The Politics of Mainstreaming Immigrant Integration Policies
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The Politics of Mainstreaming Immigrant Integration Policies Case study of the Netherlands Xandra Maan, Ilona van Breugel and Peter Scholten Erasmus University Rotterdam December 2014 Co-funded by the European Union Contents 1 – Introduction __________________________________________________________ 3 2 – Immigrant integration in the Netherlands __________________________________ 6 2.1 Brief sketch of migration history ________________________________ 6 2.2 City cases: Amsterdam and Rotterdam demographics _______________ 9 2.3 Background of national migrant integration policies ________________ 12 2.4 Conclusion: the context of mainstreaming in the Netherlands _________ 19 3 – Education ____________________________________________________________ 21 3.1 National level 3.1.1 Policy background _____________________________________ 23 3.1.2 Policy content ________________________________________ 26 3.1.3 Conclusion ___________________________________________ 31 3.2 Rotterdam 3.2.1 Policy background _____________________________________ 32 3.2.2 Policy content ________________________________________ 35 3.2.3 Conclusion ___________________________________________ 38 3.3 Amsterdam 3.3.1 Policy background _____________________________________ 37 3.3.2 Policy content ________________________________________ 40 3.3.3 Conclusion ___________________________________________ 43 3.4 Policy explanations 3.4.1 Connection with the typology ____________________________44 3.4.2 What is mainstreamed and why? _________________________ 46 4 – Social cohesion ________________________________________________________ 48 4.1 National level 4.1.1 Policy background _____________________________________ 48 4.1.2 Policy content ________________________________________ 50 4.1.3 Conclusion ___________________________________________ 54 4.2 Rotterdam 4.2.1 Policy background _____________________________________ 55 4.2.2 Policy content ________________________________________ 57 4.2.3 Conclusion ___________________________________________ 60 4.3 Amsterdam 4.3.1 Policy background _____________________________________ 61 4.3.2 Policy content ________________________________________ 63 4.3.3 Conclusion ___________________________________________ 65 4.4 Policy explanations 4.4.1 Connection with the typology ____________________________66 4.4.2 What is mainstreamed and why? _________________________ 69 5 – Conclusions ___________________________________________________________ 71 5.1 Types of mainstreaming in the Netherlands _______________________ 71 5.2 The process of mainstreaming integration governance ______________ 74 5.3 Explanations for mainstreaming integration governance _____________ 76 Bibliography _____________________________________________________________ 79 Annex I – Interview Respondents ____________________________________________ 93 Annex II – Overview of Ministries ____________________________________________94 2 | UPSTREAM WP3 Mainstreaming in the Netherlands 1 - Introduction The Netherlands has often been depicted as one of the strongholds of a multiculturalist approach. Specific measures that have been adopted to further the integration of ‘ethnic minorities’ have been discussed extensively, both in national and international (academic as well as non-academic) political discourses. Indeed, especially in the 1980s, the Netherlands established various policy practices that involved strongly targeted group-specific measures, which would also have a strong influence on policies adopted in other European countries. Take for instance the consultation structures with migrant organizations that were mimicked in many other countries, preferential treatment programs for minority members on the labour market, preferential funding schemes for migrant children at schools, or a variety of very ‘visible’ measures to promote the integration of minorities such as broadcasting agencies for different (religious) communities. At the same time, the Netherlands has also been one of the first countries that discarded the multicultural model in the 2000s, and adopted a more assimilationist approach. Rather than integration, adaptation became a key policy objective, and rather than focusing primarily on socio- economic participation, the socio-cultural sphere now became much more central to policies. Take for instance the focus on Dutch values and norms in civic integration programs. Again, the Netherlands was not the only country to go through an assimilationist turn in the 2000s, but perhaps one of the countries where the discourse around assimilationism emerged the earliest and was the sharpest. More recently, a new ‘trend’ or ‘phase’ seems to have gained ground in the Dutch setting, marking possibly a new turn in the development of migrant integration policies; ‘mainstreaming.’ Especially since the end of the 2000s, and more specifically since the new government coalition led by the Liberals came to power in 2010, mainstreaming seems to play an important role in the Dutch policy discourse. However, already in the early 2000s the Dutch government was one of the architects of the European Common Basic Principles of Integration, which first featured the idea of ‘mainstreaming’ as one of the basic principles for integration policymaking (Penninx & Scholten, forthcoming). As mentioned in the EU case study (Petrovic and Collett, 2014), this was one of the first times that mainstreaming emerged on the policy agenda. Furthermore, in 2013-2014 the Dutch government commissioned an international study on how best to ‘mainstream’ integration policies (Collett & Petrovic, 2014) and organized a high-level policy conference on mainstreaming. Likewise several research institutes and scholars have looked into the matter of mainstreaming, or related questions of super-diversity and targeting in the field of immigrant integration (see Engbersen, 2014; Dagevos & Grundel, 2013; Boutellier et.al., 2012; Ham & van der Meer, 2012; Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken, 2012; Peeters, 2012; RMO, 2012; Van der Zee et.al., 2012). As such, the Dutch case is of broader relevance to understanding the mainstreaming trend on a European scale as well. However, what is meant by ‘mainstreaming’ remains rather indistinct in national as well as local policy discourses in the Netherlands. In particular, mainstreaming seems to be used in the Dutch context to refer to a retreat from group-specific measures and the embedding of policy measures into generic policy frameworks like education, social affairs and housing. Research shows that this 3 | UPSTREAM WP3 Mainstreaming in the Netherlands trend has indeed been very distinct in national as well as local policies (Scholten, 2013). However, in actual (national and local) policies, the term mainstreaming is rarely used explicitly. Also, it is very unclear whether the Dutch approach also features other elements of mainstreaming that we defined in the literature review of this study (Van Breugel, Maan & Scholten, 2014), such as poly-centric governance and a ‘whole society’ approach that actively approaches diversity as a generic topic to various (if not all) policy areas. Criticasters of Dutch mainstreaming argue that it has been driven rather by politics of retrenchment than a desire to set a ‘whole society’ approach towards diversity. This makes the Dutch case not only a very central case from an international perspective, but also a very crucial case for understanding the meaning and implications of mainstreaming in terms of actual migrant integration policies. This report analyses the politics of mainstreaming in the Dutch case, based on the definition of mainstreaming that was defined in the literature review conducted in the previous work package of this research project (Van Breugel, Maan & Scholten, 2014). We understand mainstreaming as a shift toward generic policies oriented at a pluralist society and involving poly-centric forms of governance. This means that we do not follow how mainstreaming may be conceptualized in Dutch policy discourses nor that we refer only to cases where the concept of mainstreaming is used explicitly; rather our study applies to all situations that fit the definition and characteristics of mainstreaming as sketched in the previous work package of this research project. The focus of this study is on the rationale of mainstreaming, rather than the implementation and impact of mainstreaming that will be the subject of subsequent work packages. Key questions in this study are: 1. What forms of mainstreaming can be identified? To what extent are migrant integration policies mainstreamed, and to what extent are other policy strategies preferred? 2. How have these mainstreaming policies come about? What factors contributed or obstructed the mainstreaming of integration governance? 3. Why has or has not integration governance been mainstreamed? What explanations can be found for the mainstreaming of integration governance? How can differences between cases be explained? When analyzing the Dutch case, we will address a set of expectations that have been formulated for this work package, regarding how and why mainstreaming will take place under specific circumstances. This includes expectations on how the problem setting (migration history, diversity, perceived integration issues), policy context (policy history, spin-offs from other areas, crisis or retrenchment) and political setting (politicization, populism, and individualization) account for different mainstreaming strategies in the Dutch case. In particular, we expect