Participation, Immigration and Subjective Perception of Integration in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Basque society has been undergoing an intensive process of ethnocultural diversification, a consequence of the latest international migratory flows. For the Basque Country, these flows imply a new migratory cycle which, as on former occasions, helps further diversify an already diverse society. From the point of view of a cohesive society, the integration of these new migrants is a key element. What is the role of social and political participation in the integration process? This paper aims at providing an answer to the question. There may be a variety of forms and models for defining what is understood as integration. However, it is generally agreed that participation is a major factor in this integration process. This consensus is based on the fact that participation is a fundamental, democratic element which is related to political and civil rights, the community system and a society’s citizens. From the democratic viewpoint, having immigrants participate is, therefore, a fundamental aspect. In this work, we intend to analyse the relation between the participationParticipation of people of foreign origin residing in the Autonomous Community of the Basque CountryBasque Country (CAPV) and their subjective perception of integrationIntegration. To this end, we based our work on the Basque Government’s Survey of the Foreign Immigrant Population (EPIE), a survey that allows us to analyse the subjective perception of integrationIntegration of people of foreign origin depending on the different forms of engagement and their sociodemographic and migratory profile. The findings helped show the existence of a positive relation between participationParticipation and the perception of integrationIntegration. Furthermore, it was likewise observed that the different participationParticipation profiles identified vary depending on the nature of the organisation in which they participate, the migratory stage and their socio-economic characteristics.