Externally driven integration in EU migration policy: enabling integration through indifference, undermining it through conflictive politicisation
本文评估过去三十年欧盟移民政策的外部驱动整合程度，发现只要部分成员国面临外部相互依赖和政治化，其他成员国因不认为受负面影响而接受整合，但冲突性政治化会导致整合受阻，近年转向选择性整合边界政策。
This article assesses to what extent we see externally driven integration in EU migration policies, focusing on three different periods over the past thirty years: (1) the path to partial integration of immigration policies through the Treaty of Amsterdam, (2) the full regulatory integration and subsequent consolidation in the 2000s and early 2010s, and (3) a phase of selective integration/EU capacity-building and non-integration since 2015. It argues that immigration policies are the prime example for externally driven EU integration, as policymaking in this area is usually reactive and not programmatic. Leveraging secondary data, original interviews with EU policymakers and original EU documents, it finds that joint external interdependence is not required for EU integration in the area, as long as some member states face (external) interdependence and (external) politicisation of the issue. Non-affected member states willingly accept more integration, as they do not consider themselves (negatively) affected by EU policy. However, once EU migration policies become more conflictively (unevenly) politicised, those previously indifferent about EU integration in the area block it further. This has led to selective integration of less politicised border policies rather than comprehensive integration of immigration policies in recent years.