The entanglement of substantive and symbolic politics in immigrant integration: insights from a regional state in Germany

ABSTRACT

When discussing the governance of immigrant integration, researchers and policymakers have gone back and forth in either conceiving national governments as determining immigrant integration or ascribing the local level as a strong influence in this field of policy-making. This article focuses on the regional level instead, which has so far often been left out of the picture. Based on extensive fieldwork in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration in the regional state Baden-Württemberg in Germany, we examine the character of immigrant integration policy-making in Baden-Württemberg in the aftermath of the long summer of migration. Our findings show the pertinence of symbolic uses of integration policies in combination with substantive uses. We make sense of these findings in light of an increased role of the regional level, the intrinsic symbolic character of immigrant integration, and the resurgence of anti-immigrant politics after 2015 in Baden-Württemberg. Based on our findings we counter a common binary of substantive and symbolic uses of policies and argue that these are often combined and entangled. Furthermore, the results of this study underscore that policy-making on immigrant integration is not reserved for municipalities and national governments and adds that the regional level plays a role too.

KEYWORDS:

• Federalism
• integration policy
• local
• regional
• symbolic politics
• governance

1. Introduction

Whilst competences regarding immigration-related matters, i.e. the regulation of entry and access to citizenship, (still) lie with the nation-state (Manatschal, Wisthaler, and Zuber 2020; Schultz and Kolb 2015), in the policy area of immigrant integration a different trend has been observed, namely the “territorial rescaling of policy” (Manatschal, Wisthaler, and Zuber 2020, 1475) or the “devolution of competence” (Campomori and Caponio 2013, 163) to sub-national government levels. The local level's increasingly prominent and more active role in the field of immigrant integration has attracted the attention of a growing number of migration researchers (Jørgensen 2012; Schiller 2015; Zapata-Barrero, Caponio, and Scholten 2017). More recently, the regional level's active involvement has also been addressed (Manatschal, Wisthaler, and Zuber 2020; Schmidtke and Zaslove 2014; Schultz and Kolb 2015; Zuber 2020). To date, however, we lack in-depth insights into the regional states’ choice and uses of immigrant integration policies. It is this gap that the article will address.

Existing research has often drawn a binary picture of clearly differentiated roles of national and local levels in immigrant integration policy-making. While the national level is presumed to be moving away from the day-to-day consequences of immigration and defines the larger objectives and provides symbols for immigrant integration, cities’ are presumably the ones providing actual solutions to the very concrete problems that arise with immigrant integration (Penninx et al. 2004). But now that regional states become more actively involved in immigrant integration, this binary appears more as a straightjacket that is of limited use. The aim of this article is then to rupture conventional conceptions of immigrant integration by way of taking a close look at how policies are chosen and used in the realm of regional state policy-making on immigrant integration. We engage with notions of symbolic politics in order to analyse both more symbolic and more substantive uses of a variety of policy instruments.

Because of the federal structure in Germany, regional states occupy a prominent position as the second governmental tier of the state, and set the legal and administrative framework for integration policy-making at the local level (Gesemann and Roth 2015). Having received the highest number of asylum applications among all EU Member States in the past five years (EUROSTAT 2021), combined with its federal structure, make Germany a compelling context to study the character of regional level policies on immigrant integration. Whilst some studies have been carried out on integration policy-making in the regional states of North Rhine Westphalia, Bavaria and Berlin, little in-depth research exists on the case of Baden-Württemberg, which is one of the most immigrant-rich regional states in Germany, has a strong economy and labour demand, and is governed by a coalition of Greens and Conservatives (CDU). Based on three months of fieldwork in the integration department of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration in Baden-Württemberg, the article examines the question: Which policies does the regional state of Baden-Württemberg choose to promote immigrant integration? And how and to what ends does the regional state use these policies in the aftermath of the long summer of migration in 2015?

In the first section of the article, we will assess the literature on the so-called “local turn” and existing studies on the role of the regional level in immigrant integration policy-making. We will further discuss the available policy instruments and their different uses. In the ensuing section, we will introduce our case study, followed by the methodological section which delineates the qualitative interview data collection and method of analysis. In the following sections, we will present our results and findings. A discussion of these findings and some key take away points will conclude the article.

2. Literature review

2.1. The local turn and the role of the regional level

For many decades, immigrant integration has been perceived as being defined by national governments, which was reflected in a paradigm of “national models” in immigrant scholarship since the 1990s (Adam and Caponio 2018). Since the 2000s, however, migration researchers have increasingly pointed out that local governments, namely cities and municipalities, are taking an active role in policy-making on immigrant integration (Scholten and Penninx 2016; Zapata-Barrero, Caponio, and Scholten 2017; but see Emilsson 2015; Gebhardt 2016). In proclaiming a “local turn”, scholars posited that the local level is not “merely a level of policy implementation but is considered an independent level of policy development” (Van Breugel 2020, 1). Policies developed at the local level would offer solutions to concrete problems posed by the integration of immigrants (Penninx et al. 2004). The national level, by contrast, being further removed from everyday issues and in a position of providing larger objectives and guidelines to the local level, was described as a supplier of symbolic policies. It was characterized as providing “abstract value discussion on national values and how to protect these, which basically are symbolic policies rather than concrete policies of integration” (Jørgensen 2012).

In recent years, some authors pointed out that the regional level has gained more influence in shaping integration policies in multilevel systems (see for instance Adam and Hepburn 2019; Campomori and Caponio 2013; Gesemann and Roth 2015; Manatschal, Wisthaler, and Zuber 2020; Schultz and Kolb 2015; Zuber 2020). Research examined whether intergovernmental relations with national and local levels are more conflictual or cooperative (Adam and Hepburn 2019) and the extent to which regional policies are more liberal or restrictive than other levels of government (Campomori and Caponio 2013; Piccoli 2020; Xhardez 2020; Zuber 2020). Yet, to date we know little about how regional states choose and use immigrant integration policies since the role of the regional level in immigrant integration is still “under-theorized in academic research” (Schmidtke and Zaslove 2014, 1870): are they contributing to substantive solutions to concrete problems or are they involved in symbolic politics?

