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Managing Integration: German and British Policy Responses to the “Threat from Within” Post-2001

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Abstract

The involvement of European Muslims in violent events since 2001 has confronted European states with their alleged failure to adequately integrate migrant and ethnic minority populations. More specifically, these events increased cultural and security concerns associated with growing diversity and created a climate in which the issues of breaking up parallel societies, and, more explicitly, integrating Muslim minority populations have become particularly pressing. As previous approaches aimed at incorporating migrants have been branded as a failure, many European governments have begun re-developing their policies on migrant incorporation, not least to mitigate the potential "threat" posed by a lack of integration. This article focuses on German and British policy developments in the area of integration post-2001 and compares how the two states have responded to the alleged "threat from within".

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Notes

  1. Notably, The Netherlands pioneered with a change in policies in the 1990s: They reversed their multicultural policies into an official monoculturalism via the policy of ‘obligatory integration’ (Joppke and Morawska 2003: 15).

  2. These changes to the naturalisation requirements are discussed in more depth elsewhere (e.g. Etzioni 2007; van Oers 2010).

  3. This approach to managing diversity via legal recognition of racial, religious and cultural needs very much aligns itself with multiculturalism as theorised by Kymlicka (1995) and Taylor (1994).

  4. Since the publication of “Our shared future”, the government has taken some action in the area of community cohesion on a national level: The Education and Inspections Act of 2006, for example, introduced the duty for schools to promote cohesion and a sense of shared values amongst all pupils.

  5. Due to limitations set by an article-length piece of work, criticisms levelled at PVE are only sketched here. For a detailed discussion, see Kundnani (2009), Khan (2009), Stevens (2009).

  6. Initially, the new legislation only required applicants for permanent residence to take up to 600 h of language and 30 h of civics instruction. Following a substantial review of the integration courses in 2006, the hours for both elements were increased; the government also introduced a financial incentive for passing the final test of the course within 2 years (Federal Office for Migration and Refugees 2010). Furthermore, the legislation was extended to also include aspiring citizens.

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  1. University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, UK

    Anika Haverig

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  1. Anika Haverig
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Haverig, A. Managing Integration: German and British Policy Responses to the “Threat from Within” Post-2001. Int. Migration & Integration 14, 345–362 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-012-0245-5

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