Integration Policies in Migration Between Nationalising States and Transnational Citizenship, with Reference to the Slovenian Case

Abstract The article explores issues related to integration in migration management as it is understood in Slovenia as an EU member-state since 2004. The Slovene situation is used as empirical background for debating integration, which is promoted as an inclusive response in migration policies, and also as a restriction on migrant citizens. The article proceeds from discussing a situation in a specific nation-state to considering integration as a mechanism of nationalising states, as an institution for grounding what Balibar calls ‘fictive ethnicity’. The argument is provided for why nationalising states with naturalisation policies equate citizenship with nationality. Integration is foregrounded as a human rights paradox that keeps migrants in a position of non-nationals. An attempt is made to develop a frame for possible thinking of migration in a transnational citizenship perspective, i.e. beyond the borders of nation-states. Keywords: IntegrationMigrationNation-StateTransnational CitizenshipSlovenia Notes 1. For more on migration and integration policies in different EU countries (the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, France) as well as in the US see Joppke and Morawska (Citation2003). 2. Available in Slovenian at the Ministry of the Interior http//:www.mnz.si (accessed 23 April and 30 August 2005). 3. Data from UNHCR for the period to 31 December 2005. From its independence in 1991 up to 1999, only two people were granted refugee status in Slovenia; in 2005, the number was 26. Currently the number of refugees living in the country (with 2 million inhabitants) is 124. Comparably low numbers (below 100) of refugee population at the end of 2004 were also the case in Lichtenstein (38) and Portugal (89); numbers were even lower for Latvia (7) and Estonia (4). Compare, on the other hand, Germany, with nearly half a million refugees, or France with 140,000. Data available at http://www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home. 4. These and other comments on the new law were critically expressed by a group of NGOs, which actively critiqued the laws in the area of migration since 2001, and who suggested corrections and changes, but were largely overlooked in the process of drafting and adopting the new asylum provisions. 5. For more on how more than 18,000 people and their families lost the legal basis for their existence in Slovenia soon after the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s see Zorn (Citation2005). Additional informationNotes on contributorsMojca Pajnik Mojca Pajnik is Researcher at the Peace Institute, Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies, Ljubljana