Résultat de la recherche
Politicising immigration in times of crisis: empirical evidence from Switzerland
This article investigates the politicisation of immigration in Switzerland during two major socioeconomic crises: the oil crisis of the 1970s and the financial crisis of the late 2000s. Based on 2,853 newspaper claims from 1970 to 1976 and 1995 to 2018, we measure and compare differences in salience, polarisation, actor diversity and frame use between crisis and noncrisis periods. We find that while claims-making on immigration was indeed more salient, polarised, and diversified during the oil crisis, the empirical data for the financial crisis are inconclusive or show a slight decrease. Nonetheless, we still find a noteworthy increase in the use of identity frames during both periods. We conclude that while crises may influence claims-making about immigration and thus affect the politicisation of the matter, their contextual links to particular immigrant groups appear to be of importance as well. Crises do not increase politicisation automatically but may provide important opportunity structures that foster it.
Conceptualizing the Integration of Immigrants and Other Groups
This paper addresses the integration of immigrants and other societal groups from a conceptual point of view. There are many operationalizations of the concept of integration in the literature, but the fundamental question of how integration should be conceptualized is rarely addressed. This makes it difficult to assess whether a particular operationalization is suitable for measuring integration. The aim of this paper is to develop a formal understanding of the concept of integration, and not to review the existing literature. With increased conceptual clarity and by working toward an objective definition as far as possible, the paper creates a possible foundation on which indicators of integration can be built. Integration is conceptualized as proximity, and a distinction is drawn between the integration of groups and individuals. It is argued that integration should be understood as assimilation in relevant dimensions, whereas in other dimension significant differences are accepted.