Migrant Integration in a Changing Europe: Immigrants, European Citizens, and Co-ethnics in Italy and Spain 9780268104405, 0268104409

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MIGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGING EUROPE

RECENT T I T LES FROM TH E H ELEN KELLOGG INSTITU TE S ERI ES O N D EM O C RAC Y A N D D EV ELO P M EN T

Paolo G. Carozza and Aníbal Pérez-Liñan, series editors The University of Notre Dame Press gratefully thanks the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies for its support in the publication of titles in this series. Sérgio Buarque de Holanda Roots of Brazil (2012)

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Laura Gómez-Mera Power and Regionalism in Latin America: The Politics of MERCOSUR (2013)

Rosario Queirolo The Success of the Left in Latin America: Untainted Parties, Market Reforms, and ­Voting Behavior (2013)

Erik Ching Authoritarian El Salvador: Politics and the Origins of the Military Regimes, 1880–1940 (2013) Brian Wampler Activating Democracy in Brazil: Popular Participation, Social Justice, and Interlocking Institutions (2015) J. Ricardo Tranjan Participatory Democracy in Brazil: Socioeconomic and Political Origins (2016)

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Alexander Wilde Religious Responses to Violence: Human Rights in Latin America Past and Present (2016) Pedro Meira Monteiro The Other Roots: Wandering Origins in Roots of Brazil and the Impasses of Modernity in Ibero-America (2017) John Aerni-Flessner Dreams for Lesotho: Independence, Foreign Assistance, and Development (2018)

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MIGRANT IN T E G R ATIO N I N A C H A NGIN G E U RO P E Immigrants, European Citizens, and Co-ethnics in Italy and Spain

ROX A N A B A R B U L E S C U

University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana

University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 undpress.nd.edu Copyright © 2019 by University of Notre Dame All Rights Reserved Published in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Barbulescu, Roxana, 1983- author. Title: Migrant integration in a changing Europe : immigrants, European citizens, and co-ethnics in Italy and Spain / Roxana Barbulescu. Description: Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, [2018] | Series: Kellogg Institute series on democracy and development | Significantly revised version of author’s thesis (doctoral)—European University Institute, 2013, titled The politics of immigrant integration in post-enlargement Europe migrants: co-ethnics and European citizens in Italy and Spain. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2018052457 (print) | LCCN 2018057577 (ebook) | ISBN 9780268104399 (pdf ) | ISBN 9780268104405 (epub) | ISBN 9780268104375 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 0268104379 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Europe—Emigration and immigration—Government policy. | Italy—Emigration and immigration—Case studies. | Spain—Emigration and immigration—Case studies | Immigrants—Cultural assimilation—Europe— Case studies | Social integration—Europe—Case studies. Classification: LCC JV7590 (ebook) | LCC JV7590.B374  2018 (print) | DDC 305.9/06912094—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018052457 ∞ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper) This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [email protected]

CONTENTS

List of Tables and Figures

vii

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

1

ONE

Migrant Integration and the State

9

TWO

Migration in Italy and Spain and Integration 55 Outcomes

THREE

Varieties of Denizenship: Rights Regimes and 81 the Importance of (Not) Being an EU Citizen

FOUR

Interventionist States and the Making of 154 Integration Duties: When, How, and for Whom Do States Pursue Integration? Conclusion. The Freedom to not Integrate: 208 Multicultural Integration amidst Rising Neoassimilation Appendix. Primary Sources

227

Notes References Index

235 249 276

TA B L E S A N D F I G U R E S

TA B L E S

1.1. Shares of the four categories within the total foreign 47 population of Italy and Spain, 2015 1.2. Foreign population in the top ten European countries and 50 shares of EU and non-EU migrants, 2001, 2011 1.3. Total number of migrants in Italy and Spain and main 53 countries of origin (in thousands), 2015 2.1. Evolution of foreign residents in Italy and Spain, 1970–2010 57 2.2. Rights of noncitizens in selected EU countries: MIPEX 61 scores 2.3. Amnesties in Italy and Spain, 1982–2009 63 2.4. Immigrants groups by gender composition 69 2.5. Immigrant groups by age 70 2.6. Immigrants by years of residence in the country 71 2.7. Immigrants by level of education 73 2.8. Employment, unemployment, and inactivity among migrants 74 2.9a. Occupation among immigrants in the Italian labor market 76 2.9b. Occupation among immigrants in the Spanish labor market 77 2.10. Citizenship acquisition by category in Spain 78 3.1. Transitional restrictions for the 2004 and 2007 enlargements 88 for EU-27 3.2. Annual quota for descendants of Spanish origin in Spain, 101 2000–2009 3.3. Annual quota for non-EU workers in Italy, 1998–2010 103 3.4. Annual quota for descendants of Spaniards in Spanish 105 Autonomous Communities vii

viii  Tables and Figures

3.5. Bilateral enfranchisement between the Kingdom of Spain and non-EU countries 3.6. Right to family reunification: Requirements for third country nationals and EU citizens 3.7. Criteria for citizenship acquisition and toleration of double citizenship in Italy and Spain 3.8. Acquisition of nationality by country of former nationality, Italy, 1997–2008 3.9. Acquisition of nationality by country of former nationality, Spain, 1997–2008 4.1. Cofunding of integration programs: European Integration Fund and Italy 4.2. Sanctions associated with failing integration requirements in selected EU countries, 1998–2012 4.3. How the Italian integration agreement works: Grounds for losing and gaining points

121 138 142 144 145 185 201 203

FIGURES

2.1. Migrants who integrate “well” and “very well,” 2011 C.1. Evolution of integration strategies by immigrant group

67 211

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book has been a long intellectual journey, and I feel privileged to have received support from many institutions and research centers as well as advice from wonderful scholars, friends, and family along the way. I benefited enormously from the institutional support provided by the following: the European University Institute, where this journey started; the Scenari migratori e mutamento sociali research center at the University of Trento; the Center for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences (CEACS) at the Juan March Institute in Madrid; the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Immigration (GRITIM) at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona; the Sheffield Institute for International Development at the University of Sheffield; the College of Europe in Natolin, Warsaw; the ESRC Centre for Population Change at the University of Southampton; and the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. Deep gratitude goes to Rainer Bauböck and Adrian Favell for their inspiring mentorship, enthusiasm, and fairness. In addition to the five anonymous reviewers from the University of Notre Dame Press, I owe intellectual debts for erudite conversations and sharp suggestions to the following: Kitty Calavita, Andrew Geddes, Claire Kilpatrick, Anthony Messina, Ricard Zapata–Barrero, Joaquín Arango, Giuseppe Sciortino, Martina Cvajner, Tiziana Caponio, Maarten Vink, Yasemin Soysal, Dora Kostakopoulou, Dimitry Kochenov, Jean-Michel Lafleur, Terri Givens, Jaap Dronkers, Martin Kohli, Fabrizio Bernardi, Héctor Cebolla, Claudia Finotelli, and Amparo González Ferrer. To Jean Grugel, Tobias Schu­ macher, Paul Bridgen, and Traute Meyer, I say thanks for your support through many crucial transitions in this work. During fieldwork, Ruth Ferrero-Turrión in Madrid and Sergio Briguglio in Roma were essential guides in navigating the Kafkaesque Italian and Spanish bureaucracies. ix

x  Acknowledgments

My editors at the University of Notre Dame Press—Eli Bortz, Stephen Little, and Matthew Dowd—have been immensely helpful with their sage advice, craftmanship, and patience in turning this manuscript into the book you are now holding. And artist Matias Mata, known as Sabotaje Al Montaje, was extraordinarily generous in lending his artwork for the cover of this book. Mural was painted in 2010 and stands to this day on the side of an apartment building in the working-class district of San Pablo on the outskirts of Sevilla in Spain. To everyone I say thank you. Nobody makes it on their own, and my heartfelt appreciation goes to my friends and colleagues across the world. In Florence, Laurie Beaudonnet, Herve Boudou, Henio Hoyo, Maria Rubi, Raul Gomez, Maria Tznou, Georgia Mavrodi, Leila Hadj-Abdou, Frédérique Roche, Xavi Alcalde, Bahar Baser, Jean-Thomas Arrighi, Laura Block, Costica Dumbrava, and Andrei Stavila have been responsible for the good cheers, good laughs, and good food since the day I first arrived in that beautiful city. My special thanks to Lidiya Lozova, Leyla Safta-Zecheria, Anna Wieck, Monika Caracuda, Denisa and Dan Dumitriu, Adriana Rudling, and Cristina Sararu for their wonderful friendship, which has disregarded the natural laws of time and space. In Sheffield and Leeds, Andira Hernandez Monzoy, Nasos Roussias, Vicky Yiagopoulou, Dimitris Ballas, Albert Varela, and Sarah Lowi Jones were responsible for the fun and funky times in northern England. I owe the fact that this book is finished at last to them. My sincerest thank you goes to my family. My parents have been a source of endless encouragement and love. Lucretia Barbulescu, my mother, with her wonderful stubbornness, has been an inspiration and a driver throughout the years. My little brother, Dr. Razvan Barbulescu, with his passion for mathematics and theory (of numbers!), has been a trusted conspirator and a model. Lastly, I dedicate this book to my daughter, Nora, who is encountering her own personal puzzle of integration, and to my husband, Álvaro Martinez Perez, por todo tu amor y tu apoyo por igual. And regardless of how blasé it may sound, I also dedicate this book to all migrants, for the courage and optimism that they bring into our world when they must pack their dreams and fears and . . . march on. Leeds, December 2018

