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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