Between opportunities and constraints: right-wing populists as designers of migrant integration policy

ABSTRACT

Anti-immigrant claims are seen as key to the success of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) in parliamentary opposition. Yet migrant integration policies adopted by PRRPs in executive power are still a blind spot in research. Some scholars assess their policy impact as weak and attribute this to a lack of robust policy suggestions, others point to their taming by mainstream coalition partners and by government responsibility. Recently though, PRRPs have found more favourable political opportunities in the increased salience of migration and a rightward shift of centre-right parties. Drawing on policy documents from the Austrian coalition government of the radical right Austrian Freedom Party and the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (2017-2019), this paper investigates policy designs and constraints in the area of migrant integration. Our study points out the impact of PRRPs in government on integration policy through strengthening regulatory instruments, weakening distributive instruments and using organizational instruments to centralize policy implementation at the expense of NGOs. Yet this approach not only alters the substance of policy designs, the radical right also imprints a populist mode of confrontational and accelerated policy-making. Against these changes, taming is left to political and especially institutional constraints at national and international levels.

KEYWORDS:

• Migrant integration
• right-wing populism
• public policy
• policy constraints
• Austria

Introduction

In many Western European countries, immigration and migrant integration have been at the very heart of the rise and electoral success of the radical right. Based on an ideology of exclusive nationalism, the political core of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) includes the reduction of immigration as well as restrictive and assimilationist positions vis-à-vis settled immigrants. Even though PRRPs were mostly parliamentary opposition parties until the new millennium, they have exerted influence in subtle and open ways. First, they had a general impact on public opinion, media agenda and, most of all, on party competition. Second, by challenging liberal and humanitarian visions and declaring national identity under threat from foreign cultures, they have pushed mainstream parties into adopting restrictive measures in migration management and migrant integration (Ivarsflaten 2008; van Spanje 2010; Grande, Schwarzbözl, and Fatke 2019).

Over the last two decades, PRRPs were increasingly invited to join or support government coalitions, albeit with varying success. While earlier literature indicates struggles with the translation of claims into daily policies, given the challenges posed by government responsibility and day-to-day policy-making, more recent studies show that these parties are increasingly succeeding in adapting to the various requirements of public office while maintaining populist profiles (Heinisch 2003; Zaslove 2012; Bobba and McDonnell 2016; Akkerman, de Lange, and Rooduijn 2016). Though, despite immigration being such an important issue for them, so far, the specific designs and substantive orientation of migrant integration policies pursued by PRRPs in executive power is a rather blind spot in academic research. In general, studies find that claims made as a parliamentary opposition party have been translated into government policies only on a limited scale and that in office these parties have a weak impact on policies (van Spanje 2010; Akkerman 2012; Schain 2018). While some authors have attributed this to the lack of robust policy suggestions on their most pressing agenda items, others have pointed to an assumed taming of PRRPs by their coalition partners (Minkenberg 2001; Ravik Jupskås 2016; Schain 2018).

However, more recently PRRPs have found more favourable political opportunity structures (Meyer and Minkof 2004) for the eventual implementation of claims in policies: increased flows of refugees to and within Europe that are perceived as crises and have changed public opinion towards refugee admission, as well as a re-orientation of centre-right parties on cultural and national issues, facilitate restrictive positioning on immigration and migrant integration and their eventual translation into policies (Bale and Kaltwasser 2021; Hadj Abdou, Bale, and Geddes 2021; Biard, Bernhard, and Betz 2019).

Against this scholarly background, this article investigates integration policies by PRRPs in executive office: Which policy designs translate populist discourse on migrant integration into policy? What modes of public policy-making are being pursued? Which types of constraints affect policy designs and policy-making? In an effort to contribute conceptually and empirically to the study of migrant integration policy of right-wing populists in power, the article takes up an actor-centred approach that considers policies as strategic means to attain specific goals (Marks 1996; Jackson 2010). Since quantitative studies often cover only broad categories, such as restrictive/liberal or multicultural/assimilationist dichotomies (Morales 2011; Goodman 2019; Lutz 2019), what we miss is an in-depth inquiry into migration integration policies and policy-making that provide more nuanced picture of concrete approaches. By studying policy instruments, features and constraints, we go beyond assessing the assimilative and restrictive orientation of right-wing populist integration policies. Instead, we identify a specific set of policy characteristics as well as their checks and balances.

Drawing on policy data of the Austrian coalition government from 2017 to 2019 between the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the radical right Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), we show that – contrary to literature – under conditions of party convergence, right-wing populism can determine migrant integration policy in several ways: It succeeds to not only translate claims into substantive policies, it also imprints a populist mode on policy-making. The approach no longer settles for minor legal changes, but aims to shift the boundaries of the policy area. In that way, it contributes to the radical right’s broader attempt to refocus party competition on socio-cultural issues (Bale and Kaltwasser 2021, 21).

