EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - IMISCOE Working Paper: Immigrant and immigration policy-making - A review of the literature of the Greek case

IMISCOE Working Paper: Immigrant and immigration policy-making - A review of the literature of the Greek case

Introduction

To provide comprehensive theoretical and empirical knowledge on international migration, integration and social cohesion, that can form a reliable basis for policy IMISCOE brings together some 400 selected, highly qualified researchers from more than 22 European institutes. Based on their wide-ranging skills and experience in international comparative research, the institutes implement an integrated, multidisciplinary, rigorously comparative research programme with Europe as its central focus.

One of the steps in building this research programme was the construction of so called research clusters covering various themes relating to migration and integration. One of these clusters focuses on processes of policy making. In this cluster members have developed various country reports on immigrants and immigrant policy making in their respective country. This working paper deals with the case of Greece.

Description

The creation of public policy is a dynamic process. Events, actors, and political institutions combine and conflict in a wide array of unpredictable ways. The process that has led to immigrant and immigration policies in Greece, the actors involved and the levels at which they are made, is a topic that has been ignored by the academic community. This literature review covers this area to show the need for future research.

First, the extent and type of recent migration flows to Greece are shortly presented, as well as the main immigration legislation since the beginning of the 1990s.

Secondly, the existing literature is reviewed, giving emphasis to studies which have put in the centre of their analysis not so much the content of immigrant and integration policies, but the process that has led to them.

The author concludes that research on Greek immigrant and immigration policy-making can be considered as weak. Up till now the majority of research in this area has tended to be legal/institutional (focused upon the laws and regulations rather than on the policy-making process itself). Almost all existing studies focus on the national level of policy-making and concentrate only on two phases of the policy-cycle, namely formulation and implementation.

A great problem for the completion of research studies on Greek immigration policy-making for scientists in all migration-related fields is the enormous data deficit. The existing statistical sources are in general extremely unreliable and difficult to access.

Background information

This title is published within the IMISCOE publication programme as part of the Working Papers. These Working Papers are the products of ongoing work by IMISCOE members that are not (yet) ready for publication within the IMISCOE-AUP Book series.

They may range from State of the Art Reports (SoAR) on worldwide research within a particular domain to more specific products of ongoing work. The Working Papers are evaluated by the editorial committee for quality and completeness before being published on the website.

Peer-reviewed publications can be found in the IMISCOE_AUP Book Series developed in co-operation with the Amsterdam University Press (AUP).

EU involvement

The IMISCOE Working Papers are part of IMISCOE which is an EU funded Network of Excellence in the Sixth Framework Programme.

Contact info

IMISCOE Network of Excellence
Karen Kraal (Communication Officer), tel. + 31 (0)20 525 3659

Publication date

Project finished

//2006

Researcher

Katerina Apostolatou, FIERI, Italy

Links

Visit the IMISCOE Network of Excellence website

Download the 'Immigrant and immigration policy-making' Report (PDF, Eng, 165 KB)

Document type

research

Themes

Urban Policy

Keywords