Migration and the Politics of Integration

Migration and integration are central political questions of our time, shaping contemporary debates over belonging, citizenship, and identity across Europe and beyond. Rather than treating integration as a technical policy field or a moment of crisis, this book approaches it as a historically embedded and politically contested arena in which boundaries of membership, values, and power are continuously negotiated. Drawing on Yuval-Davis’s concept of the politics of belonging, we conceptualize integration as a multi-scalar set of practices through which inclusion and exclusion are produced, from EU governance and national policy to local institutions and everyday encounters.

The book has grown out of multiple research endeavours—some undertaken in the field, others in policy workshops, archives, and public forums. We have studied political processes and policy changes in different European countries, analysed documents, spoken with policymakers, activists, local officials, migrant community members, and residents of neighbourhoods experiencing rapid demographic change. We have observed first-hand how integration policies can foster participation and mutual recognition in one setting, while producing exclusion and resentment in another. And we have engaged in scholarly debates over the above-mentioned issues. One common conclusion that we draw from all this is that integration cannot be understood apart from the broader politics of integration and the material conditions that shape people’s opportunities to participate in social life.

While our empirical focus in this book is primarily on Europe, the questions we address resonate far beyond its borders. Across the world, societies are grappling with how to reconcile human mobility with political membership, how to manage diversity without erasing difference, and how to navigate the tensions between global interconnectedness and national sovereignty. By situating the European experience within comparative and historical contexts, we aim to provide readers with analytical tools that can be adapted to different contexts.

This book is the product of an interdisciplinary conversation—one that draws on work within political theory, sociology, political science, anthropology, history, and migration studies, and more. We write for scholars, students, policymakers, and engaged citizens who seek a deeper understanding of the politics of integration and the forces that shape it. Our approach combines conceptual analysis with grounded empirical insights, moving between the macro-level of state policies and the micro-level of everyday practices and responses.
The chapters that follow combine theoretical reflection with empirical research conducted in diverse European settings. They engage with debates on nationalism, multiculturalism, interculturalism, populism, securitisation, and resilience, while introducing conceptual frameworks such as Carl Schmitt’s ultra-politics and Ulrich Beck’s sub-politics. In doing so, we examine both top-down state-led strategies and bottom-up responses by individuals and communities.

We invite you, the reader, to approach the chapters that follow not as a definitive statement on migration and integration, but as an invitation to think critically and historically about the boundaries of belonging. These boundaries are not immutable. They are created and recreated through laws, public discourse, and everyday interactions. Understanding this ongoing negotiation is, we believe, essential to imagining more just and inclusive futures in an age where mobility and diversity are here to stay.