The article is set up in six sections: the second section discusses the literature on right-wing populism in the policy area of migrant integration. The third section provides contextual information on the case and outlines the data and methods for the empirical analysis. The fourth section presents the findings on the design of policy measures and their several constraints. The fifth section interprets the results in contrast to the preceding centrist government coalitions of centre-right and centre-left parties, before the concluding section summarizes the insights and outlines the contributions to the literature.

Migrant integration policies and the populist radical right

The concept of migrant integration used for the process of settlement following immigration is fiercely contested among academics. For instance, sociologist William Schinkel (2017, 24) criticizes an “integration imaginary”, which is inherent to the concept, based on construed problem perceptions and dichotomous categories of people inside/outside society. Further put into question is the frequent conflation of integration with assimilation, leaving newcomers no choice but to fully adopt institutions, values and habits that are viewed as static and undisputed within the receiving country (Favell 2005). Not least, migrant integration research is accused of reproducing a methodological nationalism with serious consequences for the role of immigrants (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2003).

Notwithstanding these epistemological objections, many countries have established a distinct migrant integration policy area with governmental departments that coordinate and drive direct as well as indirect integration policies, cutting across various aspects of domestic and European policies (Gruber 2016). Migrant integration policies are closely interwoven with migration management and culminate in a country’s citizenship regime – which is why the seminal Migrant Integration Policy Index covers a broad range of dimensions, from labour market access through education and health system participation to naturalization rules (Huddleston et al. 2015). Ideally speaking, integration policies respond to socio-structural disadvantages as well as to the socio-cultural differences that come along with international migration and mobility. They shape and steer the structural, legal and social framework for both the participation of individuals and the social cohesion of a diverse, yet non-discriminatory, society (Penninx and Garcés-Mascareñas 2016).

How specific migrant integration policies are in fact crafted, however, depends largely on political actors in charge of the policy area, on their ideologies and interests that inform a policy choice (Akkerman 2012; Helbling, Reeskens, and Stolle 2015). Overall, social-democratic parties, as well as conservative and Christian-democratic parties, have for a long time taken a liberal and inclusive approach to reconcile concerns by citizens with the needs of newcomers. But they have been pushed towards restrictive leanings by PRRPs, who have traditionally politicized and mobilized the issue and are seen as the driving forces for limiting immigration or the rights and services for newly arrived immigrants (Ivarsflaten 2008; van Spanje 2010).

PRRPs are sceptical of the basic possibility of migrant integration and nurture narratives such as “failed integration” of newcomers accused of forming “parallel societies”. Based on ideas of nativism and a strict distinction between in- and out-groups, their rhetoric fosters the polarization of society along these lines and rejects certain forms of migration and, in particular, multiculturalism as a threat to ethno-national identity (Wodak 2015). More recently, PRRPs have turned especially against Muslims, in a religious populism which uses religion “as the basis for forging identitarian bonds that are strongly exclusionary of those cast as the Other” (Mancini and Rosenfeld 2020, 3). At the socio-structural dimension, these parties tend to pursue welfare retrenchments, demanding reduced and fragmented welfare services for immigrants, discussed as welfare chauvinism (Ennser-Jedenastik 2018). Their growing focus on migrant integration, however, is to be understood against the background of an increasingly limited leeway for immigration policy reform, eventually leading them to turn to changes in integration policy instead (Lutz 2019).

Yet, despite rich literature on various facets of right-wing populism and migration, research on their migrant integration policies and actual policy-making remains a desideratum. There is a dominance of studies on discourse rather than on policies, which is inherently linked to the focus on PRRPs as opposition parties rather than government actors. Until the early 2000s, studies predominantly dealt with their influence on mainstream parties from an opposition role, identifying their adverse position vis-à-vis migrant integration as a safe formula for electoral gains. As PRRPs entered or supported government coalitions in several European states, scholarship started to investigate their success and failure in office (Heinisch 2003; de Lange 2012; Zaslove 2012). Here, PRRPs’ direct impact on policy output has been shown to be limited by their difficulties in adapting to public office and by a taming effect by mainstream coalition partners (Minkenberg 2001; van Spanje 2010; Akkerman 2012; Ravik Jupskås 2016). Policy change has instead been ascribed to the rightward shift of centre-right parties on immigration and migrant integration (Akkerman and de Lange 2012). Schain (2018) characterizes PRRPs as remarkably weak direct participants in policy-making and states that their organizational weaknesses as well as their lack of robust policy suggestions undermine their ability to deliver in executive office.

However, a growing body of literature points to the convergence on socio-cultural issues among PRRPs and centre-right conservatives or Christian-Democrats in recent years (Bale and Kaltwasser 2021; Hadj Abdou, Bale, and Geddes 2021). This tendency has been attributed to an increasing party competition on socio-cultural issues that repress socio-economic agendas as well as to a nationalist revival that has supported the rise of populists to power across the globe (Judis 2018). It has not only laid the ground for centre-right parties themselves turning towards right-wing populism, it has also made PRRPs stick more closely to their radical populist profile, as they find more favourable political opportunity structures for their claims (Meyer and Minkof 2004; Albertazzi and Mueller 2013; Bobba and McDonnell 2016; Akkerman, de Lange, and Rooduijn 2016).

