The European Commission and Migrant Integration Policies : Discursive Institutionalism, Modes of Policy Learning and Multilevel Governance

Migrant integration policies constitute a cornerstone of differentiated integration in the European Union, yet a literature gap exists concerning how European institutions discursively construct the field of migrant integration policies. This paper establishes a relationship between discursive institutionalism, policy learning theory, and types of multilevel governance systems to analyse the European Commission’s discursive approach to migrant integration policies. It asks the following research question: To what extent do the European Commission’s discourses regarding migrant integration policies favour a reflexive mode of policy learning associated with Type-II multilevel governance? Concerning border-related aspects of migration control, where crisis-based narratives prevail, the European Commission favours the perspective that learning is a consequence of bargaining. However, in the arena of migrant integration policies, the Commission employs discourses based on European values. I argue that the discourses developed by the Commission in migrant integration policies favour a reflexive approach to policy learning based on normative appropriateness and beliefs. The Commission promotes this approach by representing migrants as citizens and not risks, by normalizing the question of problem tractability concerning the integration of migrants in European host societies, and by lowering the demands concerning the certification of actors participating in the policy-learning process. Departing from Dunlop and Radaelli’s approach to modes of policy learning, the distinction between systems of multilevel governance by Marks and Hooghe and discursive institutionalism according to Schmidt, this article discusses how by favouring a reflexive mode of policy learning, the European Commission upholds a need for the introduction of functional, non-territorial, and task-specific jurisdictions regarding migrant integration policies that would decrease the effects of differentiated integration in a field particularly relevant for European territorial governance.