Bartl, Walter and Philipp Lutz

Comparing Refugee Dispersal Policies: Varieties of Responsibility-Sharing in Europe
2025

Many European countries are concerned about the asymmetric distribution of refugees within their territory. In response, they have developed policies to spatially disperse asylum seekers. Yet, we lack a comprehensive understanding of such refugee dispersal policies (RDPs). This article fills that gap with two contributions. First, we conceptualize RDPs as systems of subnational responsibility-sharing in asylum governance, defined along five policy attributes and three ideal types. Second, we introduce a novel dataset covering the dispersal policies of 32 European countries and develop an index of policy restrictiveness. We show that dispersal is widespread but varies in formality and design. Most countries adopt a negotiated model combining binding spatial allocation, material incentives, and discretionary dispersal criteria. Restrictiveness is higher in states with high past arrivals and strong local autonomy. Our findings offer new insights into the spatial governance of asylum and the institutional design of responsibility-sharing mechanisms.