Introduction The integration of immigrants is among the fundamental chores of states. It requires states to reflect on what defines their people as a nation and to organize accordingly rights, duties, and a road map for full members for newly arrived migrants. A growing literature examines how states create such integration strategies, but far less studied and explained is how states use categories to distinguish between noncitizens and pursue integration selectively in the context of accelerated regional integration and devolution processes. Unique regional integration projects such as the European Union, as well as further devolution to elected local governments and special arrangements for diasporas abroad and former colonial subjects, challenge entrenched understandings of belonging and citizenship and, in doing so, profoundly transform immigrant integration in European societies. Migrant Integration in a Changing Europe examines the transformation of state-led immigrant integration in two relatively new immigration countries in Western Europe, Italy and Spain, over three decades.1 A small library could be filled with studies of “models of integration” (for Western Europe, see Bauböck, Heller, and Zolberg 1996; Brubaker 1992; Castles and Miller 1998; Favell 2001a, 2001b, 2015; Geddes and Favell 1999; Messina et al. 1992; Messina 2007; Hansen 2001; Hansen and Weil 2001; Ireland 1994; Joppke 2007a; Koopmans et al. 2005; Schain 1999, 2012; Soysal 1994; Vermeulen and Penninx 2000; Howard 2009; Schinkel 2017; Goodman 2014; and for North America, see Bloemraad 2006; Hochschild et al. 2013). Richard Alba and Nancy Foner (2015, 229) characterize the tradition in migration research as “one of the most persistent ideas in the literature.” While national models of integration have 1

2  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

largely been discredited, for example, by pointing to the intense convergence across countries (see Joppke 2007a), scholarly concern with these models continues as states diversify their policy repertoire. One assumption is that states pursue integration for all immigrants in the same way. This perspective has been challenged by the local turn in migration studies that emerged from the critique of national models of integration. The local turn focuses on how cities and various regions break from the national philosophy and examines subnational models of integration (Caponio and Borkert 2010; Alexander 2007; Favell 2001a; Ireland 1994; Hepburn and Zapata-Barrero 2014; Zapata-Barrero, Caponio, and Scholten 2017). Yet such research reproduces the same assumption that equates one administrative unit to one model of integration. This book therefore is a journey on a well-traveled road in migration studies: a study of national “models” of integration in Western Europe. Yet it embarks on this road with the mission of uncovering new paths. It seeks to theorize state intervention in integration by discussing the roles of group differentiation during a period of intense Europeanization. It differs from the studies cited above in that it focuses on the efforts states2 make to integrate third country nationals, European Union (EU) citizens from new and old EU member states, and co-ethnics and argues that states pursue different integration strategies for different immigrant categories. These last two immigrant categories have tended to be overlooked in the literature; to my knowledge, this book is the first attempt to analyze the four categories together. Some migrants have simply remained at the margins of the state’s intervention in immigrant integration. Citizens of other European states, for instance, are seldom invited to integrate anywhere in Europe. They settle and build entire lives in another EU country without being considered candidates for integration. For instance, in the Netherlands, Europeans and citizens of developed nations are exempted from the examinations that are mandatory for immigrants from other countries. In these cases, rather than pursue integration, states maintain a laissez-faire stance and let incorporation take a natural course. This raises a number of questions. Given that since the postwar period states have made a definite move toward stronger intervention in integration and that all states have now developed some form of integration strategy, why do states remain passive when it comes to particular migrants? And why do states simply “let be” some migrants—using Dora Kostakopoulou’s (2010b) expression—but formulate integration require-

Introduction   3

ments, sometimes mandatory ones on which rights are conditioned, for others? Nonintervention is even more surprising from the nation-state perspective, according to which all those who are not members of the nation, including European citizens, are foreigners and thus should all be considered candidates for integration. To make things even more complicated, as discussed throughout this book, states break with the laissez-faire stance when it comes to dealing with European citizens from the new member states. The “new” Europeans are included in state programs for immigrant in­tegration. Why states act inconsistently with regard to immigrant ­integration and intervene in different ways for different categories of migrants is a puzzle about which the literature has hitherto remained silent and which this book aims to solve. This book is comparative in approach and seeks to explain states’ immigrant integration strategies across three levels of decision and policy making: national, regional, and local. The empirical material for this work covers the period 1985–2015 and consists of systematic analyses of immigration laws, governments’ policies, other legal and historical documents, a set of seventeen original interviews with policy makers at the three levels of government in both countries, and statistical analysis based on data from the European Labour Force Survey. While the work as a whole builds on evidence from Spain and Italy, its broader aim is to contribute to a better understanding of state intervention in immigrant integration in contemporary Europe. This book makes three contributions to the literature. The first contribution is theoretical and consists in examining state interventionism in migrant integration by exploring how states pursue no one-size-fits-all integration strategy. On the contrary, states simultaneously pursue multiple strategies that greatly vary from one group to another. While im­ migrant integration is a prerogative of states, states’ commitments to European and international partners and national interests such as migration control and security, as well as responses to financial incentives provided by EU funding, also shape integration in definite ways. On the one hand, fellow European citizens who are co-participants in the European Union or co-ethnics and postcolonial migrants with whom states ­acknowledge historical and cultural bonds are not subject to the same integration strategies as other noncitizens. On the other hand, increasing popular discontent with levels of immigration as well as concerns with “homegrown” security threats and a perceived failure of previous state-led

4  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

integration projects further link states’ national interests with their integration agenda. This work argues that states mitigate the conflict between their interests and their commitments by distinguishing between non­ citizens and multiplying integration strategies. However, the proliferation of such strategies unavoidably transforms immigrant integration and challenges conventional understandings of citizenship and belonging. This work, therefore, seeks to connect the integration debate, which traditionally has been centered on the nation-state and national citizenship, and the state sovereignty debate, which has centered on international constraints, national interests, and state capacities. The second contribution is methodological. This book examines strategies of immigrant integration at the regional and local levels as well as the national level. While the local turn in integration studies has led to a collection of recent analyses of integration in cities and regions (ZapataBarrero, Caponio, and Scholten 2017; Caponio and Borkert 2010; Alexander 2007; Favell 2001a; Ireland 1994; Hepburn 2009), they are rarely linked with national strategies or examined together (see also the pioneering work, Caponio and Jones-Correa 2017). This book is unique in that it studies the development of integration strategies across the three levels of decision making, national, regional, and local, applied to the cases of Italy and Spain. The third contribution is empirical. Despite having received large numbers of immigrants in comparision to other European countries, Italy and Spain remain less known cases. As a result, these two cases as well as other “new” destinations are disconnected from integration debates and policy innovations and routinely excluded from most ambitious contemporary studies of immigrant integration. Over the past decade, the work of Sciortino, Caponio, Zioncone, Pastore, Colombo, Ambrozini, and Finotelli for Italy and Arango, Zapata-Barrero, Bruquetas Callejo, Garces Mascareñas, Moreno Fuentes, Morén-Alegret, Gonzalez, Cebolla, and Sánchez-Montijano for Spain has consolidated knowledge on these case studies. Kitty Calavita’s seminal book, Immigrants at the Margins (2005a), is an important pioneering effort to conceptualize and narrate the story of immigration in Italy and Spain in a comparative fashion. This book intends to extend their work and explore in depth the cases of Italy and Spain. In post-enlargement Europe, the composition of the immigrant population has changed remarkably. Migration from other European

Introduction   5

countries and co-ethnic migration have become significant elements of total immigration in Europe. At the beginning of 2012, EU citizens represented 38 percent of the total immigrant population and 2.5 percent of the total EU 27 population (Eurostat 2012). Among mobile European citizens, Eastern Europeans from the new member states are more numerous than Europeans from the old member states. The migration of “new” EU citizens is strongly linked to the accession of their countries to the EU. The removal of the visa requirements prior to accession, the right to free movement gained on accession, and the removal of transitional requirements for workers from the new member states gradually made it easier for Eastern Europeans to move and take up employment in the old member states. Confronted with growing pressure for convergence in the EU in immigration matters, many countries have found themselves having to restrict entry to nationals of countries with whom they share historical and cultural bonds. In order to prevent a full stop of these flows, a number of states have opened new “backdoors” for co-ethnics by signing preferential agreements with selected third countries. As of 2012, a total of 33.3 million migrants (EU and non-EU) lived legally in the EU, with 77 percent of them concentrated in five host states in Western Europe: Italy, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France (Eurostat 2012). If immigrants were to form an independent country, it would be the EU’s sixth largest member state. In order to study state intervention in immigrant integration, I survey two policy areas, immigrants’ rights and duties as coded in public policy programs. My argument builds on original field, legal, survey, and historical data for the period 1985–2016. The interviews were conducted in Madrid and Rome in 2010 and 2011. When analyzing the data, attention was paid to how states address the different immigrant categories in their policies. Studying these two dimensions allows us to explain governments’ responses to immigrant integration and in particular how and why they ­organize integration differently for different groups of immigrants. Throughout this book, the term “migrant groups” refers not to ethnic groups but rather to the legal definitions of noncitizens that EU member states themselves make to distinguish between different categories of foreigners (noncitizens). The four groups are EU citizens, among whom I distinguish between citizens from new member states who are subject to restrictions to the labor market (Romanians and Bulgarians) and citizens

