The Domestic Issue-Specific Political Opportunity Structure and Migrant Inclusion Organization Activity in Europe

Abstract

This analysis compares broad and issue-specific political opportunity structures (POS) to help explain the domestic conditions under which migrant inclusion organizations across the European Union undertake political activity. Using data from an original survey of European migrant inclusion organizations, the analyses model nine domestic activity types that range from conventional lobbying to more confrontational tactics. The results show that the national issue-specific POS is a stronger predictor of groups' domestic action, mobilizing participation across a range of activities. In contrast, the broad POS tends to decrease participation after controlling for issue-specific factors. The results lend support to the importance of refining the concept of the POS to include variables specifically relevant to the movement in question. Moreover, they demonstrate that the nation-state is an important factor in explaining groups' activities.

Keywords::

• Social movements
• political opportunity structure
• NGOs
• protest
• lobbying
• European Union
• migrant organizations

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2014.995078

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. This is not to suggest that mobilization in one state or among one movement is self-contained, occurring in isolation. Research on social movement spillover argues that the activities of one movement serve to mobilize the activities of other movements via a range of mechanisms (e.g. McAdam, 1995; Meyer & Boutcher, 2007; Meyer & Whittier, 1994; Minkoff, 1997). For example, Meyer and Whittier argue that social movements ‘influence each other indirectly through their effects on the larger cultural and political environment’ (1994, p. 277). However, as Meyer and Minkoff point out, more theorization is needed to describe and model the influence of ‘such indirect intermovement effects’ (2004, p. 1485). This would be a worthwhile project for future research. The focus of this analysis is to model the more direct effects.

^2. I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers for highlighting this point.

^3. For an overview of this debate, see Shekha (2011). Although beyond the scope of the current analysis, the ways in which transnational and EU-level opportunity structures shape migrant inclusion activism would be a worthwhile topic for future research.

^4. This dynamic is similar to Keck and Sikkink's (1998, 1999) ‘boomerang effect’ whereby groups that lack access to domestic political processes and institutions can use outside opportunities as a way to bypass the nation-state.

^5. Although I acknowledge the theoretical relationship between a closed domestic POS and group activity that bypasses the state entirely, in focusing on the domestic arena, I do not empirically test this proposition here. Such an analysis would be a relevant follow-up study, and would complement this research by extending it to an additional arena.

^6. I used The European Directory of Migrant and Ethnic Minority Organisations (published for the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants by the European Research Centre on Migration and Ethnic Relations), the European Address Book against Racism (an online database of more than 5000 organizations compiled by United for Intercultural Action, a non-profit organization headquartered in the Netherlands that works for the rights of refugees and migrants), and the national directories compiled by the European Network against Racism (about 20–25% of groups on the ENAR listing were smaller, grass-roots efforts which had only a street address. A mail questionnaire was sent to these groups.)

^7. I adopted broad inclusion criteria so that it would be possible to include behavior across different elements of the movement.

^8. Wave 1 of the survey was administered by mail from September to December 2006. Wave 2 was administered by email and in person from February to April 2007. The response rate for the survey is about 20%.

^9. The full list of organizations from which complete data have been collected can be found in Table S1. Missing data were excluded from the analyses.

^10. This is not to suggest that the data are without limitations. Most notably, the small within-country sample sizes make explicit cross-national comparisons very difficult. It would not be possible, for example, to conduct a systematic, comparative study with this dataset across many countries without further increasing the country-level sample sizes, particularly from southern and eastern European states. Furthermore, the diverse nature of the sample precludes analyses of any single element of the movement. In the analyses, the country-level observations are pooled and the unit of analysis is the organization. Because organizations from western Europe are over-represented, I included regional dummy variables into the analyses to control for the possibility of these regional effects influencing the outcomes. This is further elaborated in the Models section.

^11. The aim of the survey was to ascertain general patterns of activity, as opposed to tactics used in response to a particular event or as part of a specific campaign. The questions used to construct the dependent variables asked groups to think in general terms about the activities they use to influence policy and to indicate how frequently they use each one. Other questions (not used in this analysis) asked group representatives to reflect back over the past 2–3 years in order to obtain a sense of specific activity patterns within a relatively recent timeframe. This question wording is consistent with that used in other studies seeking to assess SMOs' general activity patterns (e.g. Dalton et al., 2003; Rohrschneider & Dalton, 2002). Given the period during which the survey was administered, the time period that groups could have referenced in responding to the questionnaire was from 2003 to 2007. It should be noted that the survey cannot reveal data over time; rather, these data represent a snapshot during one period in time. Therefore, although it can provide information on which tactics the groups tended to rely on most heavily relative to others, it cannot capture tactics used in response to a specific sequence of events over the time period in which it was administered. At the same time, survey data are still useful for testing initial hypotheses about general activity patterns during a ‘snapshot’ in time. The data can provide initial evidence about the relative usefulness and influence of the issue-specific POS that exists within the nation-state after controlling for other factors.

