Integration v Assimilation: Flaws of Coerced Inclusion
Last week, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the state of Switzerland had the right to oblige a pair of Muslim parents to send their daughters to mixed swimming lessons. While the parents had protested that the requirement to send their daughters to mixed swimming lessons violated Article 9 of the European Convention...
Brexit and the decline of the Rural Left
In the immediate aftermath of the Brexit result in June, articles were quick to apportion blame to demographic cohorts that enabled the unthinkable result to become reality. The old, the rural, the uneducated; each segment’s electoral naivety was roundly lambasted by those at the vanguard of ‘progress’ and ‘modernity’. The plethora of criticisms was neatly...
The European Pillar of Social Rights: A Timely Lifeline for the EU?
The march of far-right wing political parties across Europe, the recent Brexit, and the US Presidential election of Donald Trump - have all signalled a sweeping social disconnect and disenfranchisement on both sides of the Atlantic.
Parallelgesellschaften: Leicester Model and the Politics of Integration
The terrorist bombings in Brussels and Paris in recent months have brought a strong and at times xenophobic edge to the continuing discussion on immigration and the integration of minorities in Europe. While previous articles on this website have focused on the migrant crisis, this article looks at issues with regards integration of migrants in...
The end of Schengen and the Euro dream? Europe’s crisis of consensus
A European project which set out with the intention of complete convergence and policy harmonization has ironically, resulted in widespread divergence and disharmony.
Syrian crisis: Pragmatism in the face of suffering
There is a clear sense that the current crisis is a knee-jerk, short-sighted response to the crisis, a reaction to public pressures arising from the inflow of migrants into Europe as opposed to the actual cause of the displacement. Widespread public sympathy for the plight of migrants exists; itself in part generated by emotionally charged imagery...
A floating dilemma: the Mediterranean crisis
Amnesty International reported July 2014 that at least 2,600 individuals had died attempting to cross the Mediterranean since 2011. In the nine month period between October 2013 and June the following year, 43,430 would be migrants were rescued by the Italian Navy as part of Operation Mare Nostrum, a rescue initiative which cost the Italian...
Social Costs of Direct Provision
A clear majority of Irish voters approve of the current Direct Provision policy towards asylum seekers [1]. Support for the policy is strong across all social classes, but is especially popular among DE voters, and, surprisingly, among young voters (18 to 34). Given such broad popular support for the current arrangement, it is unlikely that any change...
