Is Czechia an immigration country? Evidence from civic integration policies

Abstract

In Western Europe, the first integration policies emerged in the 1980s 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 what is called "civic integration policies", a novel form of integration approach promoted by West-European countries since the end of the 1990s, inquiring into 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 of 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 this new reality successfully.