Local integration policies in a multi-level governance framework

Leadership of cities?Leadership within local integration policies?

Master class of the Integrating Cities V conference on “Making Integration work in Europe’s Cities”

Amsterdam, March 8, 2012

By Rinus PenninxCoordinator of the IMISCOE Research Network

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Overview in steps: 1. The context: empirical paradoxes from the local perspective

2. Conceptualising the object of policies: the process of integration

3. The nature of integration policy, its making and implementation

4. Cities and national and EU-policies: explanations for paradoxes

5. Leadership of cities? On what? Over whom?

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Step 1: The European Context: General features Facts: • By 2000, 56 million immigrants lived in Europe: 7.7 % of the population• These migrants come from all over the world• They come for varying reasons (demand and supply driven)• Immigrants tend to flock to cities Framing: • No `nations of immigrants’ tag as in classical immigration countries• Often explicit: `not immigration countries’ on various arguments• Europe is ‘an unwilling immigration continent’ Policies: • Paradox of free movement within EU and restrictions for outsiders• Increasing restrictionist admission for non-EU, non-developed countries• Variable integration policies: from non-policies to enforced assimilation• Integration (argument) increasingly used for selective immigration

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Step 1 (continued): The European context: Cities, immigrants and integration Facts: • Major and quick population changes in most larger European cities• New forms of heterogeneity and diversity, `super-diversity’• Problems of insertion and accommodation Framing and Policies: • Variable integration polices: from non-policies, even exclusion, to active

reception and accommodation policies • Sometimes practice-driven local policies in the absence of national policies• Variable, but less ideological local frames: more pragmatic

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Step 1 (continued): Questions: policy paradoxes from the local perspective

• Why did some European cities have local integration policies before national and EU-policies came into existence?

• Why are local policies in their implementation so similar in some domains (hard socio-economic ones) and so different in other domains (legal and cultural/religious ones)?

• Why have tensions and discrepancies between local and national policies increased, particularly in countries that have politicized the topic?

• Why do we see so many cross-national ‘horizontal’ initiatives of policy learning of European cities recently?

• Why do many cities and their local actors – in recent times – make use of EU-facilities and funds? Why did the EC create such facilities and funds?

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Step 2. An operational definition of integration • “Integration is the process of becoming an accepted part of society”

• A two-way street of interaction between immigrants and the dominant society.

• There are three dimensions of becoming an accepted part of society– The legal/political dimension– The socio-economic dimension– The cultural/religious dimension.

• The process of integration takes place at three levels simultaneously:– The individual level– The organisational (collective) level of groups– The institutional level (including specific integration policies)

• The process takes place (and is measurable) mainly at the local level: in what are migrants supposed to integrate?

• Since (local) contexts and characteristics of immigrants vary significantly, the form and outcome of the process varies.

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Step 2. A heuristic model for the study of integration processes IMMIGRANTS INTERACTION RECEIVING SOCIETYIndividual ▬► ◄▬ Individual

↕ Legal/political◄▬┐ ↕

Collective/group ▬► dimension │ ◄▬ Collective/group

↕ │ ↕

Institutional ▬► ▲ │ ◄▬ Institutional

▌ │ ▼ │

Individual ▬► │ ◄▬ Individual

↕ Socio-economic │ ↕

Collective/group ▬► dimension │ ◄▬ Collective/group

↕ │ ↕

Institutional ▬► ▲ │ ◄▬ Institutional

▌ │

▼ │

Individual ▬► │ ◄▬ Individual

↕ Cultural/ religious │ ↕

Collective/group ▬► dimension ◄▬┘ ◄▬ Collective/group↕ ↕

Institutional ▬► ◄▬ Institutional

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Step 3: The Nature of Policies, the making of integration policies and implementation  • The essence of policies is that they intend to steer processes in society: in our case the integration

processes of immigrants. Explicit policies are part of a political process of normative nature in which first the topic of integration is formulated as problem, the problem is given a normative framing and concrete actions are designed and developed to reach a goal.

• Being defined politically by (majorities of) the receiving society there is the inherent danger of being lop-sided, representing expectations and demands of this society rather than being based on negotiation and agreement with immigrants themselves.

• In contrast to the long-term nature of integration processes discussed above, the political process in democratic societies requires that policies bear fruit within much shorter time frames – the spaces between elections. Unrealistic promises and demands that arise from this ‘democratic impatience’ (Vermeulen & Penninx 1994) – often produce backlash.

• More difficult than democratic impatience, however, are situations in which a political climate of anti-immigration and anti-immigrant sentiments – translated into political movements and a politicisation of immigration and integration – prevents well-argued policy proposals from being adopted. Immigrants identify themselves more with the local than the national.

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Step 3 (continued): The Nature of Policies, the making of integration policies and implementation

• Explicit integration policies are part of the institutional arrangements in a society. Not having an explicit policy integration is also a policy. To study integration policies we should have a broad concept of policies.

• Whose policies? Who is to be defined as relevant actors in policies. Governmental agencies at the national and local level (mostly studied only), but also other institutional actors in civil society at large can be defined as relevant, either as partners in governmental policies (more often at the local level), but also as institutions that have policies themselves: employers’ organisations, trade unions, but also churches.  

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Step 4. Local, national and EU-Policies, the making of integration policies and implementation

Dynamic of policies and policymaking at different levels

• Historically local policies often earlier than national policies (framing non-immigration country): Amsterdam, Berlin, Zurich etc.

• Except Swedish (mid-1970s) and Dutch (early 1980s) national policies that `engaged cities’ in the 1980 and 1990s (integration policies as essential part of Urban Policies)

• More explicitly enforced and demanding recent integration policies (particularly expressed in the normative civic integration programmes – as opposed to the toolkit approach before) at the national level have increased tension between national and local actors:- competences and resources- problem definition: pragmatic versus principled- context bound urgency → domain priorities → target group priorities versus generalised approach→ tension between local and national policies

• EU-policies are new (since 2003); third pillar consensus policy; open method of coordination as tool; soft policy tools.

• EU-policies to engage other than national governmental partners: local government, civil society partners, NGOs (EIF-fund; Refugee Fund)

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Step 5: Leadership? a) In relation to national (and EU-) policymaking

Need for more decentralisation of competences and resources; National and EU-policies should do general framing, facilitating and fair (context-sensitive) monitoring.

b) In relation to the city itself (its bureaucracy, its civil society and its immigrant communities)

1. City’s vision (framing and priorities)Empirically I see three main visions:

• Socially fair cities (equal chances, access and outcomes)• Tolerant, culturally diverse, cohesive cities• Entrepreneurial city

As strategic tools such visions are important mobilising tools;At the same time, the basic dimensions of the integration process (from the perspective of migrants) all be covered properly.

Step 5: Leadership? (continued)→ City’s vision needs political leadership, but as much in two further aspects:

2. Cities as bureaucracies• Integration policy is cross-sectional by definition; needs input from many dpts• Coordination of policies should be backed up politically and placed high up in the

bureaucracy (cabinet of the mayor instead of dpt of welfare..)• Facilitation and (fair) monitoring are the main instruments that work in a situation

that is politically legitimised (also here the decentralising principle..)

3. City government as community government• Cities can only implement integration policies effectively with support of major

players in civil society such as employers (unions), trade unions, churches, NGOs.• Cities should engage collective representations of immigrants in their policies: in the

process of making policies, and potentially also in implementing policies. (They are part of civil society... )