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Accompanied by public demands to reduce migration by creating perspectives 'at home', employability projects have become an important component of migration and development policies. While research has revealed the sedentarism underlying these policies and questioned the effectiveness thereof, more recent work has found that stakeholders are, in fact, aware of the potential increase of migration. However, contrary to analyses that hold that such interventions are carried out because they meet the different interests of both migration and development actors, this paper argues that migration and development interventions are mutually implicated. Examining European employability projects in Tunisia and drawing on interviews with representatives of donors and implementing organisations as well as policy documents, this paper argues that employability activities operate through twofold depoliticised logics. Whereas the focus on employability enables isolating migration from politicised debates across Europe, these interventions promote depoliticised logics of neoliberal selectivity. In centring skills in these interventions, some subjects are rendered employable for the Tunisian and, potentially, European labour market. Others, in turn, are excluded from the participation in migration and development due to a lack of sought-after skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internal and international migration form part of the same continuum of population movement but are typically conceptualised, measured and studied separately. Despite early theoretical attempts at conceptualising internal and international migration jointly, existing evidence remains partial and fragmented, reflecting a diversity of traditions in migration research. To address this gap in knowledge, this paper takes a step towards integration by comparing the triggers, constraints and resources that shape internal and international migration decisions at the micro-level. To accomplish this, we analyse retrospective migration histories from a 13-country cross-national dataset (the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, n = 201,061 person-years from 6,112 individuals) using multinomial random-effect logistic regression models that account for duration dependence. The results show that internal and international migration are linked to the same life-course events, although economic-related transitions are more strongly associated with international than internal migration. We also find that the same resources (e.g. education) and constraints (e.g. homeownership) shape internal and international migration decisions. Altogether, our findings suggest that there is an opportunity for greater theoretical cross-fertilisation between internal and international migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transnational social networks of migrants are extensively studied, but little is known about the associations between transnational social networks and individual migration trajectories over the course of migrants' lives. In this paper, we reconstruct the migration trajectories and transnational social networks of African migrants until their arrival in Europe and develop a typology that reflects the diversity of their trajectories. Based on unique retrospective life-history data of the MAFE project, our comparative perspective highlights the diversity of African migrants residing in Europe, the routes that they took before arriving in Europe and the types of transnational networks they had before, during and after migrating. Furthermore, we discuss the socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristics of migrants within each typology. Consequently, this paper challenges the singular African migration stereotype and draws attention to the associations between transnational social networks and migration trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a strong degree of interest over the last 30 years towards immigrant segregation in Europe. This paper aims to contribute towards the existing body of research by extending the multi-scalar analysis of patterns of immigrant residential segregation into a coherent international comparative study of cities of different sizes. We investigate the patterns of immigrant-native segregation at different geographical scales, along with their correlates, in more than a hundred cities in 2011 across Germany, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Our findings suggest that cities in the UK are the most highly segregated in Europe. The positions of the other countries in the 'European segregation ranking' depend upon the considered immigrant group and spatial scale. The national context is consistently the most important factor in understanding segregation at multiple spatial scales. However, even while taking into account the national contexts, the structural-ecological factors remain important predictors of segregation patterns in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies focuses on the role of the media in an increasingly multicultural Europe. It investigates the significance of a diversity of media through an analysis of a diversity of cultures and cultural practices. It links often-small-scale specific empirical studies of particular media or minorities with big questions that go to the heart of current intellectual debates on the present and future character of fluid societies and conflicting identities. In so doing it takes media seriously. Without presuming their centrality, contributors nevertheless take as their starting-point the reasonableness of inquiring into the ways in which engagement with media—with print, broadcast, internet media—may be seen as key resources in the struggles for visibility, presence, community, influence and symbolic power which many, if not