Immigrant Integration in Europe: Empirical Research

Most European countries are examining how they have sought to integrate immigrants in the past and how they might change their policies to avoid some of the problems exhibited in immigrant and minority communities today. Discrimination and issues of racism, including the rise of anti-immigrant radical right parties, have become important, as evidenced in part by the passage of the European Union's Racial Equality Directive in 2000. This essay reviews comparative research in political science on immigrant integration in Western Europe. It discusses multiculturalism and assimilation, party politics, antidiscrimination policy, and policy at the European Union level.