6  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

from old member states who fully enjoy the right of free movement; and non-EU citizens, or third country nationals, among whom I distinguish between co-ethnic migrants and other foreigners who are neither EU citizens nor co-ethnic migrants. Identifying EU citizens as migrants can be interpreted as problematic. After all, EU citizens enjoy freedom of movement and their arrival in another EU country is mobility that shares more traits with movement within a country than with crossing borders and international migration. Interestingly, the reluctance often comes from authors who are comfortable and indeed pedagogical in closing the gap between internal migrants and international migrants. Acknowledging the challenges, I propose to consider all classes of noncitizens together in order to understand what it means to be a European citizen and, most important, what integration is; we know that “integration” applies, not to citizens, but to others (i.e., noncitizens, migrants). I take the cases of two new immigration countries, Italy and Spain, and critically examine how governments at the national, regional, and local levels pursue the integration of immigrants. I show that policy makers at the three levels engage in developing integration strategies that are holistic in aim but also distinctive when compared to their understanding of other national models. Italy and Spain were chosen because they are among the top five destination countries in Western Europe for migrants, yet remain significantly less studied than other countries. Alba and Foner’s authoritative Strangers No More (2015) surveys assimilation trends of Western European countries, yet f­ ocuses on and draws conclusions from the cases of Britain, the Netherlands, France, and Germany, again leaving out Italy and Spain, which nonetheless account for 10 million of the 33 million noncitizen legal residents in contemporary Europe. At the subnational level, I have selected one region and one city for each country: for Italy, the Latium Region (Regione Lazio) and the capital city, Rome; for Spain, the Autonomous Community of Madrid (Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid) and the capital city, Madrid. The core argument is that states pursue no one-size-fits-all integration strategy but rather pursue simultaneously multiple strategies that vary greatly for different groups. As the book demonstrates, two main integration strategies stand out: the first one targets non-European citizens, is assimilationist in character, and is based on interventionist principles according to which the government (whether national, regional, or municipal) actively works toward the inclusion of migrants; the second one

Introduction   7

targets EU citizens and is a laissez-faire scenario where foreigners enjoy rights and live their entire lives in the host country without the state or local authorities seeking their integration. Co-ethnics and European citizens from new member states occupy intermediary positions. In both Italy and Spain, Romanians and Bulgarians were included in the voluntary integration programs even after their countries’ accession to the EU. Furthermore, both Italy and Spain opted for temporary restrictions to their labor market. Spain lifted them in January 2009, but it chose to reintroduce the restriction in July 2011 and only for Romanian workers. Italy suspended the restrictions in January 2012. Co-ethnic migrants enjoy a bundle of special rights in both countries. As a rule, they have more rights than third country nationals, but in some areas, such as a fast-track route to citizenship or the ability to enter military service, they also have more rights than do European citizens. However, when it comes to programs of integration, both Italy and Spain include co-ethnics in the broader group of third country nationals and give them no special treatment. Starting in 2009, Italy introduced mandatory, sanction-based integration programs that require third country nationals to take a language test when applying for permanent residence and to sign an Integration Agreement (Accordo Integrazione) upon their arrival in Italy. Spain remains one of the few European countries with no sanction-based, mandatory integration program. Overall, there are striking differences in the integration strategies for EU and non-EU citizens. Whereas for the former, states pursue a laissez-­ faire agenda with no tests to pass to enjoy generous rights, for the latter, they pursue an agenda “in search of the perfect citizen” (Carrera 2009) via a repertoire of policy instruments and by conditioning the already restricted rights on passing tests on country-specific knowledge. Thus, I posit that there is a continuum of models, from less to more inclusive, for different foreign groups that are simultaneously enforced by one state. OR G A N I Z AT I ON OF T H E BO O K

Chapter 1 is theoretical and discusses the relationship between immigrant integration and states. I start by examining the conceptions of integration that have been used in the literature. I emphasize the need to go beyond the orthodoxy of citizen-alien distinctions and propose distinguishing

8  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

­ etween various groups of immigrants based on the legal distinctions that b the states themselves make. I then review and evaluate the literature on integration and introduce a new model for the study of state strategies of integration, which I will be considering throughout this book. The chapter concludes with a summary of my approach to integration and highlights how it differs from other approaches. Chapter 2 introduces the phenomenon of immigration in Italy and Spain and places the experience of the two countries in the European context. It continues with the empirical profiles of the immigrant groups, their integration outcomes, and natives’ perceptions of the integration outcomes. Chapter 3 looks at the state’s integration strategy based on an allocation of rights (i.e., the rights-based approach to integration). It outlines and evaluates the legal integration regimes for co-ethnics, EU citizens, new EU citizens, and non-EU citizens across the three levels of policy and decision making in the two countries. It critically examines the divergent strategies pursued for each of them and examines their consequences. Chapter 4 examines the integration duties that states code in their public policies and programs, the frames they use, and the institutional organization of integration in broader terms. Here, I focus on the legal and conceptual frames that the integration plans use, on who the targeted immigrant populations are, the policy areas in which governments decide to intervene and mobilize funds, the budgets allocated, the consistency of the plans over time and across levels of policy making, and also whether these plans are actually implemented by public institutions or other actors. Based on the empirical evidence collected in the field, I analyze the consequences of the particular forms of organization and evaluate the governments’ commitment to integration across the three levels of decision making: national, regional, and local. Finally, the conclusion reviews the findings of the previous chapters and investigates why states develop multiple strategies of integration for different migrant categories.

CHAPTER 1

Migrant Integration and the State No sovereign liberal state can lose its right to define . . . [immigrant] incorporation policies. —Seyla Benhabib, “Citizens, Residents and Aliens in a Changing World”

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” This saying advises travelers to conform to the local mores, language, and lifestyle of the new place. The expression dates from AD 390 and is first recorded in the correspondence of Saint Augustine, who at that time was living in Milan. Augustine writes to his friend Januarius, bishop of Naples, and confesses to him, “[When] I go to Rome, I fast on Saturday, but here [in Milan] I do not,” and he advises Januarius to “follow the [local] custom . . . , if you do not want to give or receive scandal.”1 This saying is a good starting point for analyzing the relation between the state and immigrant integration. It seems to indicate that the traveler is the only agent of integration. It allows for no exceptions to this rule, or at least none is mentioned; nor are there any limits of adaptation suggested by Augustine. In addition, Augustine fails to mention two notable entities: the receiving society and the state. Neither seems to bear responsibility or to have a duty of its own in the process of integration. 9

10  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

More recent understanding of integration has moved from such onesided interpretations to more balanced ones in which the receiving society and the state play equally important roles (known as two-way integration). Rather than a one-sided process of adaptation, integration is regarded as a dynamic process of negotiation. As Aristide Zolberg (1999, 8) points out, the process of integration “can be thought of as the negotiation in which hosts and immigrants engage around [“us” and “not us”] boundaries.” Ultimately, despite immigrants’ efforts, their integration cannot succeed if they are not recognized as full members by society and the state. To begin, why are states relevant for integration? First, it is important to examine states’ intervention because governments are the democratically elected representatives of the host society. They represent the will of the political communities and are elected based on electoral programs that more often now than in the past entail a specific take on immigration. Because of this direct connection between receiving societies and states, the strategy and vision of integration that governments opt for can be taken as a good proxy for the vision of integration of host societies. Furthermore, as the contemporary political map of the world has no more white points that belong to no state, immigrant integration always takes place within the borders of one state and under its conditions. In other words, states are the locus and the rule setters of integration. For these two reasons, states play an essential role in integration. Joseph Carens (2005, 29) takes matters further and makes a normative argument according to which states should get involved in integration. He indicates that it is the responsibility of the receiving country to promote equality between immigrants and the native population, and integration is the most straightforward way to do so. Carens points out that although integration is a mutual process, it is highly asymmetrical in nature because immigrants have to adapt more than does the receiving society. Because of this asymmetry, states are responsible for investing more effort in ac­ commodating immigrants than the immigrants themselves. Penninx and Martiniello (2004, 142) observe a similar asymmetry between states and individual immigrants. They argue that the host country is also an unequal partner in terms of power relations and institutional and financial resources and thus should compromise more in matters of integration.