all, minority groups seek. This introductory paper identifies key questions and issues for debate, and presents an integrated summary of the papers that follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of the categories ‘refugee’ and ‘migrant’ to differentiate between those on the move and the legitimacy, or otherwise, of their claims to international protection has featured strongly during Europe’s ‘migration crisis’ and has been used to justify policies of exclusion and containment. Drawing on interviews with 215 people who crossed the Mediterranean to Greece in 2015, our paper challenges this ‘categorical fetishism’, arguing that the dominant categories fail to capture adequately the complex relationship between political, social and economic drivers of migration or their shifting significance for individuals over time and space. As such it builds upon a substantial body of academic literature demonstrating a disjuncture between conceptual and policy categories and the lived experiences of those on the move. However, the paper is also critical of efforts to foreground or privilege ‘refugees’ over ‘migrants’ arguing that this reinforces rather than challenges the dichotomy’s faulty foundations. Rather those concerned about the use of categories to marginalise and exclude should explicitly engage with the politics of bounding, that is to say, the process by which categories are constructed, the purpose they serve and their consequences, in order to denaturalise their use as a mechanism to distinguish, divide and discriminate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many immigrants in Western countries hail from countries where attitudes towards gender relations and sexual norms are considerably more conservative than in the host countries where they eventually settle. This paper assesses whether immigrants and their children acculturate in this dimension, and how migrants’ cultural practices and economic integration influence this process. Presenting a conceptual and methodological innovation, this paper treats acculturation as a process by which immigrants (and their children) shift from the attitude distribution in the origin country to the one of the host country. Using a cross-classified hierarchical regression model and data on attitudes towards homosexuality in 83 countries of origin and 23 destination countries, I model the relative influence of origin and destination contexts on the attitudes of 15,000 immigrants and children of immigrants in Europe. In line with previous work, I find considerable evidence for acculturation across and within generations, but also important variation: respondents who use the home-country language, who are religious, or who are economically marginalised, show less acculturation in attitudes, though these effects vary between immigrants and the second generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gendered Mobilities and Work in Europe is an interdisciplinary collection of papers that, together, analyse the gendered aspects of migration and the labour market in Europe. The empirical research presented in this special issue of JEMS incorporates labour market sectors designated as both high- and low-skilled and points to shifting gendered employment opportunities and working conditions for contemporary labour migrants. The papers demonstrate how both national and regional policy frameworks intersect with specific employment sectors and different typologies of migration to produce varied outcomes for male and female labour migrants even when employed in the same sector. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What are the contemporary 'limits of the liberal state' with respect to immigration, citizenship and the rights of ethnic and religious minorities in contemporary Europe? The papers in this special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies examine how recent developments in Europe raise new questions regarding the relationship between liberalism, migration, identity and belonging. In this introduction, we identify three major themes that run through the papers in the issue-the use of liberal norms by states for exclusionary purposes; the possibility of the emergence of 'illiberal liberalism'; and the extent to which identity politics and policy-making may be increasingly transcending and transforming the limits of the liberal democratic state in Europe. After briefly presenting these three themes, we summarise the arguments of the individual authors and suggest possible directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper forms the introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies on 'Islam, Transnationalism, and the Public Sphere in Western Europe'. Taking as its starting point the seminal volume edited by Gerholm and Lithman-- The New Islamic Presence in Western Europe (1988)--the paper reviews continuities and changes in European Muslim communities and their relationship with others. Drawing extensively on case studies based on anthropological research in four European countries (Britain, France, Germany and Italy), the paper first examines the problematic character of the category 'Muslim', and identifies ways in which Islam in a European context can be considered transnational. It then explores how the question of living as a Muslim in Europe is being addressed in the context of transnationalism, considers whether there is an emergent 'European Islam' or 'European Muslim' identity, and ends with consideration of the problems and prospects for Islam in European public spheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on majority populations throughout Europe showed strong attachment and exchange of support between parents and their adult children. Studies on migrant families are limited yet needed in light of the increasing share of older people of migrant origin in European