The integration of immigrants within the framework of the European Union: the field, the stakeholders, the strategies

In: Migraciones. Publicación del Instituto Universitario de Estudios sobre Migraciones, Heft 36, S. 247-274

Abstract

Over the past decade the European Union has witnessed a process of increasing discursive production, as well as the development of soft policy tools around the concept of integration —thus occupying a political space which had been previously an exclusive domain of nation states. This paper focuses on the most significant moments of the aforementioned process, dealing with the most influential stakeholders involved in it and with their different perspectives, standpoints and strategies. By adopting a qualitative perspective and a deconstructive approach, it shows the way in which the currently hegemonic concept of integration is closely conditioned by a «Home Affairs approach» and linked to immigration-control policies. Far from being the necessary outcome of a predetermined dynamics, this situation is rather the overall result of the «moves» made by situated actors.