Is Czechia an immigration country? Evidence from civic integration policies
Is Czechia an immigration country? Evidence from civic integration policies

Summary/Abstract: In Western Europe, the first integration policies emerged in the 1980’s as a reaction to the long-term settlement of foreign workers, originally perceived as temporary migration, transforming these countries into immigration ones. Based on this West-European experience, the article claims that Czechia has evolved into an immigration country in the last two decades, providing evidence from its integration policies. It shows how Czechia implements so-called “civic integration policies”, a novel form of integration approach promoted by West-European countries since the end of the 1990’s, inquiring in what aspects Czech civic integration policies resemble and differ from the West-European examples. For this purpose, the research offers a qualitative comparison with Austria as a representative of such a West-European experience. As a result, it brings new knowledge on immigrant integration policies in a region neglected in migration studies, while supporting the argument that immigration to Czechia has turned into a constant trend, requiring a complex set of integration policies in order to tackle successfully this new reality.

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