Few phenomena have been more disruptive to West European politics and society than the accumulative experience of post-WWII immigration. Against this backdrop spring two questions: Why have the immigrant-receiving states historically permitted high levels of immigration? To what degree can the social and political fallout precipitated by immigration be politically managed? Utilizing evidence from a variety of sources, this study explores the links between immigration and the surge of popular support for anti-immigrant groups; its implications for state sovereignty; its elevation to the policy agenda of the European Union; and its domestic legacies. It argues that post-WWII migration is primarily an interest-driven phenomenon that has historically served the macroeconomic and political interests of the receiving countries. Moreover, it is the role of politics in adjudicating the claims presented by domestic economic actors, foreign policy commitments, and humanitarian norms that creates a permissive environment for significant migration to Western Europe.

Shows how liberal states reconcile the migration trilemma which has pitted markets, rights and security against each other since 9/11.

Why are traditional nation-states newly defining membership and belonging? In the twenty-first century, several Western European states have attached obligatory civic integration requirements as conditions for citizenship and residence, which include language proficiency, country knowledge and value commitments for immigrants. This book examines this membership policy adoption and adaptation through both medium-N analysis and three paired comparisons to argue that while there is convergence in instruments, there is also significant divergence in policy purpose, design and outcomes. To explain this variation, this book focuses on the continuing, dynamic interaction of institutional path dependency and party politics. Through paired comparisons of Austria and Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands and France, this book illustrates how variations in these factors - as well as a variety of causal processes - produce divergent civic integration policy strategies that, ultimately, preserve and anchor national understandings of membership.

This innovative and thought-provoking study puts forth a compelling analysis of the constitutive nexus at the heart of the European refugee conundrum. It maps and historically contextualises some of the distinctive challenges that pervasive ethnic and cultural pluralism present to real politics as on the level of political theorizing. By systematically integrating hitherto insufficiently linked research perspectives in a novel way, it lays open a number of paradoxical constellations and regressive tendencies in contemporary European democracy. It thereby redirects attention to the ways in which liberal thought and liberal democratic institutions shape, interact with, and may even provide justification for illiberal and exclusionary practices. This book thus makes an important contribution to the analysis of post-migrant realities in Europe and the ways in which they are defined by imperial legacies, punitive migration regimes, the culturalization of mainstream politics, and the discursive construction of a European Other.

Twenty-nine specialists offer their perspectives on migration from a wide variety of fields: political science, sociology, economics, and anthropology.

Since the Treaty of the European Union was ratified in 1993, the European Union has become an important factor in an ever-increasing number of regimes of pooled sovereignty. This Handbook seeks to present a valuable guide to this new and unique system in the twenty-first century, allowing readers to obtain a better understanding of the emerging multilevel European governance system that links national polities to Europe and the global community. Adopting a pan-European approach, this Handbook brings together the work of leading international academics to cover a wide range of topics such as: the historical and theoretical background the political systems and institutions of both the EU and its individual member nations political parties and party systems political elites civil society and social movements in European politics the political economy of Europe public administration and policy-making external policies of the EU. This is an invaluable and comprehensive resource for students, scholars, researchers and practitioners of the European Union, European politics and comparative politics.

The role of political parties in immigration control and integration policy in Europe is underestimated, and parties on the centre-right are particularly important and interesting in this respect. They make up many European governments and therefore help determine state and EU policy. Moreover, even before the rise of the populist radical right, immigration and integration were matters of genuine ideological and practical concern for Europe’s market liberal, conservative and Christian Democratic parties. Exploiting such issues for electoral gain may make superficial sense, but too hard a line risks alienating their supporters in business and in civil society, as well as undermining party unity. It is a difficult balance, but one that makes a big difference both to the parties involved and the public policies they help produce. This volume brings together experts on both migration and political parties – fields that have not always interacted as much as they could or should have done – in order to study the impacts, dilemmas and trade-offs involved. This book is based on the special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.