Arguably, regional states are further removed from the day-to-day issues related to immigrant integration than cities/municipalities. The regional level could therefore be expected to use policies in similar ways than the national level, with whom it shares the role of providing legislation for the local level. Conversely, regional states are considered as part of the sub-national level of governance and their involvement in immigrant integration is often described in the context of decentralization (Campomori and Caponio 2013; Schmidtke and Zaslove 2014). Some argued that regional policies therefore could be expected to be motivated by local pragmatic concerns (Schmidtke 2021). Reconciling these positions leads to a third possible expectation that regional states’ uses of immigrant integration policies lie somewhere “in between”, given that they have an intermediary position between national and local level, channelling funds between federal level and local level and being constitutionally responsible for ensuring that federal laws are implemented by municipalities (Caponio and Borkert 2010). Yet, with this third option, it remains unclear what that “in-betweenness” precisely implies for the ways in which regional states use their immigrant integration policies.

2.2. Policies and their uses

To analyse the character of regional integration governance, it is important to look more closely at available policy instruments as well as their potential uses. Perhaps one of the most influential typologies of policy instruments draws on the metaphor of “carrots, sticks and sermons” (Bertelmans-Videc, Rist, and Vedung 1998). In his study on integration policy-making at the regional state level in Germany, Blätte (2017) similarly distinguishes between “distributive”, “regulative” and “persuasive” instruments. What these categorizations have in common is that more “substantive” policy instruments like legal regulations or funding schemes are differentiated from other means such as campaigns or concepts (“Leitbilder”) that have a more symbolic and persuasive character/purpose.

There is much literature on the use of symbols in policymaking in general and in the field of immigrant integration in particular. Broadly speaking, a symbol “stands for something other than itself” (Edelman 1967, 6). Or to put it more concretely, symbols are signs that represent complex (political) realities and ideas, usually in a simplified form. Symbols shape our perceptions and attitudes and help us to make sense of the social world we live in (Gill and Angosto-Ferrandez 2018; Sarcinelli 2011). (Political) symbols can be images, flags, narratives, and slogans, but also acts, gestures and other forms of political staging (Sarcinelli 2011; Savini and Dembski 2016; Diehl 2016). Importantly, symbols are multivocal and may have different meanings for different people.

In the political world, symbols allow policymakers/ to convey certain perceptions, beliefs, and ideas about the existing political and social order (Diehl 2016; Sarcinelli 2011). Symbols can be mobilized to attract attention, build, or underpin political legitimacy, and create a sense of loyalty and belonging, thereby fulfilling an important “consensus-building” function (Bourdieu 1991; Edelman 1967; Savini and Dembski 2016). “Symbolic politics” (Sarcinelli 2011; Suntrup 2018) is then in place, when political actors deliberately and strategically mobilize such symbols towards their political goals. Along those lines, any political conflict or issue can be understood as a “battleground” of actors who are struggling to mobilize symbols in support of their cause and to secure the dominance of their interpretation of the social order (Gill and Angosto-Ferrandez 2018).

It was shown that symbols have played an important role in immigration policymaking since the 1980s, with the “immigrant issue” evoking questions about the unity of the nation, cultural identity and the presumed risks posed by globalization (Faist 1994; Favell 1998). In this context, symbols were/are often used to promote divisions between in- and out-groups and to foster anti-immigrant sentiments among native populations (Lamont and Mizrachi 2012). For example, “English-only” ordinances in the United States have served to denote the threat of immigrants to the nation's common language (O’Neill and Tienda 2015). Similarly, civic integration classes in the European context have been geared towards reassuring the host population that the government is controlling immigrant integration and (even) promoting assimilation (Permoser 2012). However, symbols were also used to foster and enhance welcoming attitudes. For instance, “diversity policies” have become a symbol that is enthusiastically endorsed as part of efforts to remake cities as cultural, tourist or investment destinations (Berry 2005). And Bloemraad and Wright (2018) remind us that early multiculturalism in the United States was just as much about changing symbolic hierarchies than about creating equality between majority and minorities through laws and policies. Given this intrinsic symbolic quality of immigration governance as “battleground” on which broader questions of national unity and identity are negotiated, we expect that symbols also play a role in regional policymaking on immigrant integration.

As we know from the literature, symbols may play a particularly important role in (perceived) crisis situations in which political actors struggle to present and sustain their interpretation of the social world amidst political controversy, conflict, and social change (Edelman 1967; Gill and Angosto-Ferrandez 2018; Sarcinelli 2011). In state of exceptions, the consensus-building function of symbols seems especially important. Adopting different symbolic policies becomes then a means to (re)gain “perceptual and affective control” (Suntrup 2018, 568) and to fulfil society's demand for political orientation and clear direction (Sarcinelli 2011). Given that our study looks at the temporal context of the post-2015 arrival of large numbers of migrants, which was often perceived and depicted as a “crisis”, we expect that the regional state relies on the symbolic use of policies to communicate a proactive role in the aftermath of the “long summer of migration” in 2015.

When analyzing the use of symbols in policymaking, symbolic policies and substantive policies are often considered as separate types (see for instance Schneider and Ingram 1990), with substantive policies being more oriented at problem-solving (Scholten 2020). Disputing such a binary conceptualization of symbols and substance, other authors considered symbolism as a dimension that cuts across the whole range of policy instruments (see for instance Diehl 2016 and Hood 2007). Much research on immigrant integration policymaking has conceived of policies as either more symbolic or more substantive. For example, Caponio (2017) has pointed to the striking prevalence of symbolic functions over more instrumental functions in a recent assessment of transnational city networks on immigrant integration. Also Manatschal, Wisthaler, and Zuber (2020) alluded to both material and symbolic dimensions of regional immigrant integration policies.