populations. One of the main sources of intergenerational support and care is via coresidence of (older) parents and their adult children. In this paper, we first analyse whether co-residence of adult children with their parents differs between migrants and non-migrants across Europe. Second, we assess the potentially differential effect of resources and socio-demographic factors among the migrant and non-migrant population as well as migrant-specific factors (migrant generation and region of origin). Data on five countries, with different migration patterns and histories, covered in the first wave of the Generation and Gender Survey are used (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands). Results show that levels of adult child–parent co-residence do not vary significantly by migrant status but do differ across Europe. Furthermore, we find that socio-demographic factors are important and have a similar association with parent–child coresidence for migrants and non-migrants. Our study does, however, suggest differences in co-residence by region of origin and migrant generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the concept of symbolic boundaries and ethnic boundary-making is well established in social research, the direct consequences of these boundaries for the integration of migrants have not received much attention. This paper thus analyses whether religious and secular boundaries of national belonging among the majority population have an impact on perceived discrimination among Muslim minorities in Western Europe. To analyse this linkage, data from the International Social Survey Programme measuring the importance of religion as a symbolic boundary of national belonging among the majority have been aggregated as a regional context condition and combined with a Muslim minority subsample from the European Social Survey. The results of the multilevel models reveal that the salience of religious boundaries is associated with less perceived discrimination among Muslim minorities, while secular orientations among the majority seem to be more decisive for subjective perceptions of feeling discriminated against. Overall, the results thus challenge the role of religion as an ethno-religious demarcation and point to the relevance of secular boundaries of belonging for immigrant integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions of minority ethnic settlement and integration have recently moved up the political and policy agenda across Europe. This paper re-examines the way in which minority ethnic housing segregation and integration are currently represented in political discourse across the European Union and reviews their implications for housing policy, inclusion and the social rights of citizenship. The paper draws on the RAXEN project reports of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia to provide a comparative investigation of housing segregation and integration across the 15 member-states of the European Union prior to its enlargement in 2004. The paper concludes that political discourses on ethnic segregation tend to accentuate the pathological characteristics of ethnic clustering, and to privilege explanations based on ethnicity and cultural difference at the expense of racialised inequalities in power and status. Such discourses are founded on a limited understanding of the link between ethnic segregation and integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory paper to the special issue of JEMS on the second generation in Europe reviews some of the key themes underpinning the growing interest in the second generation, and asks what 'integration' actually means in contemporary debates about immigration and settlement. The authors attempt to place these debates within their specific national contexts, in particular by applying US-developed theories of second-generation integration to Europe. In this way, we build on the embryonic transatlantic dialogue about which factors potentially account for different patterns of second-generation integration in different countries. Integration, in this sense, refers both to structural aspects such as educational and labour-market status as well as to a broader and at times fuzzier concept that includes ideas of culture, ethnic or religious identity and citizenship. The paper also sets the scene for the various articles in this special issue which together illustrate the thematic breadth of European-based research on the children of immigrants. We conclude by offering two theoretical avenues for future research on ethnic minority groups and their settlement patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses special admission rules for ministers of religion, focusing on admission policies for Muslim ministers of religion. The paper situates admission policies in the wider context of the political accommodation of Islam in Western Europe and analyses to what extent such policies are linked to other dimensions of the political accommodation of religion in general, and Islam in particular. It asks why admission rules have recently drawn the attention of policies despite the fact that a very small number of persons are affected. The main reason why admission policies for Muslim clergy are considered important by some governments is a general concern about Muslim leadership, particularly 'radical' Muslim leadership, and the desire to 'control' and monitor community leaders. In addition, changes in policy have to be seen against the wider background of attempts to 'Europeanise' Islam, notably in the context of increasingly assimilative integration policies. At the same time, several features of Muslim religious leadership, such as the transnational nature of 'employment' of religious leaders and the relatively low share of full-time, professional Muslim clergy, seem to contradict state policies