Multi-level Governance of Civic Integration Policies: the Case of Czechia

Despite the extensive experience of most European states with immigration, the quest for effective immigrant integration strategies remains ongoing, leading to a diverse array of practices. Over the past decade, academic discussions have highlighted three conflicting trends in this area. Firstly, some scholars talk about a “local turn” in integration policies, emphasising the increasing involvement of local actors in immigrant integration (Caponio and Borkert 2010; Zapata-Barrero, Caponio, and Scholten 2017). Others reveal a contrasting trend, a “national turn”, where a greater state involvement through the implementation of civic integration measures leads to a centralisation of immigrant integration (Emilsson 2015; Gebhardt 2016). Lastly, the Europeanisation of the integration agenda through EU immigration policies, pointed out by other authors (Block and Bonjour 2013; Carrera and Wiesbrock 2009) adds another layer of complexity to the governance of immigrant integration. This paper contributes to this scholarly debate in two ways. First, it brings new knowledge of immigrant integration practice in an omitted region of Central Europe, arguing that Visegrad countries may bring relevant and enriching knowledge on migration practices and policy-making. Second, the research intends to demonstrate the applicability of the broader concept of multi-level governance to a special set of integration policies, called civic integration, whose investigation has been realised namely from the national level perspective so far (Joppke 2007; Goodman 2014). For this purpose, the paper brings a case study focused on Czechia, a country with a long-term immigration experience, implementing civic integration policies similar to those applied by other traditional immigration countries in Western Europe. The research investigates how different actors, involved at various governmental levels, participate in civic integration policy-making in Czechia and whether civic integration produces a “national turn” in Czech immigrant integration also, as suggested by some scholars. To examine these questions, the article first zooms in on the two theoretical concepts which the research works with, civic integration and multi-level governance, together with a review of the existing relevant literature. The second section of the paper subsequently provides an overview of the methodology and research methods applied, followed by a brief description of civic integration implemented in Czechia in the third part. The fourth section then brings the main analysis of various actors involved in immigrant integration in Czechia at various levels of governance, both horizontally from supranational down to the local level and vertically with the inclusion of non-governmental stakeholders. The results of their collaboration in civic integration policy-making, contradicting the prevailing scholarly discourse on the centralisation of integration policies with the implementation of civic integration policies, are eventually summarised in the conclusion.