Integration Politics as an Apparatus

Integration politics—the networks of policies, institutions, discourses, and initiatives to facilitate the incorporation of immigrants—is not a single discourse or policy, but rather an apparatus of governmentality with great scale and scope. An integrative apparatus is pervasive and affects all national subjects. Analysis of the debates about the 2016 integration law shows that an integrative apparatus is not new, but that various elements of an integrative apparatus emerged in the context of guest worker migration. This apparatus is built upon a racialized hierarchy of subjects and expends significant energy to hide the development of a racialized underclass in Germany.