Migrant Integration and the State   11 I N T E G R AT I ON F ROM P OST WA R TO P O ST- ENLA R GEMENT: AN OV E RV I E W OF T H E L IT ER AT UR E

Historically, assimilation has been the norm for immigrants. Foreigners were expected to become more “like the natives,” to learn the language and, in general, adopt the lifestyle of the cities and villages that they made their home. This was regarded as a gradual process of self-accommodation (see Gordon 1964). Alba and Foner (2015) continue this line of research, benchmarking the achievements of immigrant-origin groups vis-à-vis ­averages of the majority on various indicators. Their work focuses on the achievements of what they call “low status” groups (2015, 4). Yet, ironically, assimilation did not look like or mean the same thing for all immigrants but varied between different immigrant groups. What constituted integration for some immigrants was, in the eyes of states, a nonissue for other immigrants. Lucassen (2005) illustrates, for example, that Polish immigrants in Germany could be seen as “integrated” if they abandoned their nationalist aspirations; Irish migrants in the Protestant United Kingdom were treated with suspicion because of their Catholic faith and loyalty to the Vatican and the pope; and Italian workers in France were looked upon as different because they were not acting like local workers: they were doing the worst jobs for poor salaries and participated less in strikes. Despite their shared history, culture, and trade, receiving European countries found for each migrant group at least one measure by which to regard migrants as not “like us.” Assimilation was the strategy of integration par excellence until the 1970s. It was quickly abandoned thereafter in this strong interpretation because its underlying principles praised acculturation and glorified the attributes of national culture, good or bad. These two ideas were discredited by the series of events that took place simultaneously, all of which shared the fact that they questioned established national traditions, cultural hegemonies, and power structures. Immanuel Wallerstein (1989, 431) described these events, which were concentrated around 1968 as “formative events” that changed the “cultural-ideological realities of the world-­system.” Overseas colonies of European empires started to form independent states, and in this process they started to prioritize local culture and tradition over the official culture of the ­metropolis that the colonial administration ­disseminated. In Europe, the student protest and the general strike of May

12  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

1968 in France called for a general rethinking of the state’s main institutions. On the other side of the Atlantic, the African American movement for civil rights (1955–68) succeeded in questioning the institutionalized racial hierarchy that historically dominated U.S. society. These movements proved to the world that some of the principles on which society had relied and according to which society had been organized were not just wrong, but utterly wrong, that they should have been changed and that they could be changed. From different directions, what these events achieved was to undermine the legitimacy of certain national cultures, traditions, mores, and lifestyles, as well as the priority given to assimilation. Starting in the 1970s, multiculturalism, at least in a modest form, spread in some European countries—the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the Netherlands—while most countries either did not seek to integrate foreigners and promoted a sort of passive segregation or pursued an integration strategy based on assimilation, with France being marshalled as the classic case. Unlike assimilation, multiculturalism gives formal recognition to ethnic communities as groups and grants them certain cultural rights, particularly religious and language rights (Parekh 1998, 2000). The change from one formal model to another took on such a dimension that many writers and scholars themselves became supporters. Kostakopoulou (2010b, 831) notes that the “canonical view in the literature in the 1980s and 1990s” was that the “pluralistic or multicultural . . . mode fares better than the older modes of assimilation.” To this trend, France remained a notable exception (see Favell 2001b, 40–79; Schain 2012, 77–89). Its infamous assimilation-based model was crafted in the aftermath of the French Revolution and promoted égalité among citizens, who as citizens would enjoy the full protection of social and civil rights regardless of their race or origin. Cultural and religious minorities did not gain new rights and recognition of their distinctive culture and religion. Highly problematic, the integration of Muslim communities is often intepreted as a litmus test for the extent to which a particular type of integration strategy is multicultural. The Multicultural Policy Index ­initiated by Kymlika and Banting and continued by scholars at Queen’s University scores how open the policies of various countries are with respect to diversity, paying particular attention to how countries fare in ­accommodating practicing Muslims.2 Regardless of whether it endorsed assimilation or multiculturalism, no country fully stood by these models in law or in practice but rather

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combined marginal recognition of cultural rights with expected accul­ turation to the country’s lifestyle. These “models” continued, nonetheless, to inform national debates on integration. National “Models” and Integration Strategies Studies of immigrant integration have traditionally focused on particular countries and national policies. This line of research builds on Rogers Brubaker’s (1992) classic comparative study of national models of citizenship in France and Germany. Scholarship generally seeks to understand the mechanisms that shape particular policy configurations and to explain the variation between (national) models of integration. Numerous typologies have been created to explain these national strategies and provide an analytical basis for broader cross-country comparisons (most notably, ­Castles and Miller 1998; Koopmans et al. 2005; Penninx 2004). However, these typologies are nearly exclusively the result of different combinations of the following two elements: •

Type of citizenship regime. Citizenship regimes are conventionally defined as “ethnic” or “civic.” Historically, citizenship has been passed on from parents to children through direct ancestry, a modality known as the ius sanguinis principle, or right of blood. Immigrants who lack such ancestry gain access to citizenship at birth, the ius soli principle, or after long-term residence in the country. Citizenship regimes have been classified as “civic” or “ethnic.” A classic example of such classifications is the Citizenship Policy Index created by Howard (2006, 2009) or Brubaker (1992). For instance, Brubaker argues Germany has an ethnic citizenship regime because neither being born in the country nor long-term residence contributes to becoming a citizen. These restrictive rules meant that on average fewer than 5,000 foreigners per year gained German citizenship (1992, 82). France, on the other hand, which during the same period naturalized an average of 53,000 foreigners per year, fostered a civic citizenship regime and went furthest in expanding ius soli in continental Europe (1992, 81). Nonetheless, the ethnic/civic distinction has been contested as all countries seem to adopt a combination of the two principles and in all countries ius sanguinis transmission of citizenship prevailed (for a good summary of the critique, see Howard 2009). Most important, the distinction lost

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•

its relevance as citizenship rules became increasingly similar in terms of other aspects such as extending citizenship to former citizens and introducing citizenship tests (Bauböck et al. 2006; Dumbrava 2014). Extension of cultural rights. This refers to the degrees that specific countries extend cultural and religious rights to immigrants. On this basis, typologies of integration distinguish conventionally between assimilationist and multiculturalist models. In their typology, Koopmans and colleagues (2005) use the terms “cultural monism” and “cultural pluralism” rather than “assimilation” and “multiculturalism.”

In fact, most of the existing typologies can be represented in a Cartesian space in which one of the axes is the civic-ethnic dimension and the other is the assimilation-multiculturalism dimension (Castles and Miller 1998; Koopmans et al. 2005; Penninx 2004). While these typologies shed some light on how integration was configured in specific contexts, these two policy areas do not fully explain the plethora of strategies of integration pursued by governments, nor do they consider all the dimensions of integration policies. For instance, one set of rights that is misrepresented in the existing typologies is social rights. In the literature, access of immigrants to social rights has been nearly exclusively represented as full and nonproblematic, primarily because of a focus on contributory social benefits, such as unemployment, health, and retirement insurance (see, e.g., Penninx 2004 and Guiraudon 1998). As discussed in chapter 4, the literature therefore underestimates the variation that exists among different categories of foreigners with regard to noncontributory benefits where differences are greatest and migrants only have access after long periods of (legal) residence in the country or after they naturalize. Furthermore, the more recently introduced but rapidly spreading mandatory integration usually implemented in the form of integration tests or contracts has also not been considered so far by the existing typologies. At the end of this chapter, I propose a framework for a new typology, which has the advantage of considering a much wider class of rights as well as to incorporate the character of integration policies (they may be voluntary or mandatory, or, when states takes a laissez-faire stance, there may be no policies at all). The proposed framework is an attempt to regain the analytical purchase of typologies of integration by including newer and

Migrant Integration and the State   15

more complex dimensions of the strategies that states take in the area of immigrant integration. This section has been mainly concerned with integration strategies and state intervention at the national level. At the regional and city levels, strategies of integration become more detailed and more multidimensional. However, attempts to theorize subnational integration policy suffer from problems similar to those at the national level. Subnational “Models” and Integration Strategies Citizenship and immigrant integration have traditionally been considered the exclusive competence of the central state. However, a rapidly growing literature has dismissed the relevance of “national models” of integration by contesting their national coverage and pointing to distinct subnational strategies (Zapata-Barrero, Caponio, and Scholten 2017; Ireland 1994; Hepburn and Zapata-Barrero 2014; Caponio and Borkert 2010; Alexander 2007; Favell 2001a; Favell 2015). Citing demands for more autonomy and subsidiarity, most European states have engaged in wide processes of decentralization, passing on competences and responsibilities that have hitherto belonged to the central state to regional and local authorities. In this context, the subnational authorities were given the freedom to depart from the models of integration established at the national level, making them perhaps as important as the national ones. How much actual power and freedom the subnational authorities had depended on how the relations between them and the central state were institutionalized in each country. Furthermore, configuration of actual power in decision making also depended on the relations between the regional and the local authorities. In addition, in regions where the authority of the central state is contested, where there is wide support for federalist or independentist projects, and where the regional government has a higher degree of autonomy than in other regions, the variation between the strategies of integration of the central state and that of the regional government is therefore the greatest (Hepburn and Zapata-Barrero 2014). To sum up, regions and cities rather than countries are the settings where most legal rights are implemented and the place where integration happens. Advocates of subnational-level research argue that this level is the most appropriate for observing the implementation and consequences of

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the supra- and national policies and, therefore, the best level of observation of the actual functioning of integration policy (Caponio and Borkert 2010; Alexander 2007; Favell 2001a). For instance, Favell (2001a, 390) notes that cities offer opportunities for both “contextual specificity and structural comparison, allowing for the fact that immigrant incorporation might be influenced simultaneously by local, national, and transnational factors.” In addition, the subnational level has more freedom structurally than the national one to introduce policies more in favor of its foreign residents. In federal or quasi-federal states like Spain and Italy subnational levels of government (regional and local) have well-developed competences in order to deal with the needs of their citizens. Alexander (2007, 42–50), for instance, finds that usually the local level has competences in introducing decisive measures on all dimensions of integration. Alexander distinguishes between different policy domains and argues that, for example, in the legal-political domain, the local government is in charge of issuing and renewing residence permits. In addition, it can set up and provide funding to specialized consultative and advisory bodies working for the integration of foreign residents. In the same manner, through their policies, local authorities can support migrant organizations by means of empowerment or co-optation in the decision-making process. With regard to the socioeconomic domain, local authorities can introduce complementary social provisions for foreign residents, actively assist migrants’ integration in the labor market, and reward employers who hire foreign workers. Also, they can assist schools with high concentrations of foreign pupils. In addition, local authorities and their partners have a decisive role in what Alexander calls the spatial domain, which refers to housing, urban space, and the symbolic use of urban space. In terms of the cultural-religious domain, local authorities can recognize and support religious institutions and practices. They can, for instance, accommodate specific cultural needs in the infrastructure and public services of the city (halal food, calls for prayers, space allocation for new churches, etc.). Similarly, local authorities can introduce campaigns to raise awareness of cultural diversity in the city. For instance, Vertovec (1998) notes that the multikulti slogan of the city of Berlin was introduced in the 1990s as an expression of pro-migration sentiment. The integration policies scrutinized so far concern only voluntary programs,3 that is, programs that immigrants can opt in or opt out of. This un-