Against this background of PRRPs finding their claims openly supported and co-opted by centre-right partners, this article investigates the crafting and designing of right-wing populist integration policies. Assuming a policy consensus that reduces intra-coalition struggles as potential political constraints, we identify and discuss further constraints that eventually limit policy outputs. For our empirical analysis, we focus on the Austrian coalition government Kurz I of a centre-right and a populist radical right party from 2017 to 2019, a particularly insightful case to study these patterns.

Contextual background, analytical framework and data

In Austria, the political opportunities for politicizing migrant integration have grown over decades. Since the 1990s, the country has experienced substantial immigration in the wake of the Yugoslav wars and the free movement regulations after accession to the EU in 1995. In 2015, it was one of the countries that accepted the greatest share of refugees per capita in Europe. As a result, Austria has the third-highest share of foreign population among EU member states. This high proportion of disenfranchised residents builds a rather safe track for parties to politicize immigration and migrant integration by framing the issue as cultural and societal threats that migrants pose for the native society.

Since the 1990s, the FPÖ has become the most prominent voice in promoting these frames and has turned into one of the most successful PRRPs in Europe. Even before the 2015 refugee movements, an above average degree of sceptical public opinion towards migration (Heath and Richards 2016) provided a favourable opportunity structure for parties to raise restrictive claims. This intensified in its aftermath when, according to the Eurobarometer,¹ for three consecutive years, Austrian respondents considered immigration the most crucial challenge their country faced (continuously ranging above the EU average). However, public opinion obviously varies across electoral groups: In the run-up to the general election in 2017, the issue cluster of immigration, asylum and migrant integration was the most salient topic among voters, discussed by 58% of the electorate. But while for FPÖ voters the topic was the most important issue by far (88%), only 55% of ÖVP voters and even fewer social democratic voters (48%) discussed the issue during the election campaign (Institute for Social Research and Consulting 2017). Hence, public opinion must not be interpreted independently from politicization but also as a result of continuous campaigning by political actors (Rosenberger and Meyer 2013; Bodlos and Plescia 2018; Rosenberger and Gruber 2020).

Following an 11-year span of centrist coalition governments of centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) and centre-right ÖVP, from late 2017 to mid-2019, the Austrian federal government was formed of the ÖVP and the populist radical right FPÖ.² Although the government collapsed in May 2019 as a result of corruption scandals, this coalition featured political novelties in various regards: The FPÖ’s previous participation in government in the early 2000s had “marked the breakthrough of the insurgents into the mainstream” (Kaltwasser et al. 2017, 8) and attracted the EU’s close scrutiny of its actions, causing the senior coalition partner (ÖVP) to pursue a rather cautious approach. It had conceded some symbolic integration measures to the FPÖ, but it had drawn a red line vis-à-vis unconstitutional claims that would conflict with human and minority rights, that way also taming the radical right (Heinisch 2003; Mourão Permoser and Rosenberger 2012; Perchinig and Valchars 2019). By 2017 this demarcation had eroded. Even during the general election campaign, new party leader Sebastian Kurz boosted his popularity mainly by undermining the FPÖ’s ownership of immigration and migrant integration issues. Eventually, the ÖVP took a decisive shift to the right, fostering a convergence with the FPÖ on ideological and policy positions in the areas of asylum, immigration and migrant integration (Bodlos and Plescia 2018; Liebhart 2019; Heinisch, Werner, and Habersack 2020; Hadj Abdou and Ruedin 2021). Wodak (2018) notes a “normalization” of populist rhetoric that had entered the Christian-democratic mainstream. In line with this, in the ensuing coalition talks the ÖVP even handed over responsibility for the three most important government ministries in the policy area of integration to the FPÖ: the Ministries of Integration, of Interior and of Labour and Social Affairs.

With this constellation in mind, the Austrian government Kurz I is an illustrative case to study the impact of right-wing populism on migrant integration policy. Analytically, we draw on the concept of policy design, referring to actors’ “development and adoption of courses of action that are likely to succeed in attaining their desired goals or aims within specific policy contexts” (Howlett 2014, 281). The policy design concept considers a range of elements, such as the responsible actors, the policy object, characteristics of instruments and purposes informing the decisions. With migrant integration policy defining our object, the article takes an actor-centred perspective (Marks 1996; Jackson 2010), focusing on the ÖVP/FPÖ government. Our qualitative document analysis of adopted and announced policies was conducted in three steps:

Step 1 followed the NATO scheme of policy instruments (Hood and Margetts 2007) by classifying measures into different types of instruments: regulative instruments that directly steer behaviour of citizens through norms; distributive instruments, which impact on goals by providing socio-structural or financial assistance; organizational instruments that influence policy development through the introduction and/or adaptation of organizational structures.