^12. Although each activity type is ultimately run in a separate regression model, I factor-analyzed the activity items in order to categorize activities into these broad modes. Factor analyses identified two dimensions of activity with eigenvalues greater than 1.0: conventional and challenging/mobilizing. However, based on theoretical considerations, I treat mobilizing activities as distinct from challenging acts. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion. The varimax-rotated solutions are presented in Table A4. These results are consistent with what prior research has found in factor analyzing similar activity modes of NGOs (see Dalton et al., 2003).

^13. Now known as the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX).

^14. This is not to suggest the issue-specific POS is necessarily limited to preexisting laws. However, Meyer and Minkoff (2004) have suggested that it is important to separately model such ‘structural’ variables from ‘signal’ variables. Analytically, the focus of this study is on structural differences in opportunities as opposed to visible signals sent by political allies. The development of a signals model, while a potentially important contribution, is beyond the scope of this study.

^15. Due to the presence of multicollinearity between these policy areas, an index variable of each of the five policy areas is employed to measure the issue-specific policy context.

^16. The survey question used to construct this index is as follows: Q9. ‘How would you describe current laws in your nation that affect migrants in the following areas? (a) immigration laws, (b) citizenship laws, (c) asylum procedures, (d) employment regulations. Response choices followed a four-point scale ranging from ‘very open’ to ‘very stringent,’ and a ‘don't know’ option was provided. I constructed an index variable using parts a, b, c, and d of Q9. ‘Don't know’ responses were dropped from the index.

^17. Perceptions of current laws could potentially be used in both a structural and signals model. However, the logic of Meyer and Minkoff's signals model ‘is that activists and officials monitor changes in the political environment, looking for encouragement for mobilization and for advocating policy reforms’ (2004, p. 1470). The relevant survey questions asked solely about the group representative's assessment of the state's current laws, as opposed to capturing changes in the political environment.

^18. Again, due to the presence of multicollinearity, an index variable is employed in the model.

^19. The multivariate analyses use only the measure of a Leftist government (as opposed to the chief executive) due to the presence of multicollinearity between the variables.

^20. Although the dependent variables (i.e. frequency of participation) are coded dichotomously into ‘High’ versus ‘Low’, the repertoire of activity itself spans nine domestic-level activities.

^21. The survey questions that measured participation in the given activities were presented to groups on a four-point scale: often, sometimes, rarely, and never. Because the substantive meaning of any given response choice could have varied by respondent (e.g. it is possible that one group may have interpreted the meaning of ‘sometimes’ quite differently from another group), I coded each dependent variable as ‘High’ (often+sometimes) versus ‘Low’ (rarely+never) participation. Methodologically, I was able to achieve a more meaningful difference in categories through this approach. The results will show which factors increase the odds of participating substantially in a given activity versus participating only marginally.

^22. These regional variables are included to help guard against omitted variable bias and add regional fixed effects to the models. I do not discuss these control variables in the Results section because they are not substantively significant, yet they serve an important methodological function. The western Europe control was statistically significant in the conventional activity and protest models, suggesting that groups in western Europe are more likely to engage in these activities compared to groups in other regions.

^23. Table A4 shows the results of a factor analysis of these activities, and demonstrates that participation in government commissions and advisory committees loads on the same factor as the remaining conventional activity types, even though it is a less frequently used tactic. Gamson (1990) suggests that when the political establishment views an SMO as legitimate, it gains some level of access to the polity. Consequently, one might expect that only the more successful organizations have this tactic at their disposal.

^24. It should be noted that the activities of individual organizations may differ from the nature of activity of the sector as a whole, as the choice of political tactics in and of itself can present an opportunity for a group to differentiate itself. Group-level differences in tactic choice could reflect maneuvering between different sectors. Although an analysis of intra-sectoral maneuvering is beyond the scope of this study, it is a worthy avenue of future research.

^25. In the preliminary analysis, base models were estimated containing only the broad POS variables, which produced different results. Most notably, most of the broad POS indicators failed to reach statistical significance. The exception was a Left-leaning government, which had a positive and significant impact on contacts with the local government, and a negative and significant impact on protest.

^26. Although I do not hypothesize about identity or resource variables in this article, several findings are noteworthy. First, even though identity is generally not a strong predictor of activity, service provision groups are more likely to act compared to organizations that focus on political rights or refugee-specific issues, particularly when it comes to engaging with local government and using the media. In terms of the resource variables, the strongest predictors of conventional action are having more full-time staff and a higher budget. Groups with a higher annual budget are also more likely to protest and use the media. Groups with more full-time staff are unlikely to undertake contentious action, but they are more likely to engage both informally and formally with national civil servants and ministers compared to any other type of lobbying. An interesting project for future research would be to examine how these identity and resource variables interact with both conceptualizations of the national POS to structure different forms of activity.

^27. In their analysis of global environmental groups, Dalton et al. (2003) report a similar finding.

^28. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this possibility.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Melissa Schnyder

Melissa Schnyder is an Associate Professor of International Relations for the School of Security and Global Studies at American Public University System. Her research focuses on the role of NGOs in influencing political processes and outcomes, particularly within the European Union.