Migrant Integration and the State   17

derstanding changed around the turn of the century, and since the 2000s new policies of integration made participation increasingly com­pulsory. European Integration Strategies The European Union has gradually gained more competences in immigration, but these have failed to be translated into competences on immigrant integration. Unlike immigration, integration has proved remarkably resistant to attempts of Europeanization or harmonization. The most recent and most advanced document in terms of responsibilities granted to the European Union is the Treaty of Lisbon, which specifies in article 79 (4) that “the European Parliament and the Council, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, may establish measures to provide incentives and support for the action of Member States with a view to promoting the integration of third-country nationals residing legally in their territories, excluding any harmonisation of the laws and regulations of the Member States.” The article is the first to provide the EU with a legal basis for its intervention in matters of immigrant integration, but paradoxically it is also the first to deny its legal competence for issuing laws or regulations that would harmonize integration strategies in the EU27. In other words, the article recognized the EU’s competence in issuing “soft” law but not binding law. Hence, the EU has the freedom to establish together with the representatives of the member states (the European Parliament and Council) guidelines, a common framework and principles, and funding, as well as the conditions to access this funding. However, these competences refer exclusively to the integration of third country nationals. Article 79 (2b) of the treaty makes clear that the European Union also has competence in developing new rights of third country nationals residing in the EU: “The Union [develops] the definition of the rights of third country nationals residing legally in a Member State, including the conditions governing freedom of movement and of residence in other Member States.” This piecemeal, rights-based development of legal status was also the method the EU used when creating and consolidating the status of the European Union citizen (Kostakopoulou 2001). The two legal statuses of EU citizens and third country nationals have been largely kept separate, and the EU’s strategies of integration were as different as the legal statuses themselves. The European Union had progresively consolidated the European

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citizenship largely through the granting of rights and, since Maastricht, by decoupling status from the person’s economic activity. In addition to the rights-based strategy, the EU had no policy of integration for citizens of other Member States. By contrast, the EU gained competences in matters concerning third country nationals much later. Even though the legal status of third country nationals and its associated rights developed in a fashion similar to European citizenship, it did not reach the level of rights of the latter. Four European directives play an important role in protecting and extending the rights of third country nationals. The first two, Racial Equality Directive 2000/43/EC and the Employment Equality Directive 2000/78/EC, were meant to fight against discrimination on racial and ethnic grounds and concern primarily third country nationals and naturalized citizens. Both directives, however, exclude discrimination on grounds of nationality, an important omission that disadvantages third country nationals but not EU citizens. Nationals of other EU states are protected against this type of discrimination by article 18 TFEU. A third directive, 2003/109/EC, on the status of long-term resident third country nationals, contributed to bringing their rights closer to those enjoyed by European citizens—a goal that most effectively resonated with EU competences (Boswell and Geddes 2011, 211). Also, Family Reunification Directive 2003/86 establishes rules for reunification similar to those for European citizens, yet it contains significantly more generous rules for the latter than for the former. Finally, the EU gradually started to develop what could be called soft competences in the integration of third country nationals, as described in the Lisbon Treaty under article 79. Over recent years, the integration policies of the member states have started to converge across the EU. However, this convergence has limitations: it primarily concerns the technical aspects of the policy rather than its content. Furthermore, the narratives and legitimations offered to the public have some common features but tend to vary from country to country. This incomplete Europeanization of integration policies is the result of a wider process of harmonization across a number of policies and interest areas that were only indirectly linked with integration. Boswell and Geddes (2011, 205) identify its causes as “the dynamics of single market integration; the perceived need to develop a rights framework for third country nationals that extends the principles that support economic integration; a reaction against racist and xenophobic political movements; a

Migrant Integration and the State   19

necessary accompaniment to EU action on migration policies; and a reflection of member states’ concerns about the failings of integration processes.” Out of these concerns, economic integration, which refers to the integration or (re)incorporation of the migrant in the labor market, has started to gain more traction in the Europe 2020 agenda. In comparison to its predecessor, the Lisbon Strategy, which does not give migration and integration the attention they deserve to achieve the EU’s economic and social goals, Europe 2020 puts strong emphasis on the importance of labor migration from third countries as well as intra-EU migration for meeting these targets. In addition, Europe 2020 makes a clear effort to stress the positive benefits of a migration policy that is capable of responding in “a flexible way to the priorities and needs of labour markets” (European Commission 2010, 18). The importance given to economic integration of migrants is not unique to immigrant integration but is part of wider processes that also animate the European social project. According to Yasemin Soysal (2012, 12), these processes are triggered by the retrenchment of the European welfare state and the deregulation of work that affects all residents of Europe but “additionally burden” immigrants. T H E R E I N V E N T I ON OF I N T E G R ATIO N: MA NDATO RY, SA N C T I ON -B ASE D I N T EGR AT IO N

If until the 2000s, all integration programs were voluntary, after this date more and more states opted for mandatory, sanction-based integration known as civic integration. Mandatory integration was implemented in two formats: integration contracts or agreements between the immigrant and the state or integration examinations. Failing to participate or to successfully complete the requirements stated in the new programs has serious consequences for reuniting with family members, renewal of residence permits, access to social benefits, permanent residence, and acquiring citizenship. In this way, integration contracts and examinations became the effective precondition for migrants’ rights in the country of residence. This is a break with an earlier legal tradition that considered legal residence the sufficient condition for access to many rights for noncitizens. Instead, legal residence became a necessary rather than a sufficient condition. In an effort to iron out some of the negative aspects of making integration programs mandatory, political elites and legislators framed these

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programs as standing for civic integration. The term “civic integration” is an indication that politicians and legislators wanted to put some distance between the new form of integration and the previous distinctions between assimilation and multiculturalism. In this new light, both assimilation and multiculturalism were reinterpreted as “ethnic” or “ethnicizing” varieties of integration. This happened because both stress the ethnic attributes either of the immigrants or of the host societies. Civic integration, however, promised more objectivity and claimed to stand for a minimal form of assimilation rather than for full acculturation. The new goal was neoassimilation, a new form of assimilation that everybody was prepared to welcome: support for constitutional liberties and democratic values, learning the language of the country, and having some knowledge of the country’s institutions, history, and geography. The Netherlands was the first country, not only in Europe, but in the world, to introduce mandatory integration. It did so in 1998 in the Dutch Law on Integration for Newcomers. In contemporary Europe, many countries have introduced similar measures in their national legislation. The list includes Austria, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, France, Belgium, and Italy. Overall, eight of the fifteen EU countries that comprise the major receiving states in Europe now demand some mandatory integration requirements (Goodman 2014; Van Oers, Ersboll, and Kostakopoulou 2010). The rapid spread of mandatory strategies of integration would not have been as successful without the support of European institutions. They devised a series of tools and institutions that popularized these policies and that also served as the channels of transmission of what Kostakopoulou, Carrera, and Moritz (2009, 184) call a “contagion effect.” For instance, instruments such as the Network of National Contact Points for Integration (NCPI) and the Handbook on Integration for PolicyMakers and Practitioners (Niessen and Huddelston 2004; Niessen and Schibel 2007; Niessen and Schibel 2011) were put in place so that member states could share expertise and build common projects. Mandatory, sanction-­based integration was one of the policies that enjoyed the most popularity. The first Handbook on Integration (2004) in particular chose to include mandatory integration requirements in its list of “best practices” and therefore to recommend this approach to all national governments. Not without consequences were the Common Basic Principles (CBP). In particular, CBP 4 indirectly supports the integration requirements by

Migrant Integration and the State   21

stating, “basic knowledge of the host society’s language, history, and institutions is indispensable to integration; enabling immigrants to acquire this basic knowledge is essential to successful integration” (emphasis added). Using the dictum of CBP 4, many member states decided to implement mandatory tests. In the end, it promised a deal no government could refuse: “successful integration” upon acquisition of “basic knowledge.” Also, at the EU level, there were attempts to extend such tests to all member states. Under its EU presidency in 2008, France tried to make its own model of integration contract—Contrat d’accueil et d’integration—a type of European integration contract (Carrera and Guild 2008, 5). The attempt failed as a result of strong opposition by some member states, in particular, the socialist Spanish government of the time. Nevertheless, diffusion via EU institutions was very effective. Sitting at the table, ministries, legal experts, and technical staff took a crash course on what was being implemented in other countries, what worked and with what impact, and how efficient particular policy designs were. As a consequence, many European countries revised their traditional integration strategies and narratives about integration and introduced mandatory testing and contracts as the policy instruments able to deliver the desired results. Even countries with little trial-and-error history of integration policies, such as Italy, switched to mandatory, sanction-based integration strategies. The transition from voluntary to mandatory requirements is contested by scholars who put into question its normative aspects. Even before the expansion of mandatory sanction-based strategies, some authors have bluntly proclaimed the previous “retreat of multiculturalism” ( Joppke 2004) and even stronger claims announced the “return of assimilation” (Brubaker 2001, 2004). However, Brubaker (2004, 118–20) argues that the new assimilation strategy differs from its older forms. He does so by distinguishing two types of assimilation: transitive and intransitive. Transitive assimilation, the oldest form, understands integration as a process in which populations of immigrant origin are moldable into majoritarian native populations. According to this logic, immigrant populations can be and are made similar to the societies in which they live. Intransitive assimilation is for Brubaker a modern, normatively acceptable form of integration that differs from transitive assimilation in a number of ways. It takes place at the aggregate rather than at the individual level, and it designates a direction of change as opposed to an end