Step 2 inquired into characteristics of these instruments by taking an inductive approach that clustered and described dominant features across all policy measures identified, including the process of their formation (Patton 2014).

Step 3 identified the most important constraints on policy makers referring to Dunn’s (2018) typology: first, political constraints, such as those provided by parliamentary opposition, by sub-/supra-national political levels or by extra-parliamentary actors, as well as by public opinion (Galston 2008); second, economic constraints that can arise from distributive difficulties, budgetary limitations or a lack of other financial resources (Quiggin 2008); third, institutional constraints provided by legislative or judicative actors that work as institutionalized veto players to ensure administrative and legal conformity (Immergut 2008).

The data for the document analysis were generated from different sources: First, we analysed policy measures as stated in the Government Program for 2017–2022 (Federal Government of Austria 2017). Second, via the Austrian Parliament’s Database, we collected all laws adopted by parliament’s lower chamber as well as government bills in the status of the parliamentary decision process. From this data pool, those laws and bills directly relevant for migrant integration were sampled out based on a keyword search in legislative texts and explanatory notes.³ In line with the Migration Integration Policy Index (Huddleston et al. 2015), we considered only measures that explicitly address categories of immigrants, refugees or residents with migrant background, if they either deal with their access to or the incorporation into various societal systems (such as labour market, education, social welfare, etc.) or with their opportunities and requirements to acquire Austrian citizenship. This selection process resulted in 86 bills and laws on integration. Given the varying scope and relevance of these laws and bills (some cover wide-ranging amendments, others convey only minor adaptations), only measures with medium to major adaptations were included in this article. Through further desk research on official statements by the Council of Ministers and the governing parties, we enriched the pool of measures by ministerial directives, government projects and institutional reform plans. Throughout, the unit of analysis was the individual measure as proposed or adopted by the document (the Annex, see Supplemental data lists the quoted documents and the policy measures identified therein).

To compare our findings with the integration policy approaches pursued by the preceding centrist governments, we resort to existing analyses on these government periods (Gruber and Rosenberger 2017; Perchinig and Valchars 2019; Rosenberger and Gruber 2020).

Right-wing populist integration policy design

Based on the above mentioned typology of policy instruments – regulative, distributive, and organizational – this section elaborates on the core features of these instruments to draw a fine-grained picture on migrant integration policy by right-wing populists in office.

Features of regulative instruments

Regulative instruments are legal frameworks designed to directly steer the behaviour of citizens through rules of behaviour, the definition of rights and of duties (Howlett and Ramesh 2008, 103ff.). Empirically we found four core features characterizing regulative instruments: prohibition and precepts, control and surveillance, deferment, and segregation.

Expanding prohibitions and precepts: The most noticeable feature in the use of regulative instruments was the expansion of prohibitions in the field of religion. As one of the most visible symbols, regulations on religious veiling are contested issues in many EU member states. While formal bans of full-face veils exist in roughly a dozen countries, bans of headscarves do in only four (Abdelgadir and Fouka 2020). In Austria, which had long adopted a liberal approach to religious minorities, a step towards a more prohibitive approach had been initiated already by the preceding SPÖ/ÖVP coalition government with the ban on the full-face veil in 2017 at the ÖVP’s urging. The ÖVP/FPÖ coalition government expanded prohibitions to headscarves, first for girls attending kindergarten and shortly thereafter also for primary school, accompanied by its claims for further expansion to middle schools. Considering the low number of actual cases, the government justified these regulations frankly “as symbolic measures” and clarified that the ban targeted Muslims only, whereas other religious headpieces remained explicitly exempted.⁴

The flipside of the prohibitive approach was an increase in measures with obligatory precepts on values and cultural practices. This value-path too had been initiated by the previous government coalition as part of a civic integration project that had moved from language and orientation courses to elements of cultural knowledge and, eventually, to the teaching of values (e.g. by introducing a Value Brochure and Value Courses for adults, and by later making them an obligatory criterion for an Integration Declaration that had to be signed by refugees and people in a subsidiary protection status) (Heinemann 2017). The ÖVP/FPÖ government expanded value-oriented precepts to elementary education with official Value Teaching Guidelines for Pedagogues in kindergarten introduced in 2018, expanding the value-based integration approach to all age-levels.

Strengthening control and surveillance: Regulatory measures further included features of control and surveillance by providing authorities with instruments to detect deviations and to impose the measures on specific immigrant target groups (Gray 2006; Topal 2011). In Austria, Muslims were most directly affected: A bill to prohibit what was framed as “Political Islam”, as well as the set-up of a centre for monitoring and combating it were announced in the Government Program 2017–2022 (Federal Government of Austria 2017, 38) but had not been implemented prior to the government’s collapse in May 2019. However, the ÖVP carried over both plans to its ensuing coalition with the Austrian Greens in 2020. Moreover, enforcement of strict control of Muslims was also on display when the government shut down mosques it accused of extremism and illegal foreign funding (N.N. 2018a).

