Local integration policies in a multi-level governance framework. Leadership of cities?Leadership within local integration policies?

1. 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 Penninx
Coordinator of the IMISCOE Research Network
www.imiscoe.org

2. 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?
www.imiscoe.org

3. 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
www.imiscoe.org

4. 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
www.imiscoe.org

5. 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?
www.imiscoe.org

6. 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.
www.imiscoe.org

7. Step 2. A heuristic model for the study of integration processes
IMMIGRANTS INTERACTION RECEIVING SOCIETY
Individual ▬► ◄▬ 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
www.imiscoe.org

8. 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.
www.imiscoe.org

9. 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.
www.imiscoe.org

10. 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)
www.imiscoe.org

11. Step 5: Leadership?
b) 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.
d) 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.

12. Step 5: Leadership? (continued)
→ City’s vision needs political leadership, but as much in two further aspects:
4. 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..)
9. 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... )