"The politics of EU immigration policy"

Givens, Terri and Luedtke, Adam. (2003) "The politics of EU immigration policy". In: UNSPECIFIED, Nashville, TN. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

This paper will demonstrate how the economic and institutional imperatives of European integration have led to two contradictory political developments: 1) a push by EU institutions such as the Commission and the Parliament, as well as some member states, to develop a common, "harmonized" EU immigration policy that includes TCNs; and 2) a resistance on the part of some member states to this development. Because of this resistance, immigration harmonization has lagged behind other policy areas. To explain national resistance m harmonizing immigration policy, our paper's main task is developing a theoretical and conceptual model of how immigration policy is harmonized at the EU level, and how this harmonization comes to be blocked or restricted. Our model of EU immigration policymaking is bottom-up, in that it sees immigration policy institutions as arising from domestic politics and national immigration policies. Thus, we draw on theories of "intergovernmentalism" which see supranational institutions as a means of locking in preferred domestic political arrangements, and see member states as the primary political actors.

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