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Abstract
For almost a decade now, there has been a debate among scholars of regional and federal studies about how to explain policy evolution after devolution. Surprisingly, this literature has attached little importance to the policy impact of sub-state nationalism. This article assesses existent institutionalist and societal hypotheses in the case of immigrant integration policy divergence in Belgium after devolution. This empirical test shows that although several of these hypotheses yield valuable insights in explaining integration policy divergence in Belgium, they have difficulties in accounting for a striking feature of this policy divergence, i.e. the different interventionism regarding the cultural dimension of the integration process. This article argues that sub-state nationalism, and in particular the differing degrees of regional government involvement in sub-state nation building, provides explanatory insight into how policy frames diverge.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive comments. I also acknowledge the feedback I received on earlier versions of this paper from Kris Deschouwer and from Saskia Bonjour, as well as from Jan Erk during the ECPR general conference in Reykjavik in September 2011. Special thanks also go to Andrea Rea and Dirk Jacobs for their invaluable support to this research project.
Notes
1 Although distinguished for heuristic reasons and to stimulate debate, the two categories of explanatory variables (institutional and societal forces) bleed into each other in real life. The institutional characteristics of Belgian federalism are as much a product of societal forces as they are political constructs. The same is true for sub-state nationalism (Béland and Lecours, Citation2005).
2 While the literature on devolution and public policy as such has not yet put the spotlight on migrant integration policy issues, we do find two revealing publications in a very closely related research field, i.e. on regionalist parties and immigration (Hepburn, Citation2009; Citation2010).
3 One exception is Barker (Citation2010).
4 Koopmans et al. (Citation2012) do not go in depth into Belgium's co-existence of two party systems in attempt to explain the ‘Belgian immigrant integration policy paradox’. The authors only very briefly hint at “the intricacies of coalition building accross the who language communities”. They also neglect the multi-level governance dimension of immigrant integration policies in Belgium, wherein the access to rights is partially decided at federal level, amongst political parties that are operating in two different party systems, and partially at the regional level, wherein access to rights diverges according to the regions. Federal immigrant integration policy making is, indeed, an exercise of difficult compromise building between Francophone parties, operating in a party system without a successful extreme-right party, and Flemish parties, who are confronted with a successful extreme-right party. This compromise building has, moreover, been extremely difficult since the immigrant vote is particularly important for the main Francophone political party, the Parti Socialiste (Rea et al., Citation2010). The “intricacies of coalition building accross the who language communities” are, however, irrelevant when explaining regional immigrant integration policies, which are partly resposible for the attribution of immigrant rights (in particular for cultural rights).
5 This section is a slightly modified summary of Chapters 2–5 of Adam, 2013. This study of the evolving policy frames that guide immigrant integration policy in the Belgian regions is based on an analysis of regional public policy documents and public speeches made by regional political personnel, and on interviews with policy makers. The regional policy documents on integration policy involve administrative documents, parliamentary documents, legislation, discourses and policy positions of ministers and other relevant policy makers, annual reports of organizations to which the regional immigrant integration policy has been delegated and internal working documents of ministerial cabinets. Flemish policy documents on immigrant integration are a lot more numerous than those from the French Community, the Walloon Region or the French Community Commission of the Brussels Region, even after summing the documents of those three last federal sub-entities. Because of this lower production of policy documents by the Francophone institutions, interviews constituted a more important information source of information for the Francophone immigrant integration policies than for the Flemish one. The interviews allowed us, first, to understand and trace the formation and the change of regional immigrant integration policies, in particular with regard to the main legislative instruments regulating the immigrant integration policies of the Belgian regions, and second to identify dominant and minority policy frames on immigrant integration. Two types of profiles were selected for interviews: first, persons who have participated in the decision-making processes that have led to the institutionalization of the regional immigrant integration policies and, secondly, the central actors in their implementation process. In total, 68 persons were interviewed: 21 involved in integration policy making in the Flemish Community, 22 in integration policy making of the French Community Commission of the Brussels Region and 21 from the French Community/Walloon Region.
6 Regulation of the Flemish Executive, 13 Jul 1984.
7 Le Soir, Le parcours d'intégration se concrétise, Tuesday 5 Jul 2012.
8 The FCC Government would, however, want to make the language courses compulsory. Nevertheless, the (unilingual) FCC (in bilingual Brussels) does not have the authority to do so. Obliging migrants in bilingual Brussels to follow language or integration courses can be decided upon only by the bilingual Common Community Commission. Negotiations have started with the Dutch-speaking responsible minister in Brussels (phone interview with a counsellor of the COCOF minister for social cohesion Charles Picqué, 7 Feb 2013).
9 The new Belgian nationality law of 4 Dec 2012 (art 9) considers the attestation of participation in an integration course as a proof of social integration.
10 In 2009, the Flemish budget for migrant integration policy was nearly 18 times greater than its Walloon counterpart (author's calculations, sources available upon request).
11 Le Soir, Accord wallon sur le parcours d'intégration, 24 Dec 2012.
12 Regulation of the Flemish Government, 21 Mar 2003.
13 Flanders has included undocumented migrants as a target group of its integration policies, in addition to the target group of asylum seekers. Due to their illegal residency, this target group is considered to be part of the federal immigration competence in Francophone Belgium.
14 Interview with the former private secretary of the Walloon minister responsible for immigrant integration, 11 Jan 2006.
15 Strategische Adviesraad Internationaal Vlaanderen, Beeldvorming van Vlaanderen in het buitenland, Advies 2008/22.
16 De Morgen, Vlaamse overheid zoekt imagomanager, 9 Mar 2009.
17 http://www.n-va.be/agenda/uitreiking-ebbenhouten-spoor (accessed 30 Jan 2011).