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Abstract
Immigration policies in Europe, since the late 1980s and the early 1990s, have become increasingly politicised, challenging, for example, attempts to recruit migrant labour and placing more and more emphasis on demands for immigrants to adhere to cultural, social and legal norms of the host societies. Despite these developments, however, the situation in Europe remains rather puzzling: besides the adverse political climate, certain European countries have experienced remarkable progress in promoting the integration of newcomers from non-EU member states. In order to explain the dynamics behind integration policy formation in Europe, we consider it necessary to move beyond a conceptualisation that is restricted to national politics. We link this observation to the structural changes in Europe's emerging system of multi-level governance, which has empowered sub-national levels of governance in their efforts to design and implement integration policies. Employing a political opportunity structure model, we hypothesise that the diversity of these dynamics (i.e. competition between parties and interaction with organisations within civil society) may produce different policies than those at the national level. Our argument is based on a comparative case study of Emilia-Romagna in Italy and North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers and the editors for their helpful comments.
Notes
[1] Minister für Generationen, Familie, Frauen und Integration des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen.
[2] It is all the more remarkable—and indicative of our key hypotheses regarding the effect of particular governance arenas—that Jürgen Rüttgers is also well known for having used (in a 2000 electoral campaign) populist slogans that played up to anti-immigrant sentiment. His remarks at the time addressed the highly controversial national Green Card Initiative. The approaches taken to immigration and integration when the CDU was in office in NRW under his leadership were far removed from such populist rhetoric.
[3] In the first decade of the twenty first century, Germany witnessed a debate on the nature of national identity in light of massive immigration. In October 2000, Christian Democratic Union parliamentary leader Friedrich Merz said in a session of the Bundestag that immigrants to German society should conform to a German Leitkultur, or guiding, hegemonic culture.
[4] In total, 79 documents in this study (parliamentary debates and policy documents addressing issues of integration and the management of diversity) were coded at the regional level and 56 at the national level. These documents were coded according to the following main frames, based on which issues of migration and integration are interpreted and construed in terms of normative meaning and policy endorsements. The identity frame speaks to a perspective focused on identity concerns (culture, ethnicity, and so on); the security frame is driven by a sense of threat associated with immigrants; the social justice frame is deeply rooted in concerns about the fundamental rights of immigrants; and the interest frames are based—from two competing angles—on considerations of the cost benefit attributable to migration. For a full account of the frame analysis, see Schmidtke (Citation2014).
[5] Translation by authors. Interview conducted Ministry for Employment, Integration and Social Affairs in /Düsseldorf, April 2011.
[6] A bonus is allocated to the winning coalition in order to assure a majority. Between 10 and 20% of the seats are allocated according to the bonus system. For a good discussion see: (Wilson Citation2009, 72–73).
[7] This section is based upon an analysis of the debates within the regional parliament (24 February 2004, 25 February 2004, 17 March 2004, 16 December 2008, 27 April 2011).
[8] See also debates within the regional parliament cited in footnote 7.
[9] See http://sociale.regione.emilia-romagna.it/immigrati-e-stranieri/progetti/la-mediazione-interculturale
[10] These interviews were conducted primarily in Bologna and focused on representatives of the Comune di Bologna, unions, service providers, and a church-based immigrant centre.