What is more, the use of symbols has often been described as the “superficial” or “elusive” counterpart of “substantial”, “real” or “authentic” policies which consist of more substantive instruments (Howlett 2000) such as legislation, contracts, and taxes (Sarcinelli 2011). As Faist put it, symbolic policies can serve as a substitute for substantive policies to address problems relating to immigration (Faist 1994). In line with this research and considering the importance of symbols in times of “crisis” and in politically contested fields such as immigration and integration, we expect that symbolic policies can be distinguished from substantive policies and that symbolic uses can outweigh substantive uses of policies.

3. Regional integration policy in a federal state – the case of Baden-Württemberg

Regional policymaking in Germany can be characterized by three aspects: first, constitutionally, the regional states administer and implement federal law as well as regional laws (while the federal level is predominantly responsible for law-making). Second, they are responsible for the channelling of federal funds to the municipalities. Third, regional states set the administrative and legal framework for policy implementation at the local level, by supervising and instructing municipalities (Gesemann and Roth 2015). Consequently, regional states occupy an important mediating position between the federal level on the one hand, and the local level on the other hand. The federal system in Germany used to be characterized by an increasing joint decision-making or “Politikverflechtung” (Scharpf, Reissert, and Schnabel 1976) between federal state (Bund) und regional states (Länder), which rendered the policy making process lengthy and difficult. The federalism reform in 2006, strengthened the role of the regional states, giving them more exclusive competences in the area of education and other policy fields considered relevant for immigrant integration (Bommes and Kolb 2012; Leptien 2013; Schultz and Kolb 2015). The regional states’ capacity to design and implement integration policy is somewhat limited due to the local levels’ right to self-governance and the federal level's competence for law-making (Leptien 2013). Table A1 in the Appendix shows how the different responsibilities in the realm of integration policymaking are distributed across government levels.

In the past years, several regional states have established the policy area “integration” as a responsibility of regional state ministries, have initiated support programmes (e.g. funding of language courses for refugees and asylum seekers) and – in four regional states to date – passed integration laws (Blätte 2017; Bogumil and Hafner 2017). As Blätte (2017) pointedly summarizes, regional states have realized that they can enforce their own goals and ideas in this policy field and present themselves as “doers”. They can shape the conditions for local self-government and initiate campaigns, taking the opportunity to position themselves as important actors in the field of integration policy.

In this study, we focus on the single case study of Baden Württemberg, which is – both in terms of its surface area and its population size – the third biggest and one of the most immigrant-rich regional state(s) in Germany. Currently, around 11,1 Mio. people live in Baden-Württemberg, of which almost 1,8 Mio. people with a non-German passport (Baden-Württemberg State Ministry 2020; Baden-Württemberg Statistical State Office 2020). Overall, 33.4% of Baden-Württemberg's population has a so-called “migrant background”.¹

While Baden-Württemberg turned relatively late towards a more active integration policy (Kostner 2017), the regional state is known for having championed the creation of policies and administrative structures to proactively address immigrant integration. It was the first regional state with a separate Ministry for Integration (which was integrated into the Ministry of Social Affairs in 2016). Moreover, it is one of only four regional states with an “integration law” (out of 16 federal states in Germany). And it has been mentioned due to its innovative support of local integration managers (Bogumil and Hafner 2017; Bogumil and Kuhlmann 2020), the core element of the extensive funding programme “Pact for Integration” which was initiated in 2017 as a response to the high influx of refugees in 2015. The substantial funding for the Pact was made available (by the national level) in the aftermath of the long summer of migration, making it a context- and time-specific funding instrument. Next to Berlin and NRW, Baden-Württemberg can be considered as one of the frontrunners among German regional states², Baden-Württemberg can be considered as an interesting case to learn more about the character of integration policies in Germany and about the role of regional states in immigrant integration policymaking.

Baden-Württemberg is further characterized by a strong economy and a high demand for labour, reflected in its up-scale economic position within Germany and in Europe with three of its districts among the economic power houses of European regions in 2019 (EUROSTAT 2019). In August 2020, Baden-Württemberg had an unemployment rate of 4,6%, compared to a national average of 6,4% (Baden-Württemberg State Ministry 2020). Compared to other economically powerful regional states such as Bavaria and NRW (see Schmidtke 2021), Baden-Württemberg stands out because it is governed by a coalition of Green Party (Bündis 90/Die Grünen) and Christian Democrats (CDU). Since 2011, Baden-Württemberg has thus been the only regional state in Germany with a Green prime minister which has had a significant impact on the design and implementation of its integration policy (see for a detailed account Kostner 2017). Acknowledging regional states’ particular economic and political conditions is important³ for contextualizing our findings. As various authors pointed out that there is no coherent “regional level approach” to immigrant integration in Germany and considerable variations exist between regional states’ policies and administrative practices (Blätte 2017).

Politically, immigrant integration in Baden-Württemberg is a contested issue, given the increasing prominence of the populist right-wing party AfD. The AfD entered Baden-Württemberg's regional parliament in 2016 for the first time, taking the anti-immigrant discourse to the highest political stage at the regional level. In 2016, the AfD was represented by 23 members in the parliament (out of 143 seats), rendering it with 15,1% the third strongest party in BW (Baden-Württemberg State Parliament 2016). This politically charged context for integration policy-making provides an interesting case to learn more about the character of immigrant policy-making in the context of a purported “immigration crises” and the resurgence of anti-immigrant populist parties. The insights of this study will be relevant beyond Germany, as it provides an example for characterizing policy-making on immigrant integration in multi-level systems in ways that is sensitive to the resurgence of anti-immigrant politics and the strong politicization of immigration.