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result of the change. However, the main difference between transitive and intransitive assimilation is that in the former sense, immigrants are assimilated (they are objects of assimilation), whereas in the latter they assimilate (they are subjects and agents of assimilation). I argue that intransitive assimilation in the sense described by Brubaker (2001, 2004) does not really exist. Brubaker defines the intransitive sense of assimilation as an abstract direction of change, a process of becoming similar and not an end result of full acculturation and absorption into the society. Yet the problem is that this “becoming similar” cannot remain at the abstract level but has to be specified, as Brubaker (2004, 120) himself notes, intransitive assimilation has to come “with instructions” that make clear in which aspects foreigners are expected to become similar to the host society. For instance, one of the most cited and most accepted aspects in which foreigners should become similar to natives is linguistic assimilation. When this happens, the verb to assimilate, as well as the concept of assimilation, ceases to be intransitive because it acquires a complement and, with it, an end result of assimilation. In this example mastering the language would be the end result. Hence, the very strength of the newer and normatively more acceptable form of intransitive assimilation is compromised because intransitive assimilation is in fact transitive and projects a desired outcome for the process of assimilation. What is a more interesting and more promising approach to assimilation, I argue, is something Brubaker (2004, 223 n. 5) puts in an endnote: a second transitive use of assimilation, which unfortunately he leaves unexplored. This second use refers to “treating similarly” rather than “making similar,” about which Brubaker notes that “to assimilate X to Y in one’s dealings with them is to treat them similarly rather than different ” (emphasis added). Other authors have claimed that the older form of assimilation was abandoned and that in sociological terms gradually becoming more similar to the native society has always been the mechanism by which integration happens (Alba and Nee 2005; Alba and Foner 2015). Mandatory strategies can be accused of bringing assimilation back because the compulsory integration contracts and tests explicitly promote and prioritize national and ethnocentric culture over that of the migrants. The succesful completion of integration contracts and tests depends on the appropriation of similar content. Most critics argue that mandatory tests are illiberal in character and that they are in open conflict with the very principles of liberal democracies (e.g., Adamson, Triadafilopoulos, and Zolberg 2011; Guild, Groenen-

Migrant Integration and the State   23

dijk, and Carrera 2009a; Kostakopoulou 2010a; Carens 2010a). “Illiberal democracies” is a term coined by Fareed Zakaria in an article published in Foreign Affairs in 1996 to describe the emergence of democracies in which elections and voting rights are respected but which heavily restrict the liberties of their citizens. The term has been used to describe the mandatory, sanction-based integration strategies, because by being compulsory, they restrict the autonomy of individuals. They also de facto restrict the rights of migrants (voluntary integration strategies did not and could not restrict the rights of the migrants who did not enroll in integration programs) and aim at transmitting a set of “Western” values such as gender equality and observance of laws and constitutions to migrants who presumably lack such values. Hansen (2010), Joppke (2010), and Michalowski (2010) concur that in some cases tests can be illegal in their content but they generally defend them because of their assumed capacity to substantiate the value of citizenship (for an excellent debate on the illiberal character of mandatory sanction-based integration, see Bauböck and Joppke 2010). Additional questions can be raised concerning the fairness, efficiency, and actual goal of mandatory integration strategies. So far, the integration tests and contracts have proved more effective in making many immigrants lose their legal status and exposing them to deportation than in ­improving their integration outcome. Despite efforts to advertise it as a better integration strategy than the previous policies, (tested) knowledge of a state’s institutions, history, and language(s) did not have significant ­results in terms of integration outcomes. In general, there is a lack of impact studies of these measures and their achievements, but when compared with countries that did not introduce them, general indicators of integration such as employment, occupation, activity in the labor market, and residential concentration register no significant improvement in countries that introduced such measures. For ­instance, if we compare the integration outcomes of immigrants in the Netherlands—a country that has applied mandatory integration tests linked with sanctions for over two decades (since 1998)—with the integration outcomes of immigrants in Sweden—a country that decided not to introduce mandatory programs but that has extensive voluntary programs based on positive incentives—there is no empirical evidence that the mandatory, sanction-based programs are more efficient and lead to better results than the voluntary ones. For instance, a pilot Eurostat study (2011) has elaborated a series of cross-national indicators of immigrant integration that show that in 2009, eleven years after the integration tests were

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introduced, the results in the Netherlands are similar to those in Sweden, which did not introduce such tests. Moreover, in some aspects the results are even slightly better in Sweden. For instance, the activity rate among foreigners in the Netherlands was slightly lower than in Sweden. Also, employment rates among foreigners are nearly equal in the Netherlands and Sweden. In Sweden, the activity rate among foreigners is 75 percent, while in the Netherlands it stands at 70 percent. Employment rates in Sweden are 63 percent, while in the Netherlands they are nearly the same, with 66 percent of the foreign population employed (Eurostat 2011, 40, 70). The reference year for these rates is 2009. The comparison here is certainly limited, but it illustrates that mandatory programs linked with negative incentives (sanctions) are not necessarily more capable of assisting integration than the more traditional integration programs based on voluntary participation and positive incentives that Sweden and other European countries pursue. While the evidence on their benefits for integration remains weak and inconclusive, most European countries have opted for mandatory, sanction-based strategies of integration. Why then did so many countries make the same choice over a short period and decide to implement mandatory, sanction-based strategies? The answer lies in the additional capacity they bring to states, and to central states in particular, to oversee and control immigration. Failing to fulfill integration contracts and tests can prevent immigrants from securing legal status in the country by obtaining a residence permit, and because of this, migrants are more likely to stay on temporary permits, which are easily lost. The same happens with citizenship tests: because there is a possibility to fail them, the tests can act as a filter that blocks access to citizenship to some migrants. In this way, integration tests and integration contracts have become one more means of strengthening, and to some extent regaining, control over immigration. Compared to other forms of immigration control (visas, immigration quotas, etc.), this particular form takes place not at the border but inside the country. In this book, I argue that mandatory integration strategies are a means states use to regain immigration control over the immigrants who are already in the country and a means to make immigration more selective in a post-entry context. One of the countries studied here, Italy, has introduced a language test for immigrants who wish to apply for permanent residence in the country. Because some immigrants will fail this test and some will select themselves

Migrant Integration and the State   25

out before taking it, they will lose the possibility to secure permanent residence and more rights and retain only their temporary permit. In this way, the language test will act as an additional filter that sorts, on the one hand, more educated, better-qualified immigrants who will gain access to a more secure legal status and, on the other, less educated immigrants with lower qualifications who will have only temporary residence and will have to submit themselves to future controls on each renewal of their permits. As a direct consequence of this sorting, the labor market will be split further, because the immigrants with no or lower qualifications are more likely not to pass the test and thus remain on more controllable residence permits associated with fewer rights. Immigrant workers who have to periodically renew their permits are also made more dependent on their employers and on the conditions of the domestic labor market. Conversely, more qualified and more skilled workers are more likely to pass the test and thus gain permanent residence permits and be more protected from the fluctuations of the labor market and less dependent on their employers. Furthermore, I argue that the mandatory, sanction-based programs also help central states regain some of the control lost to supranational and subnational authorities. Unlike permanent residence status for which the European Directive 109/2003/EC regulates and harmonizes the longterm status of third country nationals, temporary residence status is still nearly entirely in the hands of the member states as a matter of exclusive national competence. In this way, regaining some control over immigration, or appearing to do so in the eyes of the host societies, would help states close some of the “policy gap” between citizens’ restrictive views on immigration and the immigration policies states implement (see Messina 2007). In addition, with mandatory, sanction-based programs, the d ­ egree of freedom of subnational authorities (i.e., regional and local governments) is substantially reduced to mere implementation or, in some cases, to deciding on the content of the integration test. However, once the central state has decided to introduce a mandatory program, as we will see in the case in Italy, subnational governments lose their ability to choose the form and character of the integration program. While the integration strategies have been challenged from a ­variety of viewpoints, the recent consolidation of European citizenship and the growing number of citizens of member states who use their freedom of movement raises questions about the very essence of the integration policies. In the particular case of EU migrants, are integration efforts

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needed or even legitimate? Can a member state subject the ­nationals of other m ­ ember states to an integration scheme that praises the national ­attributes—language, history, and institutional organization—of the host country? Linguistic requirements for EU citizens, for example, have been already discarded in a series of EU documents. The act establishing freedom of movement in 1968 and confirmed in the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Groener case prohibits language ­requirements in cases where jobs do not depend on fluency in local ­languages.4 The European Union has been built on the association of countries with shared histories. Member states also share common institutions and observe a common acquis communautaire. In this context, can member states pursue strategies of integration for EU citizens from other member states, and if so, how should this new model look given the constraints of EU law? Most European states have, until recently, replied no. As Kosta­ kopoulou, Carrera, and Moritz note: Notwithstanding the existence of discourses on European identity and various attempts to graft nationalist or quasi-nationalist ideas onto the EU, neither the Community nor its member states have ever contemplated the idea that the presence of Community workers in the territory of another country would undermine social cohesion. Nor have they considered it appropriate to ask them to demonstrate their commitment to the host country and their acceptance of national values and to ­embrace the way of life of the host state. (2009, 172; emphasis added) This is no longer the case. Strategies of integration have been launched for EU citizens from the member states that have joined the EU in the 2004 and 2007 enlargements. Both Italy and Spain have such integration programs and include only nationals from Romania and Bulgaria. Through such policies, the principles at the core of the European project, equal treatment and solidarity, are called into question and risk being compromised. By taking individual actions that discriminate not only between EU citizens and national citizens but also among the EU citizens themselves and by applying different treatment to the old EU citizens as compared to the new EU citizens, member states default from the agreements made with the EU upon accession and introduce yet another ethnonationalistic shift in state-led integration.