But not only Muslims, other immigrant groups also became a target of control and surveillance: On the initiative of the FPÖ, numerous Austrian citizens, who were accused of unlawfully also holding Turkish citizenship, were examined by the immigration authorities. At the same time, the government actively pursued a dual-citizenship option for the German-speaking population in Italy (South Tyrol) to foster their assumed Austrian bond (Federal Government of Austria 2017, 33). The selective handling of these two citizenship matters showcased the government’s prioritization of ethnos over the demos, i.e. of ethno-cultural ties over actual residential subjection.

Deferring access to rights and services: The use of time via suspension and deferment of rights and services was the third significant feature of regulative instruments. Deferments allow government actors to shift responsibility for integration away from the state while at the same time signalling to target groups that only merit and conformity hold out the prospect of full recognition and citizenship (Hinger and Schweitzer 2020, 2). Yet, for the Austrian right-wing government, the most commonly mentioned rationale for deferments and suspensions was the avoidance of pull effects (Kurz 2018), allegedly attracting unwanted groups of immigrants. Thus, for refugees the required time for access to various social rights was expanded, e.g. by raising their qualifying period to citizenship from six to ten years. The policy plans to abolish private housing for asylum seekers showcased another motive, i.e. to deliberately avoid integration in order to facilitate the execution of return decisions, as outlined by Minister of Justice Karoline Edtstadler (ÖVP):

Asylum-seekers should not be sheltered in private quarters but in state-operated collective shelters. This not only accelerates the asylum procedure but also prevents any form of integration, which after all only causes a burden on the asylum seeker and the officers in the case of an expulsion.⁵

Segregation of groups: A final drastic feature of regulative policies is the use of space to physically segregate groups. According to Joppke (2007), segregation belongs to the tradition of guest-worker receiving frameworks, yet in Austria this logic was reactivated and referred to various groups of immigrants. The most far-reaching form of spatial segregation concerned asylum seekers by means of a ban on individual housing for asylum seekers. Here segregation was explicitly intended to avoid integration. Conversely, separate classes based on language competence were introduced with the inverse arguments of actually promoting integration: Against criticism by linguists, the designation of German proficiency as a criterion for school readiness and the segregation of children with insufficient command of German in separate classes were justified as being in the best interest of the children to facilitate their integration. The FPÖ, however, admitted that primarily separate classes would prevent that “Austrian children are impeded in their learning progress” (Freiheitlicher Parlamentsklub 2018).

Features of distributive instruments

Treasure-based instruments use financial tools to generate “incentives or disincentives for private actors to follow the wishes of the government” (Howlett and Ramesh 2008, 108). In contrast to the strengthened importance of regulative instruments, the ÖVP/FPÖ government weakened the role of distributive instruments via two features: It withdrew resources introduced by previous governments and it conditionalized access to key services for targeted groups.

Distributive cutbacks: The disincentive approach to financial resources inspired the withdrawal of relevant public services and subsidies for refugee integration, such as the abandonment of general programmes for labour market integration and educational integration in schools that had been introduced in response to the refugee movements after 2015. This is a particularly striking aspect, given the high numbers of asylum seekers in need of support. The government justified these cutbacks with declining numbers of refugees applying for asylum from 2017 onwards, showcasing its lack of willingness to recognize the long-term character of integration processes. Moreover, several measures were introduced that targeted certain groups of immigrants more precisely: They ranged from the reduction of social assistance for people in a subsidiary protection status, to the extortion of money from asylum seekers’ possessions (a so-called “cost-sharing duty”),⁶ to the reduction of financial compensation for voluntary menial work of asylum seekers.

Conditionalization of access: A further feature of treasure-based discouragement is making access to various services conditional. It provides government actors with a more fine-grained steering mechanism to filter out desired from undesired target groups. The ÖVP/FPÖ government subjected various migrant groups to this strategy via the criteria of language proficiency and residence status: Language skills were used to conditionalize access to social assistance payments, e.g. when applicants with german language competences below B1-level got 35% of their payment cut; asylum seekers’ access to apprenticeship was cancelled on the basis of their uncertain asylum status and a positive asylum decision was re-established as the condition for access. The recourse to the criterion of usual place of residence for the calculation of family allowance even caused international upset: A bill on the indexation of family allowance for EU labour migrants whose children live abroad interfered with the interests of other EU member states as well as with EU law. Despite objections by the European Commission and the launch of an infringement procedure, the Austrian government insisted that the full family allowance and child tax credit should be restricted to families whose children reside in Austria (N.N. 2019).

Features of organizational instruments

Government actors have organizational resources at their command to re-/structure the institutional framework responsible for the implementation of measures (Hood and Margetts 2007). By reshuffling responsibilities and shifting roles between state institutions and private actors, government actors can steer integration processes well beyond regulative restrictions or distributive discouragement (Howlett and Ramesh 2008). In this respect, the right-wing coalition departed from a rather pluralist approach of integration governance in the past towards centralized responsibilities, crowding out non-governmental actors viewed as being opposed to the government positions.

