.
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The British philosopher F.C.S. Schiller (1864-1937) was a leading pragmatist in the early twentieth century. His critiques of formal logic and his attempts to construct a humanist logic, derived from an anti-foundationalist humanism, are... more
The British philosopher F.C.S. Schiller (1864-1937) was a leading pragmatist in the early twentieth century. His critiques of formal logic and his attempts to construct a humanist logic, derived from an anti-foundationalist humanism, are recognized as lasting philosophical achievements. But scholars have failed to consider that Schiller was passionately committed to the British eugenics movement. This article explores the relationship between Schiller’s pragmatism and his eugenicism. It argues that Schiller represents the broad scope of pragmatism in the early twentieth century through his involvements not only with eugenics, but with psychical research as well. Underneath Schiller’s various undertakings lies a common theme: the self, conceived in voluntaristic, historicist, and concrete terms. By tracing the trajectory of this theme in Schiller’s thought, this article demonstrates that Schiller’s eugenicism was confined to the presuppositions of his pragmatist logic, which steered Schiller’s eugenicism toward a distinctively non-deterministic and non-Social-Darwinist kind.
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This article examines the historical thought of Peter Laslett against the background themes and dilemmas of British ‘Golden Age’ post-Second World War historiography, c.1945–1980. Laslett reappraised whig interpretations of English... more
This article examines the historical thought of Peter Laslett against the background themes and dilemmas of British ‘Golden Age’ post-Second World War historiography, c.1945–1980. Laslett reappraised whig interpretations of English history, and extended these reappraisals to critiques of liberal political theory, in a similar
vein as other Golden Age historians. The article argues that Laslett drew on themes from Michael Oakeshott’s idealist philosophy of history and Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge in his revisions of Sir Robert Filmer, patriarchalism, John Locke
and liberal political theory. Tracing these specific themes in Laslett’s thought is significant as it allows, first, for an understanding of the exact interpretive moves and speech acts that Laslett performed in writing his revisionist historical accounts.
Second, this approach allows for an identification of the ways in which Laslett differed from both Oakeshott and Mannheim, and other Golden Age historians. The results of this article reveal several important aspects of Laslett’s historical thought: first, that,
why and how Oakeshott and Mannheim had a profound influence on Laslett. Second, that Laslett’s inverted whiggism was similar to that of other Golden Age historians in exhibiting welfare state anachronisms, but that it was different from theirs in its particular
critique of liberalism, and in its belief in the positive features of early modern patriarchalism. Third, underneath Laslett’s famous ambition to reform traditional political philosophy lay an unconventional form of inverted perennialism that reserved for
present use only those aspects of past political philosophy that were entirely unique.
vein as other Golden Age historians. The article argues that Laslett drew on themes from Michael Oakeshott’s idealist philosophy of history and Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge in his revisions of Sir Robert Filmer, patriarchalism, John Locke
and liberal political theory. Tracing these specific themes in Laslett’s thought is significant as it allows, first, for an understanding of the exact interpretive moves and speech acts that Laslett performed in writing his revisionist historical accounts.
Second, this approach allows for an identification of the ways in which Laslett differed from both Oakeshott and Mannheim, and other Golden Age historians. The results of this article reveal several important aspects of Laslett’s historical thought: first, that,
why and how Oakeshott and Mannheim had a profound influence on Laslett. Second, that Laslett’s inverted whiggism was similar to that of other Golden Age historians in exhibiting welfare state anachronisms, but that it was different from theirs in its particular
critique of liberalism, and in its belief in the positive features of early modern patriarchalism. Third, underneath Laslett’s famous ambition to reform traditional political philosophy lay an unconventional form of inverted perennialism that reserved for
present use only those aspects of past political philosophy that were entirely unique.
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This article argues that the relationship between analytical philosophy and the philosophy of intellectual history is conceptually uneasy and even antagonistic once the general philosophical viewpoints, and some particular topics, of the... more
This article argues that the relationship between analytical philosophy and the philosophy of intellectual history is conceptually uneasy and even antagonistic once the general philosophical viewpoints, and some particular topics, of the two perspectives are drawn out and compared. The article critically compares the philosophies of Quentin Skinner and Mark Bevir with the philosophies of Ludwig Wittgenstein, J.L. Austin, W.V.O. Quine and Donald Davidson. Section I compares the way in which these two perspectives view the task of philosophy. Section II points to a critical difficulty in Bevir and Skinner’s use of analytical philosophy in their discussions on objectivity. In section III, another such critical juncture is identified in the topic of explanation. Finally, section IV suggests an interpretation for the character of the comparison.
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Looking at the way the person is studied and conceptualized in the humanities in general, and in historical-biographical studies in particular, many shortcomings become visible, which in my view prompts a serious epistemological,... more
Looking at the way the person is studied and conceptualized in the humanities in general, and in historical-biographical studies in particular, many shortcomings become visible, which in my view prompts a serious epistemological, metaphysical and normative interest in the person. Recent studies in neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, and Post-analytic philosophy have made strong headway in our understanding of the person. To be more specific, I believe that the results and insights from these studies can be incorporated into a holistic and normative theory of the person. Holistic because I argue that the person is best understood as being composed of elements and relations of many orders, and a sufficiently large amount of them are interrelated. The view is normative for two reasons: first, as in non-objective, because the theory’s validity stems only from a certain epistemolo- gical perspective. Second, it is normative as in prescriptive, that is, I am arguing that any scholar in the humanities studying the person should take this theory to be delineating the necessary, appropriate and justified presuppositions for the study of the person. The theory gives us a proper direction, which entails that several other current and fashionable directions are seen as inadequate. An outline of the theory, the systematic account of which is part of a larger project of mine, will be given in this essay.
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Full-text contained in Cadmus is protected by copyright law and may be downloaded for personal research purposes only. Any additional reproduction for other purposes, whether in hard copy or electronically, requires the consent of the... more
Full-text contained in Cadmus is protected by copyright law and may be downloaded for personal research purposes only. Any additional reproduction for other purposes, whether in hard copy or electronically, requires the consent of the copyright holder (s).