This book sheds light on the complex experiences of asylum seekers and refugees in Poland, against a local backdrop of openly anti-refugee political narratives and strong opposition to sharing the ...responsibility for, and burden of, asylum seekers arriving in the EU. Through a multidimensional analysis, it highlights the processes of forced migrant admission, reception and integration in a key EU frontier country that has undergone a rapid migration status change from a transit to a host country. The book examines rich qualitative material drawn from interviews conducted with forced migrants with different legal statuses and with experts from public administration at the central and local levels, NGOs, and other institutions involved in migration governance in Poland. It discusses both opportunities for and limitations on forced migrants’ adaptation in the social, economic, and political dimensions, as well as their access to healthcare, education, the labour market, and social assistance. This book will be of particular interest to scholars, students, policymakers, and practitioners in migration and asylum studies, social policy, public policy, international relations, EU studies/European integration, law, economics, and sociology.
In recent years, the issues of integration – related on the one hand to peoplereferred to as foreigners, immigrants, newcomers, etc. – and on the otherhand to host societies – have been gaining ...importance in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, including Poland. Before the political and socio-economic transformation at the turn of the 1980s and the 1990s, it was a country relatively closed to international migration. Only in the early 1990s did it open up to migration flows. That was also the time when the state’s policy in this area had been gradually emerging. The preparations for EU membership enforced the process of developing a national migration policy. Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004 and to the Schengen zone in2007 saw its full involvement in EU migration governance in terms of internal and external policies, and thus the further Europeanisation of national law, public policy, and practices in the field of migration management. Recent years have seen a change in Poland’s migration status, which has now become an emigration-immigration state, and the near future may bring about its transition into a new immigration state, especially in connection with the influx of large numbers of forced migrants from Ukraine since the end of February 2022. At the time of writing, that is mid-2022, Poland does not have a formalised integration policy at the central level. National law provides integration measures only for beneficiaries of international protection (persons with refugee status and subsidiary protection), which concerns a very small group of foreigners. However, the last two decades have seen increased involvement at the local government level (especially in cities) in integration. This is a process taking place in local communities with the support of other actors such as NGOs, informal associations, or universities. One such example is Warsaw, the capital of Poland, where the largest number of migrants, both voluntary and forced, live. This paper aims to explore the selected practices undertaken by some of Warsaw’s municipal institutions and offices, which can be treated as an important part of the local integration policy and which could be a role model for other cities lessexperienced in immigrant integration.
"Written from a pan-European perspective, this book examines the decision-making processes in immigration and integration policies in Europe across decades, focusing on several key moments of ...Europe’s postwar history. The analysis of factors taken into consideration by states in key moments of immigration policy (re)formulation shows that Europe is moving away from rational, economic arguments towards more political ones. This book contributes to the theoretical and practical debate regarding immigration and integration policies by arguing that – contrary to assumptions – immigration policy should not be treated as having precedence before integration policy. It also reflects on the growing anti-immigration sentiments as well as the securitisation and criminalisation of migration issues that are fuelled by right-wing politics. This book will be of key interest both to students and scholars of migration, the European Union, European integration, social policy, public policy, international relations, European studies, law, economics, sociology and to professionals, policy-makers, think tanks and associations in NGOs, the EU and other IOs."
The existing literature points to securitisation as a dominant form of emergency governance emerging in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, also in relation to migration. However, another important ...way of framing migration during the pandemic is in terms of economisation. This article aims to analyse the rationale underpinning Polish immigration policy during COVID-19 with a focus on different forms of economisation: macro-economisation, which prioritises economic growth over other socially important issues; and substantive economisation, which centres the needs of a population during a given historical moment. Based on desk and qualitative research, including analysis of official documents and media coverage as well as in-depth expert interviews, we argue that the logics of both kinds of economisation can be discerned in Poland’s immigration policy. Our overall conclusion is that during the COVID-19 pandemic, and despite strong anti-immigrant rhetoric in official political discourse, Poland’s immigration policy prioritised the interests of the national economy and labour market over strategies of security and social control.