4. Methodology

The data collection for this article was carried out during a three-month-long fieldwork (October–December 2018) by the first author in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration in Baden-Württemberg. Being immersed in the Ministry allowed engaging not only with official policy proclamations and activities, but with the tacit knowledge of officials advising the minister and implementing policy decisions. The research took place in a particular time, namely the aftermath of the “long summer of migration” in Germany, which had created a momentum for the regional state to have a more important role and a dynamic for deciding on and implementing several new policies.

The presence in the Ministry's office allowed the researcher to observe meetings and events, access internal collections of relevant documents, and interview nearly all senior and several junior officials of the integration department. The data includes field notes and reflections from the participant observation, semi-standardized interviews with officials working on integration at the Ministry as well as key partners and societal stakeholders and policy documents and secondary literature. The interviews (see Table A2 in Appendix) included questions about their activities and tasks, internal and external networks and relationships, and the ways in which they defined immigrant integration in their work. Before conducting the interviews, all interviewees gave their informed consent (Mertens 2018).

In total, 13 interviews were conducted. Ten of the thirteen interviews were fully transcribed⁴ and coded with Atlas.ti using a concept-driven and data-driven coding approach. Concept-driven coding refers to the creation of categories based “on previous knowledge: a theory, prior research, everyday knowledge, logic, or an interview guide” (Schreier 2013, 9). These concept-driven codes (mostly based on existing theories on regional policy-making as well as fieldnotes) were subsequently complemented by “data-driven” codes. The coding process led to deductively and inductively generated codes, that were clustered into 11 code groups (See Table A3 in Appendix). The generated codes and code groups provided the basis for the analysis. Furthermore, a list of relevant legal and administrative documents of the regional state (See Table A4 in Appendix) was analysed.

In the ensuing analysis section, we focus primarily on the data collected through the semi-structured interviews as well as fieldnotes to highlight/trace policy development and decision-making processes from the respondents’ perspectives. Results derived from document analysis served to provide additional information on the policy instruments discussed in the interviews. While analysed separately – the documents were selected based on the policies mentioned in the interviews – the section below presents all findings comprehensively.

5. Results and analysis

5.1. Structures for immigrant integration policymaking in Baden-Württemberg

Over the past decade, the regional state Baden-Württemberg has increased staff and funding for integration policy-making and strengthened the institutional embeddedness of integration in the landscape of regional state ministries (code group two). While integration is today part of one Ministry with a dedicated department of 28 staff members and comprising 5 subunits at the time, this was not always the case. From 2006 until 2011, immigrant integration was covered by a small coordinating “staff office” (Stabstelle) in the Ministry of Justice with little financial resources, indicating a low prioritization of integration on the political agenda. Two respondents explain that back then the Stabstelle was merely perceived as a provisional and temporary body with almost no exclusive responsibility (I4, I9), and that the role of the integration commissioner was filled by the Minister of Justice for whom integration appeared to be a marginal issue (Randthema, I9; Anhängsel, I4). This marginalization and loose institutional embeddedness of integration changed fundamentally in 2011 when a Ministry of Integration was established under the newly elected “Green-Red Coalition”. Various interviewees point out that the establishment of the Ministry of Integration reflected the increasing importance of the topic of integration at the regional level, marking a clear shift in the setting of political prioritization (I2, I3, I4, I7).

In 2016, the Ministry was dissolved and – similar to other regional states – parts of it were incorporated into the Ministry of Social Affairs, which was renamed as Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration (SVR-Forschungsbereich 2017). Whilst embedding integration in the Social Affairs Ministry implied a symbolic loss with the field of immigrant integration no longer being the “exclusive” responsibility of one Ministry, some interviewees state that the incorporation has elevated the importance ascribed to integration. The reason is that the Ministry of Integration's standing and influence had been relatively weak due to its small size and the minister's lack of networks. Conversely, being part of a bigger, well-established Ministry implies a symbolic valorization of the topic “immigrant integration” (I7), better cooperation with other departments and ministries, and an increased impact (I4, I9). It is important to add that immigrant integration is a “cross-sectoral policy area” (Adam and Hepburn 2019, 567), comprising several sub-policy areas and involving various stakeholders. In Baden-Württemberg, various ministries cover different aspects of immigrant integration: for example, the Ministry of the Interior is responsible for naturalization/citizenship, the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport is concerned with education-related topics such as preparatory classes for children with a refugee or migration background, the Ministry of Economy, Labor and Tourism deals with labour market integration and the Ministry of Justice and Migration is in charge of the reception and accommodation of refugees and asylum seekers. In our article, we focus on the Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration that took on the leading role for (amongst others) the following themes: the promotion of equal political and civic participation and social cohesion, anti-racism and anti-discrimination, promotion of language learning and labour market integration (e.g. mainly through funding schemes), and “intercultural opening” (interkulturelle Öffnung) of public administration bodies and political institutions. We can summarize that the field of integration has over the years become increasingly institutionalized in Baden Württemberg, with dedicated responsibilities and significant human resources and a clear organizational structure dedicated to deal with immigrant integration.

5.2. Policy instruments chosen for immigrant integration in Baden-Württemberg

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration introduced several policies, described by an interviewee as crucial milestones (I4) in developing the governance of immigrant integration (code group 5). Building on the literature discussed above these can be categorized as legal, funding and communication instruments.

First, the regional parliament in Baden-Württemberg passed a new “integration law” in 2015 (“Partizipations- und Integrationsgesetz für Baden-Württemberg” or short: PartIntG BW), which forms the legal basis for a more systematic and comprehensive approach to integration through the formulation of guidelines. These guidelines concern, for instance, the implementation of structures such as integration councils and committees (Integrationsbeiräte and -ausschüsse) as well as the appointment of integration officers at the municipal level. However, the recommendations in the integration law are not legally binding (I5) and municipalities are not entitled to any financial support by the regional state (Baden Württemberg State Parliament 2015, 1049).

