INTERNATIONAL POLICY ANALYSIS Participation and Recognition European Approaches to a Social Democratic Integration Policy CHRISTIAN HENKES/ ANNE SASKIA STUHLER October 2010 ࡯ Many European states are making increasingly pragmatic efforts to find effective approaches to integration policy and are trying out new policy instruments to that end. Classic integration policy models, such as the exclusive, the pluralistic and the universalistic, are becoming less and less coherent, while at the national level inte­gration policy orientations are drifting further and further apart. ࡯ For a decade or so, Germany’s hitherto exclusive and assimilation-oriented integra­tion policy has been the object of sustained reflection. This analysis examines the integration models of other Western European countries with regard to their legal­political, socioeconomic and cultural-religious dimensions. These models could be utilised, suitably adapted to German circumstances, in order to bring about a reori­entation. ࡯ German social democracy also needs to make a clearer commitment to increasing cultural heterogeneity in Germany and should develop a coherent approach to in­tegration policy. To that end, it should markedly extend its current approach, which involves the promotion of individual participation, to encompass the recognition of cultural diversity in order to integrate immigrants in all domains on an equal footing across society.