The Integration Debate

Racial integration, and policies intended to achieve greater integration, continue to generate controversy in the United States, with some of the most heated debates taking place among long-standing advocates of racial equality. Today, many nonwhites express what has been referred to as "integration exhaustion" as they question the value of integration in today’s world. And many whites exhibit what has been labeled "race fatigue," arguing that we have done enough to reconcile the races. Many policies have been implemented in efforts to open up traditionally restricted neighborhoods, while others have been designed to diversify traditionally poor, often nonwhite, neighborhoods. Still, racial segregation persists, along with the many social costs of such patterns of uneven development. This book explores both long-standing and emerging controversies over the nation’s ongoing struggles with discrimination and segregation. More urgently, it offers guidance on how these barriers can be overcome to achieve truly balanced and integrated living patterns.

This is a major new reader that brings together and assesses the most influential scholarly contributions that have fashioned the debate on European integration over the past 50 years. It includes an original contribution reflecting on key issues in integration theory by Ben Rosamond.

This book presents a new framework for the 'trade and environment' debate and discusses the ways in which the EU and the WTO address this topic: positive, negative and non-integration. It analyses areas like food safety and renewable energy from the perspectives of legal and political science, and economics, and includes contributions focusing on various approaches, such as harmonisation, regulatory cooperation and judicialisation. In the 21st century, especially in our current times, where free trade and economic integration are increasingly being called into question, it is even more vital to find convincing normative answers and ways to address the very complex relationship between trade and environmental policies. Debunking some of the myths concerning positive and negative integration and the relationship between the two, this book is a valuable contribution to the debate on globalisation.

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,6, University of Hannover (Philosophische Fakultät), course: Seminar: National Identity and its Representations in Modern British Culture, 13 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This paper focuses on the multiculturalism vs. integration debate in Great Britain which was aggravated by a speech held by Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), in spring 2004. At first it is necessary to give definitions of the rather vague terms "multiculturalism" and "integration". That will be done in chapter two. Chapter three then introduces four main governmental policies in dealing with multiculturalism and takes a look at their theoretical backgrounds. The main part of this paper, chapter four, deals with the lively multiculturalism vs. integration debate in Great Britain. After the major points of Phillips' speech are presented it is important to give some general facts about multiculturalism in the UK in order to give the discussion a solid basis. There have been plenty of reactions towards Phillips' speech. Supporters and opponents of his theses have publicly underlined their statements in manifold opportunities. It is not possible to hear them all. Therefore only a relatively small but hopefully well-balanced selection can be given. Finally some own thoughts and ideas will be presented in the conclusion. Unfortunately most of them can only be causes for thoughts because they again lead to a much wider topic which would be part of a new paper.

What is the use of research in public debates and policy-making on immigration and integration? Why are there such large gaps between migration debates and migration realities, and how can they be reduced? Bridging the Gaps: Linking Research to Public Debates and Policy Making on Migration and Integration provides a unique set of testimonies and analyses of these questions by researchers and policy experts who have been deeply involved in attempts to link social science research to public policies. Bridging the Gaps argues that we must go beyond the prevailing focus on the research-policy nexus by considering how the media, public opinion, and other dimensions of public debates can interact with research and policy-processes. The chapters provide theoretical analyses and personal assessments of the successes and failures of past efforts to link research to public debates and policy-making on migration and integration in six different countries - Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States - as well as in European and global governance debates. Contrary to common public perceptions and political demands, Bridging the Gaps argues that all actors contributing to research, public debates, and policy-making should recognize that migration, integration, and related decision-making are highly complex issues, and that there are no quick fixes to what are often enduring policy dilemmas. When the different actors understand and appreciate each other's primary aims and constraints, such common understandings can pave the way for improved policy-making processes and better public policies that deal more effectively with the real challenges of migration and integration.

This book is a response to the binary thinking and misuse of history that characterize contemporary immigration debates. Subverting the traditional injunction directed at migrants to ‘go back to where they came from’, it highlights the importance of the past to contemporary discussions around migration. It argues that historians have a significant contribution to make in this respect and shows how this can be done with chapters from scholars in, Asia, Europe, Australasia and North America. Through their work on global, transnational and national histories of migration, an alternative view emerges – one that complicates our understanding of 21st-century migration and reasserts movement as a central dimension of the human condition. History, Historians and the Immigration Debate makes the case for historians to assert themselves more confidently as expert commentators, offering a reflection on how we write migration history today and the forms it might take in the future.