Centralization of competences: With the FPÖ’s takeover of three decisive government ministries for migrant integration (the Ministries of Integration, of the Interior and of Labour and Social Affairs), centralizing administrative tasks under state control became an immediate goal in the sector of accommodation and care management for asylum seekers. Although the support of asylum seekers has long been a prominent area of engagement for NGOs and charity organizations, the FPÖ pushed for institutional reform by introducing a Federal Agency for Care and Support Services that centralized key services for asylum seekers. The Minister of the Interior argued that the agency would accelerate the processing of asylum procedures because

NGOs have business interests, which we have not. … I won’t give financial support to those (NGOs) who only act up with us and drag up all kinds of judicial shenanigans to help protract asylum procedures.⁷

A different technique to centralize and monopolize responsibilities was the upgrading of an already existing agency, the Austrian Integration Fund (ÖIF). This primary official body for integration services at the national level had its role expanded since 2003, when it was tasked with managing the Integration Agreement issued by the first ÖVP/FPÖ coalition. With the ÖVP dominating the staffing and the programmatic orientation, the ÖIF has accumulated further tasks ever since. Despite criticism from non-governmental organizations of its incompatible roles, being both a provider and certifier of integration services, the government proceeded with expanding the ÖIF into the “central integration hub for integration assistance” (Federal Government of Austria 2017, 38). This not only curtailed the role of non-governmental actors further, the outsourcing of responsibilities to state-related agencies external to the ministerial bureaucracy also removes their activities from direct parliamentary control.

Constraints to policies and policy-making

In contrast to their parliamentary opposition role, parties in government have a greater set of resources at their disposal to shape public policies. Yet they also face limitations from economic considerations, political feasibility and institutional constraints (Dunn 2018). This also applies to the right-wing government under investigation, as some of these constraints thwarted several of its policies. Different types of instruments however encountered restraints in different degrees: While regulative and, to a lesser extent, distributive instruments faced limitations, fewer constraints were at work in the adaptation of organizational instruments – the predominant constraints being either political or, most importantly, institutional.

Economic constraints usually affect any policy maker to some degree. However, as demonstrated by our case, this only applies to policy approaches which aim at introducing new, cost-intensive measures that can place a burden on state budgets, may require redistribution of resources or are in need of private funding. Conversely, a policy approach that is dominated by distributive cut-backs and conditionalization, as well as by regulative restrictions and deferments, hardly faces any economic constraints at all. This is obvious when looking at the ÖVP/FPÖ coalition’s policy measures, none of which were significantly limited by economic constraints.

More impactful opposition to right-wing populist integration policy was generated by political constraints but, due to favourable public opinion, the coalition’s comfortable parliamentary majority and its policy convergence, it came mainly from outside the national parliamentary arena, most importantly from other countries or the supra-national EU level: While the government’s attempts to establish a dual-citizenship option for the German-speaking population in Southern Tyrol were harshly rejected by the Italian government as an interference in its sovereignty, the bill on the indexation of family benefits for children of EU citizens residing abroad not only attracted criticism from various European countries but was harshly condemned by the European Commission.

Yet the most influential form of checks and balances was provided by institutional constraints, as the legal reviews by High Courts took on a growing role as the ultimate institutional control mechanism and veto point (Immergut 2008, 567).

Regulative policies were subject to the most pronounced institutional constraints, with several administrative decisions and legal regulations eventually being revoked, among them the closure of mosques accused of extremist activities, the surveillance of alleged dual citizens with Turkish origins and the ban of the headscarf in elementary schools.

Distributive policies also became the subject of High Court rulings wherever they interfered with fundamental non-discriminatory rights. A major example is the social assistance reform, which sought to couple language proficiency with the scale of social benefits. It was declared unconstitutional and thus had to be withdrawn. The indexation of family benefits also eventually ended up in the European Court of Justice, who now has to rule upon its legality. By contrast, in the allocation of monetary resources, governments enjoy much greater leeway and can therefore cut unwelcome policies of its predecessors more easily. So did the right-wing government by cutting major labour market and educational funds launched after the refugee movements of 2015.

Finally, organizational policies were the least constrained instrument, since institutional adaptations are key resources for governments over which they enjoy considerable leeway. Regardless of whether they set up new or restructure existing administrative institutions, the primary constraint is time, as substantial organizational reform requires a longer time horizon. Therefore, while some proposals could not be realized within the short period the right-wing government was in power, all three organizational reform plans presented above succeeded eventually.

In sum, comparing the constraints on right-wing populist integration policy, our case underlines that supra-national political actors, and even more so the institutional veto by the judicative branch, are the most potent. Table 1 sums up the characteristics of policy designs and the roles of the various constraints.

Table 1. Right-wing populist integration policy designs and constraints.

