This book has thus far set out a normative rethinking of the refugee concept from an international society perspective and considered how this created a statist understanding of the modern refugee as she evolved over the inter-war and Cold War periods. This chapter now turns to the contemporary period to ask how the statist construction of the refugee affects the way in which the international community formulates contemporary refugee policy. By using the English School to view the EU as a particular example of a regional international society, it highlights how EU refugee policy has become more protection oriented, which can be explained by the diffusion of norms and socialisation of states to move to a more comprehensive agenda.

It first looks at the context in which refugee policy is now made, in particular the increasing difficulty of distinguishing refugees from other migrants. It then analyses the recent phenomenon to externalise EU refugee policy and looks at the specific example of proposals for Regional Protection Programmes as one form of this externalisation.