Perceptions of Migration and Diversity by Local Public Administrators Tom a  s Malatinec*, Nata  sa Urban c  ıkov a* and Oto Hudec* ABSTRACT This article contributes to the recent debate on the perception of migration and diversity; it empirically examines whether public decision-makers and public administrators perceive migration and diversity as related or if they distinguish between them. It also seeks to identify the most important characteristics of respondents with positive attitudes to migration and diver- sity. The sample of the respondents covers Turkey, Greece, Hungary and Slovakia; those located on the “Balkan migration route” into Europe. Due to different experiences, respondents from countries with large-scale migration perceive migration and diversity differently from those in countries directly threatened by migration or countries without any direct impact of migration. Gender appears to be a statistically significant predictor in the need for high man- agerial skills to manage migration and diversity. Some size categories of municipalities where a respondent works appear to be statistically significant when ranking the local impacts and local economic benefits of migration. INTRODUCTION Migration flows in Europe, formed after the start of the global economic crisis in 2007 has been one of the most resonant and sensitive topics in European countries. Even after one decade, the European Union member states have failed to come up with a common approach dealing with the onslaught of international migrants and subsequent management of the impacts on society. There is a long line of literary sources which has gone beyond examining the effects of migration flows to focusing on the process of settlement, the inclusion of immigrants into labour markets and their integration into host societies. The adoption of effective solutions is a challenge which faces the institutions responsible for decision-making, development, and implementation of public policies, including local governments. The literature consistently emphasizes the importance of local public administrations in the process of managing migration and its impacts. They are very often the first to come into contact with people of migrant status and are relevant to the onward integration pro- cess. Many national politicians use migration as a way of gaining votes by presenting themselves as protectors of the country’s population. Governance must face the reality which rationalizes the local dimension of migration and integration, although the importance of the local scale has only recently been acknowledged. This justifies a deeper examination of the local variation in managing migration and diversity going beyond the restricted view of national models (Caponio et al., 2018). Firstly, the traditional national agenda in migration management has been experiencing a “local turn” (Zapata-Barrero et al., 2017). Secondly, even the overall national-local picture is not * Technical University of Ko sice, Slovakia doi: 10.1111/imig.12605 © 2019 The Authors International Migration © 2019 IOM International Migration ISSN 0020-7985 Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.