Second, in 2013 the funding scheme VwV Integration was adopted which led, amongst others, to the creation and funding of the “new” position of integration officers (Integrationsbeauftragte) in municipalities across the regional state.⁵ These officers work for the municipalities, they fulfil a coordinating role and are responsible for the establishment of comprehensive structures as well as the creation of networks at the local level (Baden Württemberg Ministry for Social Affairs and Integration 2018). Various interviewees emphasize the funding scheme's objective to establish structures and create networks across all municipalities in the regional state (I1, I3, I5, I8). As one Ministry official puts it:

Because we seriously pursue the target to comprehensively provide for the Land. [In municipalities of] up to a size of 10.000 residents, we would like to install integration officers and consequently expand the radius of support (‘Förderkreis). (I1, Ministry official) ⁶

Further funding schemes ensured the extension of the position of integration officers in cities and municipalities and supported the language learning of refugees and migrants.⁷ See for a comprehensive overview of the key policy instruments in BW, their formulated goals and dedicated funding amount, Table A3 in the Appendix.

Third, in response to the high influx of asylum seekers and based on the provision of significant funds by the national level the funding tool and agreement “Pact for Integration” between the regional state and municipalities was initiated in 2017, which has as its core element the funding of local integration managers (Bogumil and Hafner 2017; Baden Württemberg Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration 2020). Various interviewees referred to the “Pact for Integration” as one of the “milestones” (I4), as a “flagship project” (I2, I5) and a “successful example” of the regional state's approach to integration (I6):

So, a successful example is for example the Pact for Integration. This is something that was not ‘brought to them’ [to the regional state]. In the house [the Ministry], people have put a lot of thought into it and said: ‘This is what we need. This is what the Land needs. We have to help the municipalities. This is what we need to offer. The Pact for Integration was drafted. Great example, great work. (I6, Ministry official)

Similar to the integration law and VwV Integration, the Pact aims at strengthening and harmonizing existing structures throughout the regional state because the “chances of a refugee should not depend on his/her place of residence” (fieldnotes from a meeting in the Ministry). It allowed hiring more than 1000 integration managers, who are supposed to facilitate and support individual integration processes of refugees and promote their independence (VwV Integrationsmanagement).

Finally, the department for integration developed communication activities. These included organizing a regional conference on integration and the regional states’ integration award (Integrationspreis) and preparing an integration campaign #gemeinsamBW (“'together Baden-Württemberg”), supposed to depict diversity as a positive and beneficial facet of the regional state and as a part of “normal” life (fieldnotes; Press release of the State Ministry, 2019). Those activities were considered by officials themselves as instruments to communicate the regional state's perspective on diversity.

Following Blätte’s (2017) and Bogumil and Hafner’s (2017) argumentation, these findings confirm that the regional state has strengthened its role by establishing a Ministry with a dedicated department dealing with immigrant integration and has put in place several policy instruments, including a new law, funding schemes, and communication activities. In the following section, we will further probe into the uses of these instruments by the regional state.

5.3. Substantive and symbolic uses of integration policy instruments

When analyzing the uses of the different policy instruments outlined above, we found that several of the policies created by the regional state were explicitly used to symbolize the proactive and positive approach to immigrant integration of Baden-Württemberg. We are referring here to the measures of the campaign #gemeinsambw, the integration prize and conference by the Ministry. The integration campaign and prize were meant to juxtapose the negative discourse on migration and diversity promoted by the right-wing party AfD (Stuttgarter Zeitung 2017). They provided some success stories of integration and a narrative of regional identity that starts out from recognizing difference. As the integration minister put it during the award ceremony of the integration prize: “I am happy to see that so many people in Baden-Württemberg make clear: in our state, integration is a common practice. Let us continue to show “our color” and to stand up for diversity and a respectful coexistence.” (Baden-Württemberg State Ministry 2019). These policies were useful as they encapsulated the principles and rationale that diversity could also be an asset and integration a success in Baden-Württemberg. This “fits” with the context of a large immigrant population share in the regional state, the labour market demands for immigrants, but also the pressure from the right-wing AfD in the regional parliament. More opportunistically, using these communicative measures also allowed the minister to become visible (fieldnotes, p. 13). In other words, the campaign and prize were meant to signal the presence of a new minister of social affairs and integration from the Green Party, who did not consider integration first and foremost as a problem.

Whilst officials working on these policies generally subscribed to the idea that diversity was beneficial or positive, they were critical of choosing communicative instruments as medium to transport these ideas. In their view, there was a danger it would only be show (fieldnotes based on unrecorded conversation, p. 12). They therefore suggested to combine the launch of the campaign and the award of the integration prize with a research congress, based on the perception that the exchange of ideas among experts would give the symbol more weight or substance. From the very start they had been sceptical about the use of communication instruments, as their idea was to develop a written document that conceptualized immigrant integration and diversity instead, but this had been discarded by the minister, who sought to increase his visibility. This finding confirms that symbols play a role in policymaking on immigrant integration today and can also be found in regional policymaking on immigrant integration, but that the ways in which symbols are being transported also matters to people. In our case this was negotiated between minister and officials, who had somewhat different ideas on how to effectively transport the value of diversity and inclusion and how to give it weight.

As for the funding schemes and integration law, it was undisputed that these served to harmonize and consolidate existing local structures and approaches to integration. The use of these policies can be qualified as substantive because they seek to provide answers to existing problems (lacking capacities to deal with integration in some localities, diverging structures and approaches across localities). However, some interviewees pointed out that the VwV, PartIntG BW and Pact for Integration were also used as symbols.

