Albert Kraler Albert Kraler Isabella Skrivanek Isabella Skrivanek Taylor & Francis 2025 The 2015 ‘migration and refugee crisis’ had a major impact on national level politics, media and policy debates in Austria. This article explores how the conflictual politics of refugee reception and integration evident at the national level are articulated at the local level, focusing on changes in integration governance arrangements and multi-level dynamics in four Austrian municipalities, two towns and two smaller rural municipalities in the provinces Tyrol and Lower Austria. Leadership exercised by local government leaders and pro-migrant civil society organisations reduced the local space for conflict and opposition to migration. Key differences between the urban and rural cases derive from differences in their territorial, political, and administrative set-up and related differences in the role of civil society, the presence, or absence of municipal integration infrastructures and the nature of horizontal networks, particularly on a sub-provincial, regional level. Vertical relationships to higher levels of government varied along several dimensions. PDFDocument eng 2025-12-27T09:48:15.141650Z 2025-12-10 integration migration conflict cooperation local integration infrastructures Austria multi-level governance 1164169 b application/pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/