The Dynamics of Immigrant Integration Policymaking at EU Level

Abstract

Member states’ responses to EU policies are known to be at least partially shaped by their various inputs in the construction of those policies and norms in the first instance. Following Goetz (2003:4), who argues that ‘the effects of downloading legislation, policies and, increasingly, values, norms and beliefs into domestic contexts cannot be properly understood without paying systematic attention to the member states’ role in uploading domestic preferences to the European level’, in this chapter we test the proposition that the patterns of differential adaptation to EU norms of immigrant integration, as outlined in Chapter 3, may at least in part be explained by member states’ differential roles in the EU policymaking process. Testing this hypothesis requires that we take a bottom-up approach to Europeanisation, whereby member states are recognised as both ‘shapers’ as well as ‘takers’ of EU policies and norms (Börzel 2003). Instead of ‘bracketing European institutions and processes’, as Börzel (Börzel 2003:3) suggests most studies of Europeanisation do, in this chapter we explicitly examine if and when national governments have uploaded preferences in the area of immigrant integration to the EU level and whether this has affected their willingness and ability to adapt to the EU norms which have subsequently emerged, as bottom-up theorists of Europeanisation would expect.