and, perhaps most importantly, militate against a state's attempts to control Muslim religious leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The background to this paper is the need to reconcile at theoretical and political levels the quest for recognition of Muslims in the West with skepticism towards essentialist and uncritical understandings of Islam. Whereas in Europe there is a growing tendency to celebrate the challenges that the presence of transnational Muslim identities pose to the presumed universal nature of the liberal nation-state, Middle Eastern feminists are denouncing relativistic approaches towards Islam as the expression of an emergent alliance between multiculturalism, neo-orientalism and fundamentalism. My contribution to the unfastening of this theoretical and political deadlock is to demonstrate the multiple meanings and practices of being Muslim in Europe, and reveal the contradictions and contestations embedded within them. The paper sheds light on the unease that some young Muslims feel about the dichotomous constructions which mark the debate on Muslim identities in both the academic and political arena, and shows that Muslims' experience in the West is inscribed in, and cross-cuts, diverse socio-political identities, challenging the presumed dichotomy which opposes universalism to difference. Yet, far from simple acts of bricolage , these processes of identity renegotiation are deeply painful and conflictual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper measures the impact of immigration on migrants' involvement in associations across Europe. Using multilevel analysis on European Social Survey (ESS) data, we address three questions: Are immigrants likely to become members in voluntary associations? Does this likelihood change with the length of stay in the host country? Does the type of the association make a difference? The findings show that the likelihood of migrants participating in associations increases with the length of stay, while second-generation migrant participation is similar to that of the host society. The relation is stronger for expressive associations and weaker for instrumental-utilitarian ones, while religious organisations are more likely to attract new immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Two demographic challenges confront Europe today: population ageing and population decline. These challenges are two sides of the same demographic coin. While low fertility and increasing longevity cause populations to rapidly grow older, low fertility also leads to population decline. This paper describes recent and expected changes in the size and composition of the European population and the underlying demographic trends in fertility, mortality and migration. Although international migration is now the major cause of European population growth, it is questionable whether migration can prevent population decline. International migration spurs population diversity in different ways across Europe and is the most volatile demographic phenomenon as it depends on both push and pull factors that are difficult to manage. From a demographic perspective the challenges of international migration for citizenship, both from intra-European migration and more particularly from migration from outside Europe, are likely to increase in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to the special issue entitled ‘Africa<>Europe: Transnational Linkages, Multi-Sited Lives’ outlines the history of the African migrant presence in Europe, gives an account of the contexts which shape contemporary migration, and surveys the approaches to international migration from Africa which have influenced researchers since the 1960s. Linking the contributions to the special issue is the theme of migrants’ transnational ‘double engagement’ with both Africa and Europe. The paper examines this theme across three domains of the lived experience of African migrants and refugees in Europe: ‘Livelihoods’, ‘Families’, and ‘Identities’. We conclude with an assessment of what can be learned (theoretically and methodologically) from the study of African transmigration, and suggest future lines of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A specific case of group threat theory states that the size of a given minority has a direct bearing on anti-immigrant attitudes amongst the majority, a hypothesis that has been shown to have some merit, especially in the USA. This article embarks on group threat theory by focusing on the actual as well as the perceived size of a minority under different political circumstances. Data are drawn from the European Social Survey. After using multilevel analysis for 20 European countries, the paper concludes that neither actual nor perceived size matter for anti-immigrant attitudes in Europe. Nor does size have any effect under different economic or political contexts. This challenges both the theoretical foundation of this specific case of group threat as well as the European political discourse that claims that immigration needs to be reduced in order to lessen tension and, in the long run, preserve a stable democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research suggests that the settling of Muslims in secular Europe is leading to the individualisation of their religious identity and to the fragmentation of their social life. Such research purports to show the production of a specific 'European' Islam that eludes the traditional authority in which Islam is allegedly still mired in most Muslim majority societies. This paper considers the predicament of Muslims in Europe from a different perspective, through a consideration of the ambivalence of secular norms of the public sphere and of their limits in dealing with religious expressions. While much of the current literature concentrates on the diasporic and transnational