The PartIntG BW as a new law insinuated the important role of Baden-Württemberg in defining the rules for immigrant integration in the Land. However, in its paragraph on local integration councils, the Law defined their creation as voluntary and hence was not legally binding for municipalities. This was also seen critically by some officials, who had liked to see a more binding legal framework. Whilst the law sought to create the perception of a needed change, it did actually not enforce this change. It symbolized the need of taking a proactive approach to creating ways for immigrants to have a say on local policymaking, hoping that cities in the regional state that did not yet have integration councils would follow suit and install them (fieldnotes). As this example shows, substantive and symbolic uses of policies could also be entangled.

This ambiguity between substantive and symbolic uses of policy instruments can be further illustrated when looking at the funding policies that were put in place. The funding schemes VwV Integration and the Pact for Integration led to the creation of integration managers and officers in municipalities and hence had a substantive effect on local structures, addressing the lack of personnel with dedicated responsibility for integration especially in smaller localities. But various interview partners highlighted that these measures were also intended to reassure citizens that the topic of integration had a high priority on the political agenda (I1, I4, I5, I7), sending a message that the regional state is “doing something” and that municipalities are not “left alone”. In other words, these legal and funding policy instruments that had an explicit substantive purpose also had an important symbolic purpose (code group nine).

These findings counter our expectation that policy instruments used by the regional state in integration policy-making can be neatly distinguished in either substantive or symbolic policies, as earlier immigrant research suggested. It instead shows the ambiguous combination and interwovenness of symbolic and substantive uses of immigrant integration policies, reflecting that substantive policies can also have a symbolic dimension (Hood 2007) and some policies may have a more explicit symbolic function than others. Multiple interviewees critically explain further that the symbolic relevance of the previously mentioned integration law PartIntG was presumably higher than its substantive effect on the establishment of local structures because its provisions are in fact not legally binding and therefore no additional funding is claimable (I4, I5, I7, I8). This confirms our expectation that symbolic uses can in some cases outweigh policies’ substantive uses.

When asking about potential reasons behind such symbolic uses of immigrant integration policies, interviewees raised the aftermath of the long summer of migration in 2015, which was perceived as exceptional times, as the following quote exemplifies:

In retrospect, this signal, I believe, was for sure important, the Land [regional state] does not abandon the municipalities, although the Land could have said, matters of local communities are the responsibility of the municipalities, of local policymaking, and done. The conditions are changing. Sometimes, there are more people that need to be taken care of, and sometimes less. That you don't stop here, but rather say: yes, 2015 was somehow exceptional. (I5, Ministry Official)

Other respondents highlight more generally that the arrival of large numbers of refugees in 2015 and 2016 “stimulated the topic” (I8), “created a new dynamic” (I3) and “shifted the main focus” (I4) towards integration as prevalent political topic, leading to the creation of new funding mechanisms. The availability of more funding (mainly through the Pact for Integration) for municipalities was clearly attributed to the temporal context, combined with the concern that funding would only be temporary (I4; I7).

In a context that provided many uncertainties and feelings of being overcharged for municipalities and the population more generally, these policies served as symbols for a proactive regional state that is taking responsibility. They were meant to foster acceptance and build consensus among the population in a time that was perceived by many as a “crisis” (I5). These findings on the VwV (funding scheme) and Pact for Integration highlight that the symbolic uses of policies played an important role in immigrant policy-making in the aftermath of the long summer of migration in 2015. The context of the so called “refugee crisis” and the related resurgence of anti-immigrant political forces in the regional parliament stuck out as important to understand why these symbols became relevant then and there.

Overall, our research points to a role of symbols in immigrant policymaking in Baden-Württemberg in the aftermath of 2015, but not (only) in the form of dedicated “symbolic” policies, but in a combined and entangled way with supposedly substantive policies.

6. Discussion and conclusion

Counter to common claims of a local turn or the determining nature of national-state decision making, our research has shown that with its Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration the regional state of Baden Württemberg nowadays has structures in place for immigrant integration policymaking. It hence challenges the predominant notion that integration is first and foremost a local matter (Zapata-Barrero, Caponio, and Scholten 2017). Due to the local level's right to self-government, the significance of the regional state can still be debated, and it is yet to be seen how persistent the structures and policies that are now in place turn out to be if the urgency of asylum integration fades. Further, the regional state has put in place a variety of legal, funding and communication instruments (Hood 2007). Analyzing the use of these policies, we identified that the regional state invested in creating symbols for a proactive and positive approach to immigrant integration.

What stuck out from our analysis as strong characteristic of Baden-Württemberg's approach to integration was its symbolic use of policies next to using these policies for substantive solutions (like building capacities in municipalities for addressing immigrant integration). Based on our findings we argue that policies such as laws and funding schemes may also have a symbolic dimension, albeit a more implicit one. The passing of a law or the adoption of a new funding instrument implicitly reflects, for example, the political relevance of a certain policy issue or shows that the government is “in charge” of a situation. Conversely, other policies that are geared towards persuasion, such as awards or campaigns, have a more explicit symbolic function. Officials were more critical towards these policies, not because they doubted the symbol they transported but because they wanted these symbols to have also weight or substance. They are highly visible and promote a certain idea of society. This finding challenges the juxtaposition of symbolic policies and substantive policies (Howlett 2000). It undergirds depictions of symbolic acts as playing an immanent part of the political realm (see Sarcinelli 2011; Suntrup 2018), where every act and gesture has – intentionally or unintentionally – a symbolic dimension (Diehl 2016). These findings are in line with and contribute to the existing literature on the role of symbols in the more general policy literature and literature on immigrant policymaking, as it challenges binary conceptions of symbolic politics as separate from substantive policymaking. Acknowledging the entangled nature of substantive and symbolic politics can provide an exciting starting point for future research into how and why symbolic and substantive uses are combined, by whom, to what ends and with what effects.