Migrant Integration and the State   27

Drawing a conceptual rather than a time line, I have reviewed the challenges and the claims that state strategies and philosophies on integration had to face and collected their responses. The brief evolutionary review of the models shows how time and context have shaped them and, in particular, delimited the various forms of state intervention in integration. Although there is much variety in the strategies national, regional, or local governments have opted for, certain trends stand out, depending on the roles that governments attributed to immigrants and have acknowledged themselves. In the end, strategies of integration express variations on how the relationship between the state and the immigrant is understood, as well as the whole concept of immigrant integration. S O M E T H I N G OL D A N D S OM E T H ING NEW O N I M M I G R AN T I N T E G R AT IO N

The term “integration” is often refuted by scholars as well as immigrants. More open, more flexible, and fairer concepts such as incorporation, accommodation, or inclusion tend to be preferred (e.g., Glick Schiller and Caglar 2009; Kostakopoulou 2010b; Martiniello and Rath 2010). Claims have been raised that “the language of integration represents a politically dated and normatively deficient approach to ethnic diversity” (Kostakopoulou 2010b, 829; emphasis added). Contemporary integration criticism can generally be grouped into three lines of argument: (1) integration as one way rather than two way and immigrants as those who have to integrate; (2) misleading self-representation of the host society whereby the host society is represented as fully homogeneous and atemporal rather than a composite and dynamic social entity; (3) internal homogeneity of the immigrant community whereby immigrants are represented as a monolithic group with equal standing in the host society rather than as highly heterogeneous and with unequal rights and duties. First, the critique of “integration” notes that the term reproduces and perpetuates a hegemonic power relation between the host society and the ­immigrant where the latter is the one who has to adapt to the former. The hegemony is clear once we observe the expressions commonly used

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in daily speech and political statements, such as “integration of immigrants,” where immigrants are seen as objects to be integrated rather than as autonomous agents. As discussed above, the concept it substitutes for, assimilation, shows the same ambivalence between transitive and intransitive meanings (Brubaker 2004, 118−20). Terms such as “immigrant integration” also suggest that it is a special activity reserved only to the immigrant. The other participants in the ­process, that is, members of the host society, are the omitted references, although integration has been recognized by the EU member states as a two-way process, at least at the declarative level, involving the EU and ­relevant national programs for migrants.5 The negative associations that the term evokes have motivated many researchers to use alternative terms. In this book, I opt for “immigrant integration,” because this is the term used in public discourse. Furthermore, just as in the case of “race” and “racism,” there is no reason to reject the words alone instead of the uses they are put to. Parallel to “integration,” similar terms such as “accommodation” and “assimilation” are synonyms in the literature, although with a tendency to be more represented in North America than in Europe, where “assimilation” has a toxic, anti-Semitic history. In Europe on the other hand, “inclusion,” “community cohesion,” and “belonging” tend to be preferred in the Anglo-Saxon world but offer variants, such as “incorporation,” in Latin languages. However, “integration” has made a career of its own, partially propelled by European institutions who have clearly opted to use “integration” over other competing terms and have popularized the term by establishing a Common Integration Agenda and a European Integration Fund. Most importantly, “integration” is the one term that is closely related with the policy domain and, more broadly, with state intervention. Despite different linguistic traditions, integration enjoys a sort of official status in Spanish (“integración”) and Italian (“integrazione”). The other two critical arguments denounce the claim that the ubiquitous concept of immigrant integration has been little problematized by both participating actors: the host society and the immigrant. Note also that there is no reason not to suspect that alternative terms such as “in­ corporation” and “inclusion” have, in the same way, failed to redress this double heterogeneity. When scholars and policy makers employ this expression, they assume that the host society is itself neutral, “well integrated,” and homogeneous. Yet this is never the case. Hitherto, scholarship has indeed critiqued

Migrant Integration and the State   29

the ideals of the society as an integrated self-contained community (Favell 2001a, 2015; Joppke and Morawska 2003; Schinkel 2017). Societies throughout the world encompass diversities on numerous bases, from gender, age, languages, religious and nonreligious beliefs, and sexual orientation to identification with a political party, educational level, or social class. Similarly, liberal societies recognize national minorities and choose to protect their rights. But it is precisely this internal diversity that fails to be represented in state-led initiatives that continue to stress the diversity outside over the diversity within and to ask for the integration of the outsiders while protecting the diversity of the native insiders. It is this asymmetric treatment that migrants and the organizations representing immigrants question. To this it can be added that in democratic societies where self-­ government is linked to majority rule, governments are not neutral but rather represent the interests and preferences of the majority that elected them. Furthermore, internal political contestation has always been present in liberal societies and is a necessary element of democracies worldwide. When portraying the host societies as completely homogeneous, governments depict an incomplete political community because they leave out the contentious actors. Spain and Italy in particular have been challenged from below in their quality as nation-states by certain regions with special historical claims, such as Catalonia and the Basque Country for the former and Sardinia, Sicily, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Aosta Valley, and Friuli-­Venezia Giulia for the latter. Last but not least, the host society is considered to be not only homogeneous but also atemporal, and reference is made to an ambiguous if not mythical point in time in which the society would have been one and indivisible. But societies evolve over time. For instance, if reference were made to Italian society 150 years ago, before Italy became a sovereign state, it would be hard to imagine that this is the society into which today’s migrants would be expected to integrate. The Italian fascist period or the era of the great internal migration between the south and the north in the 1960s and the 1970s would not be good candidates either: the first for obvious reasons and the second because of the intense conflicts and racist episodes between the northern Italians and the southern and central Italians, who were referred to as terroni, “people of the earth.” Since the 1970s foreigners have become an important segment of Italian society, and many

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have gained citizenship. The reference should thus evolve to a more pluralistic conception of Italian society. We have seen above that in discourses on immigrant integration the host society is often represented as culturally and socially homogeneous, an unconstested and united nation unchanged by the passing of time. But the host society is also presented as having the highest civic and cultural values that are claimed to be the attributes of a certain people. In this ­process, values and principles such as freedom of speech, civility, g­ enerosity, hospitality, and respect for human life are nationalized. Integration is not only framed as a process of becoming a member of the society, but it also codifies in policy the migrant in a lower status position, as by integration she would ascend to a “higher,” “better” self. Immigrants are assumed to lack such values because they are a priori taken to be Italian, Spanish, or French values. I cite below short excepts from the Italian and Spanish plans for integration that show how authorities represent their societies. Italy The identity of our people has been shaped by the Greco-Roman and Christian-Judaic traditions, which coming together in an original manner have been known to make Italy a country of solidarity in its own interior6 capable of hospitality and charity in what concerns all those who arrive inside its borders. The respect for life, the centrality of the individual, the capacity to give, the value of the family, of work and the value of community: these are the pillars of our civilization, building on the origin and the vital substance that is this direct openness toward the other and toward the things that characterize us.7 (National Plan for Integration in Security—Identity and Encounter 2010, 4; my t­ ranslation) The Italian people [popolo italiano] celebrate in its constitutive features the whole of human potential to be an essential agent [in the process of integration]. (National Plan for Integration—Identity and Encounter 2010, 5; my translation) Spain Cultural diversity is one of the inherent values of Spanish . . . pluralism. (Strategic Plan for Citizenship and Integration II 2011−2014, 110; my translation)

Migrant Integration and the State   31

The question of housing must be focused on the specificities of the migration process, which is the basis for the incorporation of the ­[immigrant population] into madrileña society” (Plan for Integration of the Community of Madrid 2009–12, 111; my translation) Political leaders have themselves taken a stand in defining their nations, particularly when they promote citizenship and integration tests. In 2008, the leader of the Popular Party, Mariano Rajoy, announced his intention to introduce an integration contract in which immigrants would commit to “respect the traditions of the Spaniards, learn the language, pay taxes, actively work to integrate themselves into Spanish society, and return to their country if they do not find work.” When asked to give examples of Spanish traditions, Mariano Rajoy mentioned gender equality as a Spanish tradition. (El País 2008a; my translation) While all the above statements differ in intensity and tone, they illustrate how integration talk triggers almost automatically an appraisal of the nation and even a suspect nationalization of the widely held liberal values of gender equality, diversity, and generosity. We can conclude that host societies are dynamic entities whose collective identities are highly dependent on their contexts. Integration strategies propagate a “unified” image of the receiving society formed exclusively by natives; the contributions of new citizens are refuted, an indicator of the state’s ambition to assert itself. In addition, governments’ efforts to preserve the portrait of a unified society compromises to some extent their standing as fair and sincere partners in the process of integration. What is even more surprising is that the claim of homogeneity is also attributed to immigrants. W H O I S A N I M M I G R A NT ?