aspects of the Muslim presence in Europe, the focus here is on specifically European and post-colonial dimensions. The institutional sedimentation of historic traumas, rather than universal values, specific to the formation of European societies and public spheres are considered in both their internal-metropolitan and external-colonial articulations. Set against these original characteristics of European public spheres, an analysis is offered of some of the most vocal activism, particularly that of Muslim women and youth, as instances of a struggle to transform and enrich, and even to decentre, European public spheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being the dominant mode of legal entry for the past two decades in European Union states, the study of family migration has been marginalised theoretically, methodologically and empirically. In settler societies, family migration has been interpreted more loosely and has been encouraged. The definition of who constitutes the family is determined by the state and is generally interpreted in highly restrictive terms in EU states. Family-related migration has been neglected because of the emphasis in migration studies on the individual, a heavily economic focus, and an association with female migration based on the dichotomy of male producer and female reproducer. In policy terms it is treated as a secondary form of migration subordinate to and divorced from labour markets. However since the late 1980s family-related migrations have become the subject of scholarly research, especially North American and Asian-Pacific, using network analysis and, more recently, concepts of transnationalism. In this paper I firstly explore the reasons for the relative neglect of family-linked migration in European research which has focused on the integration of migrant families in receiving societies and the legal and policy conditions of family reunification. Secondly, I examine some of the implications of changing family-led migration, especially at key moments and stages of the lifecourse, and the increasing restrictions imposed on this form of migration, highlighting the continuing role of the nation-state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines new migration to Europe in the context of EU enlargement and debates about fortress Europe, framing the general agenda for the papers that follow in this special issue. We argue that the (normatively informed) image of fortress Europe is an inadequate account of migration and migration policy in Europe in three respects: the movement of family members, asylum-seekers and labour migrants has been substantially positive; enlargement itself generates dynamics of inclusion as much as exclusion; and there exists a significant component of intra-European circulatory migration. Against the fortress account, the article offers a market-driven analysis of new migration to Europe. In developing this account, we stress how existing theoretical accounts of immigration policy - dominated by a state-centred institutionalist and political focus - offer at best only partial explanations of the new European migration scenario. Both neo-liberal and older Marxian theories of the international immigration labour market need to be re-introduced to explain the selective, expansive and reconfiguring effect of market forces on European immigration policies. Our aim is to underline how new tendencies in East-West migration in Europe challenge and transform the traditional migrant trajectory from migrant to citizen that lies at the heart of state-centred accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the prevalence of anti-immigration attitudes among the far-right electorate. Drawing on the distinction between the predictive power of immigration concerns, and the question of how widespread these concerns are among the far-right voter pool, we proceed in two steps. First, we assess the extent to which anti-immigration attitudes are a necessary condition for voting far-right; and second, we examine whether far-right voters with different levels of anti-immigration attitudes exhibit similar individual and attitudinal characteristics. Using data from the 8th wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) we find that, surprisingly, anti-immigration attitudes are not a necessary condition for voting for the far-right as approximately one third of far-right voters have no concerns over immigration. We further show that far-right voters with different levels of immigration concerns have different profiles when it comes to other predictors of the far right-vote including ideological affinity, attachment to the EU and government satisfaction. Our contribution is significant as we suggest that there are different routes to voting for the far right by groups with different grievances, including non- immigration related. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While we know that anti-immigrant attitudes are widely expressed in the public opinion and through parties aiming to limit immigration and migrant rights within European countries, we know less about the effects of such contextual hostility on immigrants, the targeted group. Making use of the cross-national variation of anti-immigrant attitudes and anti-immigrant party strength, my study tests the impact of public and political contextual hostility on voting among citizens in 28 countries. Results from multilevel modelling show that anti-immigrant attitudes in the public to some extent increases voting among citizens with the immigrant background in comparison to natives, indicating a mobilising influence of contextual hostility within the targeted group. The mobilising effect is however not found in countries with the highest levels of anti-immigrant attitudes, or when measuring hostility with anti-immigrant party parliamentary representation. In