A Missing Piece: The Absence of Discussion About Integration Policy in the Slovak Migration Discourse

Abstract

In the current paper, we will explain how and why Slovak politicians have been largely unwilling to articulate the topic of migrant integration in recent years, even though up until 2015, international migration was at least a marginal topic of public debate in Slovakia. To this day, this topic remains mostly unexplored by both Slovak politicians and voters. Since migration policy is a synthesis of immigration, asylum, and integration policies, we assume that the migration discourse will be equivalently structured. Although the integration of foreigners has traditionally been an important part of migration policy in the larger world, we have found that this topic has been marginalised in Slovak public discourse, i.e. it is usually not part of the political discussion here. Integration is a marginal topic of this political discourse because Slovak politicians prefer to articulate migration as a threat to public order, identity, culture, and religion. Slovak politicians reject migration because they assume that migrants are unable or unwilling to integrate.

From “United in Exploitation” To “United in Diversity”: Postcolonial Perspectives Regarding Europe’s Economic Migration Fluxes

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Labour Market and Immigration Nexus in V4 countries: Using Panel Data Analysis for the Period of 2000-2020

“…The motive to migrate has been evolving from time to time and has immensely contributed to the ongoing updating of the theoretical framework. For example, after the Second World War, the main motive was the labour market, while more recently wars and internal conflicts are considered as main push factors which contributed to the concept of (in)security centered theoretical approaches (Cohen and Sirkeci, 2011;Sirkeci, 2009;Heywood, 2013;Stefancik et al, 2022;Onyusheva, 2022;Lloyd and Sirkeci, 2022). Particular to this study, since our focus is on the economic aspect of migration, the theoretical framework is focused on the economic perspectives.…”