This article, through the prism of immigration policy models proposed by Stephen Castles (1995), Steven Weldon (2005) and Liah Greenfeld (1998), discusses those aspects of Norwegian immigration policy that refer directly to children. Areas such as employment, education, housing and health care influence the situation of an immigrant family, which in turn affects the wellbeing of a child. However, it is the education system and the work of Child Welfare Services that most directly influence a child’s position. Analysis presented in this article is based on the White Paper to the Norwegian Parliament, and data that were obtained in expert interviews and ethnographic observation in Akershus and Buskerud area in Norway, conducted between 2012 and 2014. The article raises the question whether the tools of im-migration policy used by social workers and teachers lead to integration understood as an outcome of a pluralist or individualistic-civic model of immigration policy or are rather aimed at assimilation into Norwegian society, attempting to impose the effect of assimilation or the collectivistic-civic policy model.

The traditional model of the multinational city, which was based on the harmonious coexistence of separated ethnic residential districts and common multinational public areas, where the exchange of services and goods took place, gives way to the contemporary model, based on the principle of dispersion and segmentation. In the postmodern city virtual space has increasingly becoming a platform of exchange: numerous economic, social and cultural functions are performed through the ubiquitous electronic communications. Public space, symbolic for the European concept of the city, is losing many of its previous functions in favour of the Internet. The dispersion of immigrants in the structure of the multinational city is conducive to the emergence of an attractive, kaleidoscopic and multicultural urban organism, their separation in ghettos results in intensification of pathologies. Integration is assuming the form of a network, while separation that of walls.

This article explores the nature and impact of stigmatisation upon Russian and Russian-speaking migrants living in Scotland. It is based upon data gathered from 19 interviews with Russians and Russian-speakers living in the Aberdeen/Aberdeenshire and Central Belt regions of Scotland. Ongoing conflict in Syria and Ukraine has worsened relations between the UK and Russia, while EU enlargement and, latterly, the ‘refugee crisis’ have fuelled hostile attitudes towards migrants. Russians and Russian-speakers liv-ing in Scotland therefore face two potential sources of stigma, firstly because of a (perceived) associa-tion with the actions of the Russian state and, secondly, because they are often misidentified as Polish and are consequently regarded as threatening the availability of resources such as jobs, housing, ben-efits and school places (Pijpers 2006; Spigelman 2013). The article explores how people respond to such stigmatisation, emphasising the complexity of engaging with misdirected stigma. It is suggested that stigma – and the way in which people respond to it – is situational and context-specific in that it is significantly influenced by the identity, background and perspective of the stigmatised person. Also in-vestigated is the wider impact of stigma on Russian and Russian-speaking migrants’ lives, highlighting the emotional and social insecurities that can result from stigmatisation. Drawing on anthropological theories of social security (Caldwell 2007; von Benda-Beckmann and von Benda-Beckmann 2000), the article suggests that robust social support, particularly from people who are local to the host country, can mitigate the negative effects of stigmatisation.

This article presents selected results from a survey conducted in 2014 and 2015 in the Province of Opole, among 263 entrepreneurs representing companies from different sectors which varied due to the number of employees and the labour market segment. Organisations with experience in employing a foreign workforce as well as those who had not previously employed foreigners were asked about their willingness to engage a foreign workforce. The analysis was made taking into account the labour market segment. Majority of respondents claimed that the country of origin of the foreign workforce is irrelevant. Such attitude was more frequent among entrepreneurs with experience in hiring foreigners than among those who have not yet taken on foreign labour. Entrepreneurs, especially those employing foreigners during the study, tended to view foreigners as more available and more willing to work overtime, hence ‘better’ then Polish employees. Interestingly, among respondents representing the secondary labour market, the opinion that foreigners are ‘better’ employees was more common than in the group representing the primary labour market.

The article presents an analysis of the real role of the complementarity principle and the reasons why immi-gration law is still based on this principle. The basic assumptions of the state’s attitude towards labour im-migration were set out in a period when this kind of immigration to Poland was at a much smaller scale than currently. First and foremost, one of the basic premises is the complementarity of labour immigration (com-plementarity principle) with the labour market test as an element of the procedures, although with some exceptions. The mechanism of controlling the complementarity is obligatory and preventive. The current economic situation in Poland, including the conditions for the functioning of immigration law, is very differ-ent from the reality of that time. In view of growing shortages of Polish employees on the labour market one can doubt whether preventive enforcement of complementarity by law is needed. The complementarity of labour immigration to Poland is a socio-economic fact and legal guarantees to ensure this result seem ob-solete. There are strong arguments to consider that opportunistic political motivations are the main reason against the rationalisation of legal regulations concerning immigration of workers. The complementarity principle has become a facade of restrictive immigration law, while allowing for its use in a way that ensures the access of immigrants to the labour market.

Jonas Hassen Khemiri, born in 1978, is one of the most interesting contemporary Swedish and European writers with a Tunisian immigrant background. His second novel Montecore: en unik tiger ( Montecore: The Silence of the Tiger), published in 2006, has got an epistolary form deducted from the exchange of letters between Kadir and Jonas. However, the main character of the novel is Abbas Khemiri – the disappearing, estranged father of Jonas – a figure close to the real writer. Khemiri’s book has got an innovative linguistic form and contains many erudite references to the phenomena of popular culture. It is also a complex portrayal of the different generations of (mainly Arab-based) immigrant and post-immigrant communities in Sweden coupled with a nuanced look on bright and dark sides of the Swedish state, model of identity and integration. This material is enriched by the examples taken from Khemiri’s novel Everything I Don’t Remember and short story As You Would Have Told It To Me (Sort Of) If We Had Known Each Other Before You Died.

The article presents Model Integration of Immigrants in Gdańsk in the field of education, based on two years of experience of schools, local government institutions and social organizations involved in the creation of conditions for the education of immigrants. & e foreign pupils, defined as “someone else”, not belonging to the community of “our”, are not the subject of educational policy, but immediately a} er crossing the threshold of schools become its object. The law and school practices define their place in the system, that becomes a huge challenge for both teachers and for students themselves and their parents. Gdańsk way to develop urban educational policy for immigrants led from intervention by the diagnosis of problems and learning from others, to seek their own innovative solutions.

Recent years have witnessed the publication of a number of research papers and books seeking to assess threats of electoral victories of anti-establishment politicians and political parties, described as authoritarian populists. This essay focuses on three books directly addressing the origins and threats of authoritarian populism to democracy. It consists of six sections and the conclusion. The first section presents findings (Norris and Inglehart) based on surveys of values of voters of various age cohorts concluding that authoritarian populism is a temporary backlash provoked by the post-materialist perspective. The second section examines the contention, spelled out in Levitsky and Ziblatt, that increase in openness of American political system produced, unintentionally, a degradation of the American political system. The third section continues brief presentations focusing on to the causes and implications of “illiberal democracy,” and “undemocratic liberalism” (Mounk). The fourth section examines developments in the quality of democracy in the world showing that despite the decline in Democracy Indices, overall there was no slide towards non-democratic forms of government in 2006–2019. The next two sections deal with dimensions missing in reviewed books; the notion of nation-state, international environment, civic culture and, in particular, dangers of radical egalitarianism to democracy. The last section concludes with regrets that the authors ignored rich literature on fragility of democracy and failed to incorporate in their analyses deeper structural factors eroding democracy: by the same token, return to the pre-populist shock trajectory is unlikely to assure survival of liberal democracy.