addition, I find an unexpected negative effect of public contextual hostility on voting among natives, suggesting a strong demobilising influence of hostility within the native group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An understanding of the characteristics of intergenerational relations within immigrant families in Europe and micro-level social processes shaping those relations is essential from both an academic and a policy perspective. Yet there has been little empirical research devoted to testing the theoretical frameworks underlying intergenerational relations and migration studies and comparing ethnically and culturally different immigrant groups across diverse contexts. The articles featured in this special issue provide new evidence on various aspects of intergenerational relations among European immigrant populations. In this introduction, we briefly review the main and most significant of these findings while comparing them with previous research results. We conclude by identifying a set of relevant research questions that remain unanswered and recommend a roadmap for future research on intergenerational relations among immigrant populations in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe has become a major destination for international migrants. By 2015, 34.3 million people living in an EU member state were born outside of the EU-28, and an additional 18.5 million persons had been born in another EU country than the one currently residing in. In this context of a growing foreign-born population, which is now at about 10% of the total European population, xenophobic attitudes against immigrants are generally perceived as having increased over the past decade across Europe. This study explores the extent to which anti-immigrant hostility is spatially dependent and has spread geographically across European regions of that period. Based on data from seven rounds (2002-2014) of the European Social Survey, analysed at sub-national (NUTS 2 regions) levels, we identify a significant spatial connectivity of anti-immigrant attitudes by showing that spatially more proximate European regions share similar in trends in anti-immigrant sentiments than we observe between more distant regions. The identification of a spatially dependent diffusion and clustering process of anti-immigrant attitudes has a significant bearing for the understanding of the rise and fall of populist movements across Europe and changing electoral support for xenophobic parties across European regions over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The borders of Europe do not only operate at territorial limits. This article argues for those identified as Roma, UK immigration control has shifted from gate-keeping at the territorial border to gate-keeping access to services through child welfare. Three factors have interrelated to foreground boundary-making in home encounters: European Union expansion, development of a post-welfare state and governmentalisation of vulnerable children. First this article examines how these three processes converge to activate the border through assessments of mothering in the home. Due to mothers’ particular migrant status, they are confronted with a choice between loss of motherhood or movement from the national territory. Second it illustrates how mothers engage in strategies of self-representation to negotiate bordering processes, requiring intensive work with a variety of actors. These actors are themselves located within racialised and gendered hierarchies. This article illustrates through ethnographic vignettes how the home is recast as a site of negotiating access to state forms where judgements of ‘good motherhood’ produce bordering effects. This represents a governing logic applied both to mothers and frontline workers resulting in stratified reproduction based on hierarchies of values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do sub-state nationalists respond to the growing presence of cultural diversity in their ‘homelands’ resulting from migration? Sub-state nationalists in Europe, in ‘nations without states’ such as Catalonia and Scotland, have been challenging the traditional nation-state model for many decades. While the arguments in favour of autonomy or independence levelled by these movements have become more complex, sub-state nationalist movements remain grounded by their perceived national community that is distinct from the majority nation. Migration to the ‘homeland’ of a sub-state nation, then, presents a conundrum for sub-state elites that we label the ‘legitimation paradox’: too much internal diversity may undermine the claim to cultural distinctiveness. We engage with three common intervening variables thought to influence how sub-state nationalists confront the ‘legitimation paradox’: civic/ethnic nationalism, degree of political autonomy, and party competition. Our overarching argument is that none of these factors have a unidirectional or determinate effect on the sub-state nationalism-immigration nexus, which is why the nuanced case studies that comprise this Special Issue are worthwhile endeavours. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite Europe's mass investments in advanced border controls, people keep arriving along the continent's shores under desperate circumstances. European attempts to ‘secure’ or ‘protect’ the borders have quite clearly failed, as politicians themselves increasingly recognise – yet more of the same response is again rolled out in response to the escalating ‘refugee crisis’. Amid the deadlock, this article argues that we need to grasp the mechanics and logics of the European ‘border security model’ in order to open up for a change of course. Through ethnographic examples from the Spanish-African borders, the article shows how the striving for border security under a prevailing emergency frame has generated absurd incentives, negative path dependencies and devastating consequences. At Europe's frontiers, an industry of border controls has emerged, involving European defence contractors, member state security forces and their African counterparts, as well as a range of non-security actors. Whenever another ‘border crisis’ occurs, this industry grows again, feeding on its own apparent ‘failures’. This vicious cycle may be broken, the article concludes, once policy-makers start curtailing the economies of border security underpinning it – yet the challenges are formidable as the industry retrenches along with the political response to the drama it has itself produced. