Taylor - Intergovernmental Relations on Immigrant Integration in Multi-Level States

The study of intergovernmental relations (IGR) is a classical research area in scholarship on federalism and territorial politics. However, it has largely ignored the relatively new, and recently decentralized area of immigrant integration. The aim of this Special Issue is twofold. First, it aims to analyse how governments in multi-level states coordinate on immigrant integration. Second, it wishes to explain the dynamics that shape the features of intergovernmental relations. In doing so, we focus on four multi-level states; two of which are federal (Belgium and Canada) and two that are decentralized (Italy and Spain). Whilst we engage with the established literature on intergovernmental relations to formulate hypotheses about the nature and dynamics of intergovernmental relations, we also formulate less explored hypotheses. Our overarching argument is that the scholarship on IGR benefits from in-depth comparative case studies comparing IGR not just across countries, but also across policy areas and over time.

The aim of this Special Issue The rationale for the study of IGR in multi- level states has been clearly set out by several authors (Bolleyer et al., 2014a: 368369) and involve (democratic) principles as fundamental as efficiency, legitimacy and accountability. First, IGR impacts the efficiency of the policy-making process because policy-making power in our current interdependent and complex world is rarely attributed to one policy level and thus needs minimal coordination to realize its objectives. Second, because of the clearly established executive dominance of IGR, the production of policy decisions within intergovernmental platforms also impacts the legitimacy of policy-making, whereby IGR led by executives may be hidden from democratic parliamentary scrutiny. Third, IGR is related to accountability issues, for instance, if several policy levels are competent and do not coordinate, there is a question of who is responsible/to blame. Moreover, studying IGR in multi-national states is essential because they touch upon the very ontology of substate nations, id est, their nature of being. If substate nations, which claim distinctiveness and policy-making autonomy, are seen as coordinating too much, then this might undermine these claims. However, if they coordinate too little, they may be blamed for hindering policy-making efficiency, which may foster claims for re-centralization of their policy-making autonomy.

In this Special Issue we do not focus on the nature of intergovernmental relations encompassing all policy areas in one country, as is mostly done in the international comparative literature on IGR (see a.o. Agranoff, 2004; Bolleyer, 2006, 2009; McEwen et al., 2012a,b; Bolleyer et al., 2014a,b); instead, we choose to zoom in on one specific policy area. We are convinced that this will allow us to fine-tune and nuance the heavy institutional variables and party political dynamics that have been proposed as explanations of patterns of IGR in the extant literature. We choose to focus on immigrant integration policies, which we define as cross-sectoral and cross-level policies that are meant to enhance equal participation for persons with a migrant background in all societal spheres, and most importantly employment, education, housing and health (Adam, 2013b: 19).

Given this objective of equal participation, we advocate the re-labelling of immigrant integration in ethnic or racial equality policies, away from the focus on individualisation towards viewing it (once again) as a collective process. Why? For two main reasons: first, because integration originally refers to a collective endeavour and the responsibility of society as a whole. Over the years, however, it has been individualised and turned into the exclusive responsibility of the migrant in the policy discourse (see e.g. Korteweg, 2017; Schinkel, 2018; Adam and Thym, 2019: 83). This contradicts the EUs definition of immigrant integration as a two-way process in its Framework on Integration (EU, 2002). Second, because integration policies as implemented today do not appear to apply to white citizens, who are generally considered to be already integrated (Schinkel, 2018: 34). For the sake of a broader understanding, however, we use the term immigrant integration, but include anti-discrimination policies in this definition. Anti-discrimination policies are too often considered as a separate policy area, distinct from immigrant integration. However, if equal participation is the primary goal of immigrant integration, and if integration is really considered as a two-way process, then anti-discrimination and anti-racism policies should be fully part of it.