Przedmiotem rozważań w artykule jest potencjał demograficzny Francji na przełomiewieków XX i XXI. Odpowiedź na pytanie badawcze o sytuację demograficzną tego państwa zawiera się w pogłębionym opisie, ...analizie i ocenie jego zasobów demograficznychw latach 1991–2013, głównie w odniesieniu do części metropolitarnej. Z uwagi na szerokii złożony zakres przedmiotowej problematyki, w artykule ograniczono się do analizywybranych aspektów sytuacji demograficznej Francji, uznanych za szczególnie ważnei interesujące. W konsekwencji opracowanie składa się z trzech zasadniczych części,w których kolejno omówiono: bilans ludności i zmiany w strukturze demograficznejmieszkańców państwa, ruch naturalny ludności (urodzenia i płodność oraz umieralność,z wyłączeniem kwestii małżeństw i rozwodów) oraz migracje zagraniczne, z naciskiemna imigrację do Francji.Podsumowując, sytuacja demograficzna Francji jest relatywnie korzystna w porównaniudo innych państw europejskich (m.in. rosnąca ogólna liczba ludności, drugie miejscew UE pod względem zaludnienia, dodatnie saldo naturalne i saldo migracji, zbliżaniesię do granicy prostej zastępowalności pokoleń). Proces starzenia się społeczeństwa jestgłównym wyzwaniem demograficznym, we Francji postępuje jednak relatywnie wolniejniż w innych państwach Europy. Z uwagi na swoją sytuację demograficzną Francja realnie wpływa na kształt polityki europejskiej, m.in. w zakresie migracji zagranicznych.
It has been over a year after Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine at the end of February 2022, which caused massive internal displacement in Ukraine and forced outmigration to neighboring ...countries on an unprecedented scale. From the beginning of the war, Poland has been the main host country, providing temporary protection to more than 1.5 million persons. The initial support for forced migrants was based on spontaneous actions and grassroots social initiatives. This article analyses the Polish society's engagement in humanitarian and reception assistance to people fleeing Ukraine in the first months of the crisis, including various societal actors, from informal initiatives and volunteering by everyday people of different nationalities to more formalized civil society organizations. The paper is based on the analysis of quantitative data, the subject literature and official documents, and extensive participant observation by the authors of the public engagement in Poland in 2022.
In this paper we focus on adapting the concept of push – pull factors to forced migration by proposing a “push out – push back” approach that underlines two most crucial elements of forced migrants’ ...experience. On the one hand, it stresses the reasons for leaving countries of origin or of temporary refuge that are not dependant on the will of people who flew those places, thus the “push out” factors. On the other hand, it represents the refusal of the countries of the Global North to accept forced migrants and their use of various practices, amounting to “push back” factors, to prevent them from entering or leaving their territory if they manage to reach it. These factors can be divided into three groups: passive, active, and symbolic.
The objective of this article is twofold, i.e. to discuss the migrant and refugee crisis in Europe/the EU as a key frame of reference for further considerations and to analyse what are, so far, the ...consequences of this crisis for the Eastern Partnership (EaP) and the EU cooperation with the EaP countries. Thus, the paper consists of two main parts. It starts with a brief overview of the migration and asylum landscape in Europe/the EU in times of the so-called ‘crisis’ of 2014+, some discussions about what kind of crisis we are talking about and what the crisis means in different contexts. This is followed by a general picture of the EU response to the migrant and refugee crisis in order to show where we are in mid-2017. The second part of the paper deals with the issue of the Eastern Partnership – the current state of play is presented and factors influencing this EU political initiative are highlighted in particular in the context of the migrant and refugee crisis in Europe.
Abstract
Migrant integration is usually studied in four dimensions: economic, political, social and cultural. The cultural sphere seems to be the most ambiguous, but also the one that induces various ...interpretations as it touches upon core norms and values held both by migrants and by the receiving society. This paper aims to reconstruct research approaches to cultural integration and integration policy. Beside the receiving country’s language, that is the obvious differentiating factor of cultural integration, other aspects have been defined: migrants’ religion, knowledge of the receiving country’s symbolic culture, maintenance and transmission of cultural patterns, cultural identity. Furthermore, indicators which appear to adequately measure the effectiveness of integration activities have been assigned to the predefined aspects of cultural integration. They have been confronted with indicators used within integration policies of selected EU states and with expert statements (collected within the Delphi method‐based survey) on given aspects of policies aimed at cultural integration.