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Islam has become the key site for demarcating boundaries between majority populations and individuals of immigrant origin across Europe. This article outlines a research agenda on the socio-cultural integration of Muslims in their Western European societies of settlement. Integration issues with regard to Muslims have especially tended to focus on cultural and religious aspects. This raises questions. First, does culture/religion matter in shaping Muslims’ relative disadvantage in the socio-economic domain? Alternatively, does Muslim social disadvantage result from majority society's discrimination and bias against religious/cultural difference? Second, religious and cultural difference seems to matter in its own right. Do Muslims identify with their countries of settlement and accept the core liberal democratic values and norms? Or do persistent socio-cultural ‘gaps’ between Muslims and non-Muslims result from intolerance by the majority population? The article outlines a theoretical approach and empirical research programme. The framework is cross-national comparative, including France, Germany, Britain, Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland. The main data source is a survey that includes four groups of Muslims from distinct countries of origin (Turks, Moroccans, former-Yugoslavians, and Pakistanis) plus a majority sample, which facilitates cross-group, cross-national comparison. This introduction concludes by introducing contributions that address a specific question embedded within the overall framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applies unique data on three-generation migrant and non-migrant lineages to assess how assimilation and intergenerational transmission theories hold up for attitudes on gender equality in the context of Turkey–Europe migration. Information on migration histories of families and gender equality attitudes is collected for over 800 families. Based on those data assimilation and retention theories and theories on intergenerational transmission as a means to reproduce cultural attitudes among migrant families are tested from a dissimilation-from-origin perspective: how do migrants and their descendants differ from non-migrants from the same area of origin. The results of this study support concepts that focus on context- and path-dependency: segmented assimilation is shown in the form that the more traditional migrants who move back to Turkey have children with more traditional views than comparable people without migrant ancestors (retention). At the same time, among lineages that settle in Europe, migration seems to speed up the assimilation process of becoming more supportive of gender equality. Moreover, the youth that grew up in Europe is hardly influenced by the parents' attitudes, whereas the ones growing up in Turkey are. This supports the idea of migration being a transmission belt for intergenerational transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, the empirical study of national citizenship policies has emerged as a fast-growing area of research. This article contributes to that literature by focusing on the question of continuity and change in the 11 'historically restrictive' countries within the 15 'older' member-states of the European Union. It explains why six of the countries have liberalised their citizenship policies since the 1980s, whereas five have not. The article develops an explanation that focuses on the politics of citizenship. The main finding is that, while citizenship liberalisation is more likely to occur with a leftist government, the most important factor is the relative strength of far-right parties, which can serve to mobilise latent anti-immigrant public opinion, and thereby 'trump' the pressures for liberalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, we have seen a shift from research on the internal structure and culture of Muslim religiosity to research on the way in which societies create opportunities for the development of Islam, or oppose them, and more particularly to the political opportunity structure and the institutionalised regimes and policies of governing Islam in Europe from a neo-institutionalist perspective. This introduction to the special issue discusses the concepts and perspectives of the governance and government of religious diversity, critically analysing the inherent problems of constructing patterns or models of the relationship between (organised) religions, societies, politics, nations and polities/states. My analysis opts for fairly disaggregated frames for the purposes of rich descriptions of cases, synchronic comparisons and diachronic changes, which are a precondition for asking the relevant explanatory questions: Why what happened happened here and not there? Why now and not then? This framework is used to critically assess the debate on whether a European regime of religious governance in general, particularly with regard to Islam, is emerging, and to introduce the contributions in this special issue that analyse different aspects of governing Islam in Western Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]