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Making regional citizens? The political drivers and effects of subnational immigrant integration policies in Europe and North America
This special issue provides the first internationally comparative analysis of regional immigrant integration policies. The introduction defines socioeconomic, cultural–religious and legal–political domains of integration, expecting regions to be most active policy-makers in the first. Regional politics drives policy orientations: leftist regions develop more inclusive policies than their right-wing counterparts, and Rokkan regions with strong regionalist parties adopt more assimilationist policies than ordinary regions. Through policy feedback, regional policies also influence immigrants’ political integration, shaping their prospects of becoming ‘regional citizens’. Six empirical contributions assess these arguments for five federations (Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, United States and Canada) and two quasi-federal systems (Italy and Spain).
Consenting to Exclude? Empirical Patterns of Democracy and Immigrant Integration Policy
Studies explaining immigrant integration policies commonly focus on single aspects such as right-populist party politics or the immigration legacy of a country. This neglects the overall character of the democratic system within which policy-making unfolds. Research on empirical patterns of democracy, in turn, suggests that consensus democracies pursue ‘kinder and gentler’ policies and outperform majoritarian democracies in terms of minority representation. The article tests whether this conclusion holds for the specific group of immigrant minorities and analyses the relationship between patterns of democracy and immigrant integration policy using a new dataset on empirical democracies in 30 European and North American countries. Simultaneously estimating the character of democratic systems in terms of power dispersion and its effect on integration policies, the analysis reveals a distinct ‘Janus-faced’ pattern: while proportional power dispersion tends to coincide with more inclusive immigrant integration policies, pronounced veto structures tend to foster exclusion.