 Boundary Integrationism and its Subject: Shifts and Continuities in the EU Framework on Migrant IntegrationIva Dodevska No 9ef58, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science Abstract: The European Union’s discourse on migrant integration has been powerful in subtly steering national policies and public debates on the governance of migrant populations, yet remains understudied. This paper critically maps the EU framework on migrant integration, outlining the ruptures and continuities that have shaped EU’s integrationist paradigm in the past three decades. I propose a typology of the various (sometimes opposing) discourses that converge in EU policy, differentiating between neoliberal, egalitarian (welfarist), securitarian and boundary integrationism. I argue that while the early predominantly welfarist and neoliberal discourse on integration was only vaguely interested in questions of values and identity, the recent reformulation of the EU’s integrationist strategy represents a break from universalist ideas of a “European community”. In particular, the Commission under von der Leyen adopted a more nativist and securitarian discourse that frames integration as a wager in an alleged civilizationist clash between the liberal and the “illiberal” world. This shift had material effects also on reinventing the subject of integration. By including EU citizens with “migrant background” as policy targets for the first time, a nativist boundary was erected between those who are considered truly European and the outsiders that ought to “integrate”. Date: 2022-09-29 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:9ef58 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in SocArXiv from Center for Open Science |
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