Symbolism was of particular use to political leaders in the context of a purported “crisis”. In the literature there is a common normative stance of devaluing symbolic policies as less worthy than substantive policies (Edelman 1967). Symbolic policies were characterized as sheer rhetoric or as a political strategy diverting from implementing goals and measures as announced (see for a critical account of this dichotomy Blühdorn 2007; Suntrup 2018). Whilst the “merely” symbolic use of policy instruments led to frustrations for the officials involved, the symbolic use of policies was a conscious choice by political leaders: Instead of a written integration programme, the minister consciously chose for communication instruments to create a political stage for his ideas and beliefs about diversity as a benefit and to build societal consensus around them (see Sarcinelli 2011; Savini and Dembski 2016). This was at a time when he was regularly confronted by the AfD about asylum seeker accommodation, challenging him to not leave the discursive field to the right-wing populists. The minister's strategic use of symbolic activities can be interpreted as a means to (re)gain control (Suntrup 2018) in times of political dissent and conflict, reflecting his struggle to defend his particular approach to integration and to communicate his particular “world view” in a highly politicized context (Edelman 1967; Gill and Angosto-Ferrandez 2018; Sarcinelli 2011). The context of Germany after the high influx of refugees in 2015 and 2016 and the rise of the AfD, required a clear political stance on the controversial and contested issues of migration and immigrant integration. Here, the “consensus-building” function of symbols seems to be especially relevant (Bourdieu 1991; Edelman 1967; Sarcinelli 2011; Savini and Dembski 2016). An important function of the regional state's policies was apparently to inform “what large masses of men [and women] need to believe about the state to reassure themselves” (Edelman 1967, 2; see also Sarcinelli 2011).

These findings correspond to Blühdorn's observation that the rise of “symbolic politics” “has been facilitated by a range of factors including, inter alia, the ever-growing complexity of political issues and interest constellations, the relocation of political discourse and competition into the realm of the mass media and the crisis of legitimacy in contemporary politics” (Blühdorn 2007, 252). Based on our research, we argue that the symbolic uses of policies indeed can be understood by considering a confluence of factors, namely: the respective role and position of the (regional) level of government and the contested nature of immigration issues, which is spurred by perceptions of an “immigration crisis” and the resurging anti-immigrant radical right parties that link migration to a perceived threat of national identity. Against that background, we can presume that symbolic uses of immigrant integration policies is not particular to Baden Württemberg, but probably a phenomenon that we could find also in other regional states and on other levels of government in Germany and other European contexts. Future research could set out to show whether regional states due to their position and role are particularly prone to symbolic immigrant integration politics and whether the context of a perceived crisis and a resurging anti-immigrant politics strengthens symbolic over symbolic uses of immigrant integration policies.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Vital cities and citizens programme of Erasmus University Rotterdam for supporting the writing process of this article.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skodlowksa Curie [grant agreement No. 740447].

Notes on contributors

Maria Schiller

Maria Schiller is an Assistant Professor of Public policy, Migration and Diversity at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her work is motivated by the desire to understand and capture the dynamics of migration and diversity, with a particular focus on Europe. In her research she investigates policy implementation, street-level bureaucracy, and governance networks, and she often takes a comparative approach. Previously, she was a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, a Substitute Assistant Professor at the University of Tübingen, a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Kent and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Vienna. She holds a PhD in Migration Studies (2014) from the University of Kent.

Elina Jonitz

Elina Jonitz, MSc, is a PhD candidate at the Department of Public Administration and Sociology at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. In her PhD research, she examines the multi-level politics and governance of post-2014 migrant integration in small and medium-sized towns and rural areas in the Netherlands. Her PhD is embedded in the European research project Whole-COMM (Horizon 2020). She holds two master’s degrees, one in Sociology with a specialization in “Governance of Migration and Diversity” (GMD) from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, and the other in Intercultural Communication from the University of Munich. She is interested in the impact of “illegality” and “non-deportability” on migrants, and the governance of immigrant integration in multilevel systems.

Notes

1 A person has a migrant background if he or she or at least one parent did not acquire German citizenship by birth (Federal Statistical Office 2020).

2 See for an encompassing study of NRW's integration policy: Schmidtke and Zaslove (2014), and for an in depth-discussion of Berlin's approach to immigrant integration: Schultz and Kolb (2015).

3 For an analysis of all 16 regional states and similarities/differences in their integration policy see Henkes (2008); Blätte (2017); and Bogumil and Kuhlmann (2020); for a cross-national comparison in Europe and beyond see, for instance, Zuber 2020; and Baglay and Nakache 2014.

4 Two interviewees preferred not to have their interview recorded and hence the researcher had to rely on note-taking. One interview was recorded, but not transcribed, because its value lied more in providing contextual knowledge.

5 A VwV implies the provision of financial means in the form of a “fixed amount” and/or a subsidy for a limited period (usually over three to five years).

6 All quotes are translations from German.

7 Other instruments include the VwV Deutsch für Flüchtlinge in 2016 (renewed as VwV Deutsch in 2019 and now targeting not just refugees but migrants in general), the VwV Integrationsbeauftragte (which can be understood as an advancement of the VwV Integration which expired in 2018), and the call for funding “Local Integration – Strengthening of municipal structures” (Integration vor Ort – Stärkung kommunaler Strukturen) in 2020.

