Changes in the Involvement of Polish Local Governments in Public Policies Addressing Involuntary Migration Following the 2022 Inflow of Ukrainian Forced Migrants

Abstract

This paper analyses the changes in the involvement of Polish local governments in the system of public policies addressing the needs of forced migrants in Poland. The driver of such changes was the humanitarian emergency connected to the influx of Ukrainian forced migrants in 2022, which followed the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In a multi-level governance context, the article unpacks the policy-change process, discussing the interplay between the Polish public-policy system, the political context, the state polity, and local governments’ activity. During the humanitarian emergency, the external circumstances for local governments’ operations altered. Many local authorities attempted to expand their involvement, while sometimes questioning the inter-institutional power balance. The functional role – the scope of their responsibility and the activities that they undertake – of local governments in the discussed policy system was temporarily extended. Moreover, in the context of power relations between the actors of the policy system, their structural position vis-à-vis other stakeholders was redefined, as their agency and political impact increased. This article concludes that the above, mostly temporary, changes will have implications for the broader development of the Polish migration-policy system, resulting in Polish local governments inflicting greater political impact on such a system in the future, while also maintaining increased activity around policies addressing forced migrants.

Keywords

• forced migration
• 2022 russian invasion of ukraine
• local government
• policy change
• multi-level governance (mlg)