Policy design		Policy constraints
Policy instruments	Policy features	Economic	Political	Institutional
Regulative	Increase prohibitions and precepts	–	–	x
	Strengthen surveillance and control	–	x	x
	Defer rights and services	–	–	x
	Advance spatial segregation	–	–	–
Distributive	Cut back financial support	–	–	–
	Conditionalize access to financial support	–	x	x
Organizational	Centralize power in state agencies	–	–	–

Source: Own illustration.

Right-wing populist integration policy: a difference that makes a difference

Tying these empirical findings back to our theoretical discussion, this section discusses what separates right-wing populist integration policy from that of its centrist predecessors (Gruber and Rosenberger 2017; Perchinig and Valchars 2019; Rosenberger and Gruber 2020) and which strategic motives can be inferred from it.

At the heart of policy features, we find an unequivocal distinction between “the people” as domestic in-group and the out-group of “immigrant others” who are presented as endangering the material and cultural well-being of the former – politics of fear and othering that are well-discussed strategies in populism studies (Wodak 2015). Compared to the previous governments, regulative policies increased prohibitive elements and further expanded precepts vis-à-vis immigrants that strengthen nativist markers of gender nationalism (Hadj Abdou 2017) and religious populism (Mancini and Rosenfeld 2020) to fuse identity and to construct demarcation lines between the immigrant other and a nativist self-imagination. Confirming literature on welfare chauvinism (Ennser-Jedenastik 2018), this regulative shift was reinforced by the departure from the distributive approach of the previous centrist coalition governments. Instead it addresses the immigrant out-group primarily in utilitarian terms as failing to contribute to or being a burden on the receiving society. Yet while, at the level of identity, the depicted in-group might communicate a comprehensive and idealized “Us” (those who contribute, who meet expected values, who follow the rules, etc.), at the level of interests, the approach is tailored to specific voter segments that are concerned with tough actions against the immigrant other and favour a narrow self-concept opposed to a liberal and diverse society. Strict voter orientation and clientelist politics, i.e. the provision of goods and favours in return for electoral support (Stokes 2011), reveals itself as the driving motive behind the policy design of the ÖVP/FPÖ coalition government.

These substantive changes have to be interpreted within the radical right’s successful refocusing of party competition on socio-cultural issues that shifts attention away from socio-structural cleavages owned by old mainstream parties (Bale and Kaltwasser 2021; Biard, Bernhard, and Betz 2021). Migrant integration policy provides an ideal policy area for this attempt, since at its very core it raises questions of societal self-concepts and the pillars on which the polity ought to be constructed: Who and what do we want to be? In this vein, integration policy is not simply about the management of access and settlement of immigrants, it is also a political conflict over the ordering principles of society in general (Favell 2005). Hence it not only restricts immigrants but also opposes other societal concepts and the political actors representing them.

The instrumental role of integration policy for these conflicts not only surfaces in nativist regulative and distributive policies, but also looms large over the modes of policy-making itself (Biard, Bernhard, and Betz 2019), which further separate the right-wing coalition from its centrist predecessors:

The ÖVP/FPÖ coalition accelerated the pace and frequency of announcements and claims as well as of adopting measures, as “speed kills” (Akkerman 2005, 339), a motto already proposed by the right-wing coalition in the 2000s, was now reapplied in the context of migrant integration. Right from the start, the government adhered to a strategy of high-frequency policy action, best illustrated by the legal bans of wearing Muslim attire: The numerous bans were passed in annual intervals and ensured that the issue of Islam constantly remained on the political and media agenda. To railroad policy decisions in the parliamentary process, the government increasingly proposed measures through motions by members of their parliamentary factions instead of issuing government bills, which require a lengthier period of review. This shortcut not only ensured fast-track policy-making, it also side-lined deviating opinions and the influence of non-governmental stakeholders.

The departure from a deliberative form of governance also surfaced in the very design of administrative institutions shaped by the government’s organizational measures: The centralization of integration services under state control ousts and impairs NGOs and faith-based welfare associations seen as inconvenient to government doctrines. It leaves out a number of private providers, previously commissioned by the government, whose experience and groundwork helped established the very services that now got internalized by state actors – a particularly noteworthy pattern considering the privatization claims usually forwarded by rightist politics in the economic sector. But through steps like these, the government strengthened its control over a policy area crowded with actors whose views on integration often deviate from those promoted by the right-wing coalition.

In narrow pursuit of its clientele’s interest, the ÖVP/FPÖ coalition’s approach to policy-making also took a confrontational turn and ostentatiously departed from Austria’s long-established consensus-dominated political culture. This tendency too had already been observed during the first right-wing coalition period in the 2000s (Bodlos and Plescia 2018, 7), but the coalition from 2017 to 2019 showed an even greater preference for conflict and confrontation. It put an end to package deals for balanced policy solutions that had been typical for the centrist predecessor governments. The new policy mode sought to demonstrate its capacity to act through an uncompromising attitude. Abandoning a moderating role, the government emphasized crises and dramatized scandals to create an alarmist atmosphere – best illustrated by the hastily convened press conference that spectacularly proclaimed the shutdown of mosques in 2018, a decision repealed by the Administrative Court only a year later (Kocina 2019).

