Is Migrant Integration Policy Converging in Europe? A Comparison of EU-12 and EU-15 States

Immigration issues have dominated the political discourse of liberal democracies around the world in the 21st century. Recent elections in the United States and the Netherlands focused extensively on migrant flows, illegal immigration and migrant integration. Upcoming elections in France seem to be operating within similar parameters. These occurrences underpin a larger critique about the perceived failure of liberal democratic institutions to contend with immigration trends and successfully integrate migrants within their societies. Nowhere has this critique been more prevalent than within the public and political discourse of the European Union, the institution of focus for this paper. As the EU member states struggle to cope with their migrant issues, scholars are increasingly looking to the larger EU governmental structure to anticipate how the region will handle these challenges. Accordingly, much of the scholarly work done on subjects such as integration policy within the EU are mainly focused upon the perceived convergence of policy amongst member states. The intent of this thesis therefore, is to evaluate the validity of claims that migrant integration policy is converging amongst EU member states, and to explain why this may be the case. This was accomplished via a cross-comparison of policy outcome scores, (provided by the Migration Integration Policy Index), over time between EU-15 and EU-12 states. The convergence of policy in the EU is a topic that has been routinely addressed by scholars, but by examining the potential trends amongst the traditionally ignored EU-12 states, this thesis hopes to contribute to the academic discourse by providing a different perspective