Han Entzinger - Böcker

The EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) was established to provide evidence-based policy advice to EU institutions and Member States. By blending social science research with traditional normative work, it aims to influence human rights policy processes through new ways of framing empirical realities. The contributors to this volume critically examine the experience of the Agency in its first decade, exploring FRA’s historical, political and legal foundations and its evolving record across major strands of EU fundamental rights. Central themes arising from these chapters include consideration of how the Agency manages the tension between a mandate to advise and the more traditional approach of human rights bodies to ‘monitor’, and how its research impacts the delicate equilibrium between these two contesting roles. FRA's experience as the first ‘embedded’ human rights agency is also highlighted, suggesting a role for alternative and less oppositional orientations for human rights research. While authors observe the benefits of the technocratic approach to human rights research that is a hallmark of FRA’s evidence-based policy advice, they also note its constraints. FRA’s policy work requires a continued awareness of political realities in Brussels, Member States, and civil society. Consequently, the complex process of determining the Agency’s research agenda reflects the strategic priorities of key actors. This is an important factor in the Agency’s role in the EU human rights landscape. This pioneering position of the Agency should invite reflection on new forms of institutionalized human rights research for the future.

The EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) was established to provide evidence-based policy advice to EU institutions and Member States. By blending social science research with traditional normative work, it aims to influence human rights policy processes through new ways of framing empirical realities. The contributors to this volume critically examine the experience of the Agency in its first decade, exploring FRA’s historical, political and legal foundations and its evolving record across major strands of EU fundamental rights. Central themes arising from these chapters include consideration of how the Agency manages the tension between a mandate to advise and the more traditional approach of human rights bodies to ‘monitor’, and how its research impacts the delicate equilibrium between these two contesting roles. FRA's experience as the first ‘embedded’ human rights agency is also highlighted, suggesting a role for alternative and less oppositional orientations for human rights research. While authors observe the benefits of the technocratic approach to human rights research that is a hallmark of FRA’s evidence-based policy advice, they also note its constraints. FRA’s policy work requires a continued awareness of political realities in Brussels, Member States, and civil society. Consequently, the complex process of determining the Agency’s research agenda reflects the strategic priorities of key actors. This is an important factor in the Agency’s role in the EU human rights landscape. This pioneering position of the Agency should invite reflection on new forms of institutionalized human rights research for the future.

Lost Illusions, first published in 1988, analyses the differing experiences of Caribbean migration to Britain and the Netherlands, both from the perspectives of the countries and from the migrants themselves. The editors have compiled a volume of in-depth articles from experts from Britain and the Netherlands to provide an essential examination of Caribbean migration to two different European countries in the 1970s and 1980s.

Lost Illusions, first published in 1988, analyses the differing experiences of Caribbean migration to Britain and the Netherlands, both from the perspectives of the countries and from the migrants themselves. The editors have compiled a volume of in-depth articles from experts from Britain and the Netherlands to provide an essential examination of Caribbean migration to two different European countries in the 1970s and 1980s.

This open access book explores how research and policymaking in the field of migrant integration have developed historically and how this interrelationship plays out in the strongly politicised climate of opinions on migration in Europe. It features interdisciplinary theoretical contributions as well as original empirical studies on research-policy dialogues at both the EU and country level.The chapters study not only how the dialogue between research and policy is structured (such as advisory bodies, research agencies, and ad-hoc committees), but also how these dialogues affect policymaking and the development of migrant integration research itself as well.The analysis reveals profound changes in the dialogue structures associated with the research-policy nexus in the domain of migrant integration. On the one hand, dialogue structures have become more ad-hoc, often established in response to distinct political events or to specific problems. On the other, politicisation has not thwarted all efforts to develop more institutionalised dialogue structures between producers and users of knowledge. In addition, research has contributed to policymaking in very different ways in various European countries.This edited volume is unique in this effort to reflect on the impact of research-policy dialogues both on the development of migrant integration policies as well as on migrant integration research. It will be of importance to scholars in this field as well as to policymakers and other stakeholders involved in migrant integration policymaking.