In fact, several measures were considered to contradict national laws or European constitutional regulations and, as shown above, were eventually overturned. Yet the government ignored these objections, accepted or even embraced the looming conflict. In our interpretation, it did so for two strategic reasons:

First, it did so on purpose since these actions drew public attention and stirred conflicts that fuelled the “right-wing populist perpetuum mobile” of controversy (Wodak 2015, 19). The confrontational pattern allow a government coalition to present itself as the legitimate defender of the people and, in case of judicial repeals, to use them as scapegoats who can be blamed for being out of touch and siding with the out-group to undermine the legitimate will of the people.

Second, the various policies that collided with international and national legal frameworks on immigration and integration were a strategic attempt to actively challenge liberal international and European regulations. The “liberal paradox” identified by Hollifield (2008) between the relative openness of liberal democratic politics towards migration (based on economic reasoning, the need for migrant labour and international treaties), on the one hand, and domestic political pressure for closure, on the other, is clearly confirmed by the Austrian case. Right-wing populists restrict rights and services, not only of discourse but of material frameworks for migrant integration as well, a closure possible only because it mainly affected target groups that are construed as unwanted or undeserving and largely excluded from the electorate.

Conclusion

This article examined the integration policy approach by a coalition government between a centre-right and a populist radical right party with high conformity on this issue. It provides evidence on how this constellation allows PRRPs to effectively translate their claims into policy designs: By strengthening regulative instruments (with features of prohibition and precepts, control and surveillance, deferment of services and segregation of certain immigrant groups), while at the same time weakening distributive instruments (through cuts or conditionalization of resources) and promoting organizational policies that centralize policy implementation at the cost of civil society actors. Yet, PRRPs not only affect substantive policy orientation, they also imprint their modes of policy-making on the government approach by accelerating the pace of policy action and pursuing a confrontational mode of governance. In this way, migrant integration provides the ideal vehicle for the radical right to import its opposition profile into the executive office.

In sum, these findings contribute to contemporary scholarship on migrant integration and right-wing populism in three regards:

First, in the context of converging right-wing coalition partners, integration policy turns out to be primarily focused on clientelist goals, aiming to benefit the own electorate. This explains why some integration policies are in fact designed to undermine integration efforts or even to actively disintegrate certain groups (see Hinger and Schweitzer 2020). Since the immigrant groups mostly affected by the measures are largely excluded from electoral participation, the approach is a rather safe track for electoral success on the national level.

Second, non-conformance with constitutional laws provides a substantive attack on liberal principles in international frameworks on immigration and migrant integration. It confirms Hollifield’s liberal paradox in migration research of more liberal international frameworks being challenged by restrictive national regimes, in particular with radical right presence in government. This finding transcends previous assumptions of a taming of PRRPs in government coalitions, in two regards: It documents PRRP’s successful impact on integration policy as part of a broader aim at refocusing party competition on socio-cultural issues. Moreover, it indicates that it can be strategically prudent even for mainstream parties to not only adopt populist right narratives, but to join PRRPs in converting them into substantive policy designs in office.

Third, in the face of a favourable opportunity structure for right-wing populist integration policy (making), i.e. without relevant constraint from intra-coalition actors and with supportive public opinion, supra-national political constraints (European commission) as well as institutional constraints (national and supra-national High Courts) remain the most potent checks and balances. This underlines that for immigrant minorities in a national context, the divison of powers and the existence of institutional veto popints play a particularly vital role in their protection.

Our findings strongly encourage further comparative research to solidify, whether PRRPs pursue similar policy features in other Europan governments and different political contexts (Biard, Bernhard, and Betz 2019), as well as which constraints they face in their pursuit. Only this comparison will allow to assess, whether the features documented here might eventually shape the policy area of migrant integration on a cross-national and long-term basis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Oliver Gruber

Oliver Gruber is post-doctoral lecturer at the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna. His research focuses on immigration, migrant integration and asylum policy, political parties and populism, political communication and language politics.

Sieglinde Rosenberger

Sieglinde Rosenberger is professor of political science in the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna. Her main research interests include migration, immigrant integration and asylum policies, gender, political protest in the area of refugee and migration, political participation.

Notes

1 Cf. Eurobarometer #84-90, https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/screen/home.

2 Cabinet Kurz I, 26th Legislative period 12/2017-5/2019 of the Austrian National Assembly.

3 The list of keywords for the sampling covered the following terms (and compound words): migration, integration, asylum, foreign, third country, citizen, residents, religion, Islam, language, ethnic, cultural.

4 See Annex (see Supplemental data): 100/DNC-XXVI.LP, 15A agreement between federal state and states on elementary pedagogy for the years 2018/19 to 2021/22, Explanatory notes.

5 Translated by the authors. Source: N.N. (2018b).

6 See Annex (see Supplemental data): 173/DNC–XXVI.LP, General Social Assistance Act, Integration Act

7 Translated by the authors. Source: N.N. (2018c).