Abstract
In migration studies, the multi-level governance (MLG) approach is gaining bigger and bigger attention with the rising understanding of how the role of local actors is essential in this domain. The same applies to a specific area of migration studies focused on civic integration policies (CIP).
These special policies, encompassing language and civic courses and tests designated for third-country nationals, are spreading around Europe since the turn of the millennium and represent a subject of an already vast academic literature. This paper, serving as a prototype for a Ph.D. thesis, intends to look at the CIP through the glasses of MLG approach in the region of Central Europe, which is considerably omitted in the CIP debate.
The paper aims to uncover the relationship of different levels of governance in the process of policymaking and implementation of CIP in Czechia and Austria. It questions how civic integration policies are governed in these countries and whether we can trace a bottom-up or top-down approach to CIP.
The article's hypothesis presupposes that in Austria, the regional and local level enjoys more space to shape integration policies due to the federal system of the country's governance, compared to the non-federal disposition of its Czech neighbour. Thanks to this research, new knowledge about the current development of the CIP in the Central-European area is also brought forward.