The Local Dimension of Migration Policymaking

This book prompts a fresh look on immigrant integration policy. Revealing just where immigrants and their receiving societies interact everyday, it shows how societal inclusion is administered and produced at a local level. The studies presented focus on three issue areas of migration policy - citizenship, welfare services and religious diversity - and consider cities in very different national contexts. Spanning Switzerland, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada, the cases display great variety in their theoretical and methodological approaches. In all the countries considered, we see that the local level has an undeniable relevance despite differences in state structures, models of integration and centre-peripheral relations. Particularly for future migration policy research, such a complex comparative exercise thus yields an important universal realisation: the local dimension of migration policymaking matters.

Tiziana Caponio is researcher at the University of Turin, and research associate at the Forum Internazionale ed Europeo di Ricerche sull'Immigrazione (FIERI) in Turin. Maren Borkert is research officer at the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) in Vienna.

Introduction, 1. Naturalisation politics in Switzerland: explaining rejection rates at the local level, 2. Grassroots multiculturalism in Italy: Milan, Bologna and Naples compared, 3. Young immigrants' low participation in the German vocational training system: how local actors in Munich and Frankfurt/Main try to make a difference, 4. Local policies concerning unemployment among immigrant youth in Amsterdam and in Berlin: towards strategic replacement and pragmatic accommodation, 5. Managing religious pluralism in Canadian cities: mosques in Montreal and Laval, Conclusion: making sense of local migration policy arenas, List of contributors