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A Question of Function: Unequal Power Ratios and Asylum Seekers in Ireland

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Norbert Elias in Troubled Times

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies on Norbert Elias ((PSNE))

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Abstract

This chapter draws on Elias’s established–outsider model to understand the steep power relation between the Irish State and asylum seekers, as well as supplementing this with Bourdieu’s work on the state. Elias has forcefully argued that a power relation is determined by the interrelation and function that one individual or group has for the other. In this case, asylum seekers need states in a way that states do not need asylum seekers. The chapter argues that the Irish State’s treatment of immigration has historically been determined by three criteria: a question of costs and benefits, questions of ethno-national, and security and social order considerations. The contemporary manifestation of the skewered power relation between the State and asylum seekers will be discussed with reference to the Direct Provision and Dispersal system. This institution, set up in 2000, and heavily criticised from the outset, is the current system through which asylum seekers are housed and their subsistence needs met by the State.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Sociology, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Steven Loyal

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  1. Steven Loyal
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Correspondence to Steven Loyal .

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  1. Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS), Brussels, Belgium

    Florence Delmotte

  2. School of Sociology, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Barbara Górnicka

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Loyal, S. (2021). A Question of Function: Unequal Power Ratios and Asylum Seekers in Ireland. In: Delmotte, F., Górnicka, B. (eds) Norbert Elias in Troubled Times. Palgrave Studies on Norbert Elias. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74993-4_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74993-4_13

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-74993-4

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