IMMIGRATION INTO EUROPEAN WELFARE STATES: HOW CONFLICTS AND INEQUALITIES ARE (RE)PRODUCED

Abstract

Market liberalization in the EU serves as a basis for class distinctions among migrants, while restrictive immigration policies help in constructing certain immigrant culture(s) as a threat to homogeneity and welfare state solidarity Over the past few decades, the grounds for the legitimization of inequalities have shifted. Ascriptive traits (heterogeneities) have been complemented by the alleged cultural dispositions of immigrants and the conviction that immigrants as individuals are responsible for their own fate. Such categorizations start by distinguishing legitimate refugees from non-legitimate forced migrants. Another important issue is the alleged illiberal predispositions of migrants and their unadaptability to modernity. Politics and policies seem to reward specific types of migrants and refugees, exclude the lowand non-performers in the market, and reward those who espouse liberal attitudes. In brief, it is a process of categorizing migrants into useful or dispensable.