Pavel Barša
   Managing Immigration and Integration of new minorities in Central Europe: The Case of the Czech Republic
   Interim Report. Period: March – August 2003
   The main task of this project is to use the experiences of western countries for the construction of a framework for immigration and integration policies in the Czech Republic and to promote the ideas of this framework both with Czech government agencies and nongovernmental or intergovernmental organizations.
       
   1. Work on the research paper
   (a) The paper will be divided into three chapters. In the first chapter, I will overview the main analytical and normative approaches and construct ideal types of nationhood. In the second chapter, I will summarize the historical development of immigration and integration policies in the U.S., France, Great Britain and Germany. In the third chapter, I will use conceptual tools and examples worked out in the first two chapters for the analysis of recent developments in the Czech Republic and for the construction of a policy framework for Czech immigration and integration policies. The first half of the IPF research year has been devoted mainly to the first two chapters, that is, to the study, summarization and interpretation of the relevant theoretical and empirical literature. The draft presented at my web site contains substantial parts of these chapters. Since the policy paper will draw mainly on the last chapter, it could not be drafted at this stage.
   (b) I have also spent a lot of time collecting relevant materials for the Czech case, both official documents and newspaper articles. I will add interviews with         Czech officials and NGOs workers to these sources and write the third chapter in the following months.  
      
    2. Promoting and disseminating the results
    (a) I was commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to produce a policy paper on Czech immigration and integration policies with regard to western European experiences. The paper will summarize in Czech the results of the IPF research and will become a resource for ministry officials.   
    (b) I have received a preliminary promise that my IPF research paper will be published in the series of Working Papers of the Institute of International Relations (a research institute with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
      
    3. Conferences
    (a) I gave a paper Immigration and Integration in Contemporary Europe at the Sixth International Seminar: “Democracy and Human Rights in Multiethnic Societies”, organized by Institute for Strengthening Democracy In Bosnia, July 7-11, 2003, Konjic, Bosnia (the paper drew on the third section of the first chapter of the research paper draft).
    (b) I have been invited to participate in a plenary discussion panel “The impact of migration on national identities – comparing ideas about membership and minority rights in receiving countries” at the 8th International Metropolis Conference, held in Vienna from 16 - 19 September 2003.

    4. Work with nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations
    (a) I have been collaborating with the Multicultural Centre Prague (I am a member of its Program Council) and the People in Need Foundation in Prague: I have written two press articles (see Publications) within their common Migration project, which started in October 2002 with the help of the Open Society Fund.
    (b) I was contacted by the International Organization for Migration and was asked to write an expert assessment of their research on recent Roma migration from Slovakia to the Czech Republic (deadline September 2003).

   5. Publications
   Within the Migration project (see the previous section) I published two articles, one about the implementation of a recent British White Paper on migration (a), the other about the need to transform a Czech nationhood from an ethnic to civic type so that the Czech republic may become a multicultural country and open itself towards immigrants.
   (a) Brany ostrovni pevnosti se pootevrely (The Gates of the Island Fortress Half Opened), co-authored by Andrea Barsova, Hospodarske noviny, December 6 – 8, 2002
   (b) Od kmene k obcanstvi. Budoucnost Evropy patri multikulturnim naodum (From Tribesmen to Citizens. The Future of Europe Lies with Multicultural Nations), Respekt, June 23, 2003, http://mkc.cz/clanky.shtml?x=139650
 
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