Unconditional Conditions : A Study of How Civic Integration Policies Affect Migration Flows in Europe

In the last decade, there has been a diffusion of civic integration policies in Europe, which requires immigrants by certain category of entry to accomplish integration tests for acquisition of residence. Despite a flurry of literature based on civic integration policies, attention drawn to the implication of these policies has been quite rare. This thesis examines how civic integration strategies associate with immigration, and tests if civic integration policies are connected to variations of immigration by certain category of entry. I argue in this thesis that the conditional factor in civic integration policies creates a barrier for affected migrants and their possibility to gain long term residence in the host country. Based on theories of immigrant integration that relate civic integration to the backlash against multiculturalism in Europe, the thesis emphasize a reasoning in which the push for internal inclusion seems to be associated with excluding implications. The result presented here shows that there are connections between the extension of civic integration policies and reduced family and labour immigration between 2004 and 2011. The connection between the variables can however not be discerned from other integration requirements. The main concern is the lack of harmonized data, which obstructs the possibility to test for causality and to draw generalizing conclusions. However, the thesis reveals noteworthy correlations between the concepts, which contribute to the research field by connecting civic integration to immigration and by showing what implications civic integration policies may result in