When Politics Trumps Economics: Contrasting High-Skilled Immigration Policymaking in Germany and Austria

2020 ◽  
pp. 019791832091486
Author(s):  
Melanie Kolbe
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Immigrant Integration ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Integration Policy ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Issue Linkage ◽  
Skilled Immigration ◽  
Immigrant Integration Policy

High-skilled immigration (HSI) policy has become of increasing interest among immigrant destination countries, but success in establishing liberal policies has varied considerably across countries. Focusing on two reluctant immigration states, Germany and Austria, this article explains why HSI policy reforms in these two countries have led to starkly diverging outcomes. Whereas previous studies have concentrated on the politics of organized labor market actors and the market-institutional context in which they are embedded, this article contends that variation in HSI policy liberalization also reflects increasing politicization through issue linkage to adjacent immigration domains, in this case, immigrant integration policy. The findings challenge the predominant interest-group–centric work on HSI and show how arguments for and against liberalization can traverse immigration policy domains.

scholarly journals The Analysis of Effective Immigrant Integration Policy in Lithuania: Practice and Problems

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-438
Author(s):  
Gabrielė Čepeliauskaitė
Keyword(s):  
Immigration Policy ◽  
National Level ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Immigrant Integration ◽  
General Idea ◽  
Integration Policy ◽  
Skilled Workers ◽  
Immigrant Integration Policy ◽  
European Migration ◽  
The Eu

Immigrant integration policy is one of the most important issues in political discourse and is likely to remain so in the future. The article investigates the effectiveness of immigrant integration policy formation in Lithuania. According to  theoretical insights, the general idea of integration includes the national reorganization of social and political areas for the inclusion of new immigrants, when legal, social, cultural and political rights are deliberately expanded for the immigrants in the host country. The analysis of legal documents reveals that the EU-level European Migration Agenda (2015) sets common priorities focusing on highly skilled workers, when at the same time Immigration Policy Guidelines (2008) determines general directions and principles of immigrant integration at the national level. It is necessary to highlight the point that the document does not set a specific goals, objectives, measures or evaluation criteria of immigration policy. The quantitative Eurostat (2016), European Migration Network (2017) and Statistics Lithuania (2004–2017) data analysis showed that among the EU member states Lithuania's attractiveness for immigrants is low and the implementation of immigration policy can not create a counterweight to the aging population and large emigration. In conclusion, the Immigration Policy Guidelines (2008) provided at national level are not sufficiently specific and clear to ensure effective integration of immigrants in Lithuania.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ppaa.17.3.21956

scholarly journals Part of the problem or of the solution? The involvement of religious associations in immigrant integration policy

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Astrid Mattes
Keyword(s):  
Immigrant Integration ◽  
Multiple Roles ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Integration Policy ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
Religious Associations ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
Immigrant Integration Policy ◽  
Empirical Case Studies

Across Europe we see faith-based organizations (FBOs) getting involved in the policy field of immigrant integration. The interweaving of the policy fields of religion politics and immigrant integration is particularly delicate in systems of religionstate cooperation. Here, FBOs and state actors build on each other to fulfil certain tasks. This paper explores how FBOs are involved in the field of immigrant integration and which techniques of government are being used. Drawing on empirical case studies from Austria, Germany and Switzerland, the paper shows that religious communities fulfil multiple roles as civil society actors, as religious representatives or as migrant associations. While similarities occur due to comparable structures and institutions, observed differences are the consequence of different constellations of suspicion and trust between FBOs and state actors.

Comparative Immigration Policy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeannette Money
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Immigration Policy ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Immigrant Integration ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Integration Policy ◽  
World War ◽  
Industrial Countries ◽  
Immigration Control ◽  
Societal Preferences

The research on comparative immigration policy is relatively recent, with the earliest dealing with significant immigrant inflows into Western Europe after World War II. Because of the difficulties in finding empirically grounded measures of immigration policy, the literature has grown primarily by adding to the theoretical literature. In terms of the immigration control literature, nativism (anti-immigrant preferences) has been complemented by approaches that include attention to the economic consequences of immigration, focus on how societal preferences are channeled, and focus on state national interest and state security. In terms of the immigrant integration literature, there has been a tendency to classify the immigrant reception environment of states according to historical nation building features of the state and to types of “immigration regimes.” More recently, in recognition of the static nature of these models of policy making, scholars have disaggregated integration policy into its component parts and incorporated aspects of politics that change over time. The research arena is, in short, theoretically rich, though both dimensions of research on immigration policy suffer from two flaws. The first is the inability to compare effectively policies across countries. The second is the research focus on Western Europe and advanced industrial countries, to the neglect of the remaining countries in the world.

Monitoring the impact of doing nothing: New trends in immigrant integration policy

Ethnicities ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Westerveen ◽  
Ilke Adam
Keyword(s):  
Immigrant Integration ◽  
Gender Mainstreaming ◽  
Integration Policy ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Integration Policies ◽  
New Strategy ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Immigrant Integration Policy ◽  
Ethnic Monitoring

‘Mainstreaming’ has recently been considered as a possible new strategy for advancing immigrant integration in Europe. However, policy documents and current academic literature have hardly conceptualized what we label as ‘ethnic equality mainstreaming’. In this article, we lean on the widely available research on gender mainstreaming, to provide such a conceptualization of ethnic equality mainstreaming. Once conceptualized, we verify whether there is indeed a trend towards mainstreaming in Western Europe's old immigration countries. Our results show that there is no straightforward trend towards ethnic equality mainstreaming in these countries. However, the indicators that served to detect the existence of ethnic equality mainstreaming allowed us to uncover a new double and paradoxical trend in immigrant integration policies. This ‘new style’ immigrant integration policy can be depicted as follows: increasing ‘colourblindization’, in combination with ‘ethnic monitoring’. In other words, states increasingly monitor the impact of ‘doing nothing’.

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