Appendix

Table A1. Overview of the distribution of responsibilities across three government levels

	National level (Bund)	Regional level/land BW	Local level
LEGAL FRAMEWORK relevant for integration policymaking	- Exclusive legislative power in the policy areas: immigration and citizenship - Policy areas with concurrent legislation: right of residence, refugee policy, labour market - AGG (General Act on Equal Treatment) - FEG (Immigration Act for Skilled Workers) - AufenthG (Residence Act)	- Exclusive competence in the policy areas (amongst others): education, culture, religion, public safety, civic involvement - Participation in the federal legislative process, e.g. regarding laws concerning labour market policy, social insurance, migration and asylum - Structuring of general conditions/framework for the municipalities - Example in BW: - PartIntG (Integration law)	- Adoption of statutes with regards to matters of self-governance
ADMINISTRATION AND IMPLEMENTATION	- Asylum procedure - Promotion of integration through the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (mainly: integration courses)	- Implementation of federal and state law: decision regarding responsibilities and processes with some leeway! (e.g. granting of citizenship, right to stay for “tolerated” rejected asylum seekers) - Examples in BW (here: instruments adopted by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration): - Establishment of comprehensive local structures for integration through the funding schemes VwV Integration (advisory boards and integration officials) and VwV Deutsch (language support) - Additional forms of support/funding: Pact for integration (integration managers)	- Local implementation of laws and programmes - Individual implementation of voluntary tasks (e.g. additional educational offers, cultural institutions, urban development)
INDIRECT “CONTROL” in integration policymaking	- Formulation of “guiding principles” and goals - Funding programmes - Summits, campaigns, etc. - Examples at the national level: - Nationaler Integrationsplan (National Integration Plan) - Deutsche Islamkonferenz (German Islam Conference) - Integrationsgipfel (Integration Summit)	- Formulation of “guiding principles” and goals - Funding programmes - Summits, campaigns, etc. - Examples in BW: - Integration price - Integration campaign - Integration conference	- Formulation of “guiding principles” and goals - Funding programmes - Round tables, campaigns, etc.

Note: Interview Methods Table following Bleich and Pekkanen (2015).

Source: Own table, following SVR (2017), Blätte (2017) and Bogumil and Hafner (2017).

Table A2. Overview of interviews

Interview number	Interview ID	Role and affiliation	Date of the interview	Length in min	Recording
	Ministry staff
1	I1^a	Official at the integration department	10/2018	60	Audio recording
2	I2	Official at the integration department	10/2018	61	Audio recording
3	I4	2 Officials at the integration department	10/2018	90	Audio recording
4	I5	Official at the integration department	11/2018	126	Audio recording
5	I6	Official from different department	10/2018	60	Audio recording
6	I9	Official from different department	12/2018	61	Audio recording
7	I11	Official at the integration department	10/2018	50	Non-recorded (no transcript)
8	I12	Official at the integration department	12/2018	60	Non-recorded (no transcript)
	Representatives of local associations
9	I3	Chair of the integration working group for the association of cities (Städtetag)	10/2018	79	Audio recording
10	I7	Representative for integration for the association of cities (Städtetag)	12/2018	94	Audio recording
11	I8	Representative of the association of districts (Landkreistag)	12/2018	89	Audio recording
	Representative of social welfare organization
12	I10	Expert on migration and integration for the association of welfare organizations of the regional state (LIGA der freien Wohlfahrtspflege)	12/2018	65	Audio recording
	Involvement of migrant representatives
13	I13	Member of the integration council of the regional state (Landesbeirat Integration)	12/2018	66	Audio recording (no transcript)

^a The acronyms I1–I13/14 are used to quote and refer to the respective interviewees (I) in the analysis.

Table A3. Code groups

Code group	Name
1	Integration policy actors in the multi-level system
2	Developments in integration policy in BW
3	“Fields of action” in the area of integration policy in BW
4	Municipal structures
5	Milestone in integration policy at the regional level
6	Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration – Development and tasks
7	MLG horizontal
8	MLG vertical
9	Symbolic aspects of integration policy
10	Financial aspects
11	Understanding and design of integration policymaking

Table A4. Policy documents/key policy initiatives

Policy instrument (listed chronologically)	Year of enactment	Funding period	Goal of policy instrument	Funding dedicated
VwV-Integration Funding scheme	2013	2013–2018	- Development and strengthening of sustainable integration structures at the municipal level (e.g. establishment of the “integration officer” position; development of local integration concept)	Approx. 25 Mio Euros in 5 years (on average, 3 Mio per year, with an exception for 2016 and 2017 where more funding was available)
PartIntG BW Partizipations- und Integrationsgesetz für Baden-Württemberg Law	2015		- Realization of equal participation for people with and without migration background in all aspects of social life to ensure a peaceful “living together” between people from different cultures and to strengthen social cohesion	No funding
VwV Deutsch für Flüchtlinge Funding scheme	2016	2016–2018	- Strengthening of existing offers for language learning and testing of professional qualification/skills	Depends on service/initiative; costs for teachers and participants may be covered to varying degrees
Pakt für Integration Funding scheme	2017	2017–2018, extended in 2019, 2020 and 2021	- Structurally supporting the integration process of refugees through concrete actions; most importantly: Integration management, But also: Support of young refuges in school/entry labour market; language learning; support of civic engagement	2017–2019: 160 Mio Euro per year 2020: 160 Mio Euro 2021: 135 Mio Euro (The money is partially coming from the national level (Integrationspauschale des Bundes), but also from the regional state itself (regional state budget) to support municipalities beyond the minimum legal obligation)
VwV Integrationsmanagement Funding scheme	2017	2017–2021	- Support municipalities with the task of refugee integration through the Implementation of a local integration management - Strengthen social cohesion	2017–2019: 58 Mio (funds coming from the Pakt für Integration)
VwV Deutsch (Extension of VwV Deutsch für Flüchtlinge) Funding scheme	2019	2019–2026	- Promotion of participation of refugees and migrants in language courses - Improvement of language skills	Depends on service/initiative; costs for teachers and participants may be covered to varying degrees Important: this is a funding scheme that was set up in addition to the language courses funded by the national government
VwV Integrationsbeauftragte (Extension of VwV Integration) Funding scheme	2019	2019–2025	- Development and strengthening of sustainable integration structures at the municipal level through integration officers who systematically plan, control and coordinate integration work	Between 10.000 and 20.000 Euro per municipality (depending on size)
Förderaufruf 2020 „Integration vor Ort – Stärkung kommunaler Strukturen” Funding call	2020		- Support of structures and activities that promote integration at the local level - Improve chances for equal participation for people with a migration background in local communities	No data yet