At first glance, statistical definitions seem to leave the matter beyond any doubt: immigrants are foreign citizens or foreign born, and natives are all those who do not fall into these two categories. In a very similar fashion in law, the term “immigrants” refers only to noncitizens, or “aliens” in the Anglo-Saxon legal jargon, “extranjeros” in Spanish, or “stranieri” in ­Italian. However, when “immigrant” enters the political and public discourse, the

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term becomes “extremely loose and often conflates issues on immigration, race/ethnicity and asylum” (Anderson and Blinder 2012, 1) and is more likely to be associated with negative rather than positive or neutral connotations. More recently, the value-laden term “immigrants” has also entered legal parlance to substitute for the more neutral terms “aliens” and “foreigners.” The infiltration from the political into the legal arena is explained by the increasing politicization of migration. This indicates the lack of agreement between legal, sociological, political, and public definitions of an immigrant. As an analytical category, “immigrant” has been conventionally perpetuated in the literature in a slightly different manner: as aliens in the ­research on rights of noncitizens in a host country (Bosniak 2006; Joppke 2001; Plascenia, Freeman, and Setzlet 2003; Somers 2008); as f­ oreigners in the literature on the public policy provisions for noncitizens (Guiraudon 1998); as transnational citizens, that is, citizens of another country with transnational rights in the host country (Bauböck 1994); or, symbolically as guestworkers. With regard to the latter, although European countries ended recruitment programs in the 1970s, immigrants are still largely regarded as temporary foreign workers (Soysal 1994). The same understanding is replicated even by studies that focus on integration at the local level, which is assumed to be closer to the communities of immigrants and local authorities and thus in a privileged position to observe the existing diversity. For instance, in his work Cities and Labour Migration, one of the first broadly comparative and comprehensive studies on the responses to immigrant presence at the local level, Michael Alexander specifies that “in the case of the local migrant policies, I refer to the [host-stranger relations]  .  .  . of the local authority, toward one type of Stranger[,] . . . the one type of Stranger represented here by labour migrants” (2007, 12−13; emphasis added). I question this presumed homogeneity of immigrants and seek to unpack the spectrum. In my view, given the recent development in migratory movements, in particular the increasing co-ethnic and intra-European migration, this has become too narrow an approach and needs to be reconsidered. When distinctions within immigrant populations are made, they limit themselves to considering ethnic and religious diversity, with a particular focus on Muslim immigrants. This approach represents to some extent diversity, but it does not exhaust it. Ethnicity, religion, and race are

Migrant Integration and the State   33

not the only factors in this heterogeneity: legal status, citizenship, and citizenship group are equally salient and account for diversity among migrants. European countries have recently become receivers of new groups of immigrants. Communities of citizens of other European countries have grown slowly but steadly mainly due to the free movement of workers within Europe since 1968 and the incremental consolidation of the status of EU citizenship in the Treaty of Maastricht. At the same time, historical and co-ethnic migration flows between EU countries and certain non-EU countries still account for large immigrant communities. As grounds for the revision, I propose citizenship, defined in this study as national citizenship or nationality, and citizenship group, by which I refer mainly to EU and non-EU status as well as co-ethnics, such as the ­nationals of Latin American countries in Spain. Within the EU citizens group, I further distinguish between new EU citizens—that is, ­nationals of the member states that joined the EU in 2007 (Romania and Bulgaria) and who are still under transitional agreements—and EU25 citizens (Switzerland and the European Economic Area [EEA]), who enjoy all rights under EU law. Within the non-EU citizens group, I distinguish between co-ethnic migrants and other non-EU migrants. Conceptually, co-ethnic migrants may also include EU citizens, as, for example, in the case of co-ethnic Hungarians from Romania and Slovakia. However, in my case studies of Italy and Spain, those migrants receiving preferential treatment as co-ethnics are from third countries. Brubaker (2002) advises against using the concept of group to refer to different ethnic or immigrant categories because it would suggest that the individuals in the category have the same characteristics. I use “citizenship group” because in this case it refers to immigrants who share citizenship and legal status but who do not thereby form social groups in the sense of a shared sense of belonging or social networks. In other words, while the term “group” might be misleading in a social context, it is still useful in a policy context because it refers to members with equal rights and duties. Throughout the book, I use “group” as synonymous with “category” in this way and alternate between the two terms without distinguishing them. In defining the co-ethnic group,8 I follow Joppke (2005) and refer to those categories of aliens who are not EU citizens but to whom states ­ascribe rights based on their origin and not on a universal principle that would extend these rights to all migrants.9 This method makes it possible to use the “definitions” for co-ethnics that the countries themselves

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­ evelop and proscribe in their laws. It also allows for the flexibility needed d in comparative studies, as definitions of co-ethnics vary from country to country. For the purpose of this study, I consider EU citizens immigrants because they generally fit the criterion, that is, foreign born or foreign citizen. If EU migrants were not included, the study would not consider the whole range of diversity of citizenship categories but would be limited to the case of non-EU migration and non-European diversity. Rather than consider all migrants, which would therefore include EU migrants, scholars have customarily raised claims about integration based on the case of migrants from non-EU, non-OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), non-Western countries. This is a biased sample because it does not include the total immigrant population. Therefore, in order to explain how ethnic origin in general affects, for instance, labor market performance, research must consider all foreigners, including EU citizens; otherwise, integration researchers risk confusing “ethnic origin” with “social class.” What one might argue is that EU citizens do not necessarily fit the description of noncitizens or aliens and therefore should not be considered as immigrants because they share EU citizenship with the nationals of the host country. To what extent, then, can EU citizens be considered migrants? The EU treaties define EU citizenship as a complementary status to member states’ nationality as defined in article 8 of the Treaty of Amsterdam,10 and thus give support to the claim that EU migrants can be considered noncitizens. European citizenship is also a form of denizenship. While it procures more rights for the nationals of other member states than for third country nationals, EU citizenship fails to secure the full rights and securities that citizens have. This status is problematic because EU citizens lack voting rights in national elections and employment in high-level public sector positions in all countries, they can be deported, and in some countries they cannot become members of political parties (Poland) or own media outlets such as newspapers or radio stations (Italy). In addition, in their daily lives, they often have to confront an administrative bureaucracy that does not always distinguish between EU citizens and other foreigners. However, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has interpreted EU citizenship as destined to become the fundamental status

Migrant Integration and the State   35

rather than complementary status of national citizenship. A series of the court’s rulings11 have consolidated this interpretation over time and also helped to put flesh on the otherwise empty bones of EU citizenship, as Siofra O’Leary (1999) put it. The most remarkable example of the “courtdriven empowerment” ( Joppke 2010, 171) of EU citizenship is the CJEU’s decision in the Grzelczyk case.12 The court ruled here in favor of a Frenchnational student, Rudy Grzelczyk, who after three years of studying in Belgium and working to support himself throughout his studies asked for the minimum subsistence allowance offered by the Belgian authorities. The CJEU held as follows: Union citizenship is destined to be the fundamental status of nationals of the member states, enabling those who find themselves in the same situation to enjoy the same treatment in law irrespective of their nationality, subject to such exceptions as are expressly provided for.13 This approach is forward-looking rather than representing the status quo, and the court’s decision clearly acknowledges this fact. The CJEU’s rulings in favor of stronger European citizenship remained unmatched by political will. What the CJEU did when it opted for ruling in favor of EU citizens was precisely what the political elites had refused to do: prioritize the EU citizen’s status over that of the national citizen, at least in certain cases. Taken to an extreme, this interpretation could have meant the unification of the European citizenry due to the fact that all nationals of EU countries would be EU citizens first and only afterward citizens of their own countries. But for the EU citizens who remain in the country of their nationality, EU citizenship amounts to little more than national citizenship and does not have the added value it has in the case of “moving,” or mobile, EU citizens. The only exception to this rule is the provoking Zambrano case.14 The CJEU recognized the status of a Union citizen to be a national of another EU member state who has not moved herself to another member state (absence of the cross-border element). But in this case, the absence of a cross-border element was indeed overridden by the fact that the EU citizen in question was an infant without means of self-support and would have needed to leave the territory of the EU as a result of her parents’ ­deportation. In the McCarthy case,15 on the other hand, the CJEU stressed that EU citizens who have never exercised their rights of free movement

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cannot invoke EU citizenship to claim rights associated with this status. In Rottman,16 the cross-border element was present because Mr. Rottman moved from Austria to Germany before becoming a German citizen.17 This was also true in the Chen case because the mother made sure that her child acquired EU citizenship under the Irish Republic’s ius soli law, so that she could obtain residence in the United Kingdom as her daughter’s primary caregiver.18 In other words, it is fair to say that EU citizenship is a citizenship-to-go; it is intimately linked with migration, and this is the context where it has the most substance and where it raises the most interesting questions. Unlike any other citizenship that is always born with a new country, EU citizenship was born with a new political project. With the Treaty of Maastricht (1992),19 the member states gave birth to the EU citizen and embarked on an unprecedented process of mutually reducing the barriers between the citizens of other EU countries and their own nationals. Kostakopoulou (2001, 102) notes that in this process “[the] internal boundaries of membership have been gradually relaxed, not from within, but from outside, that is through the conferral of rights on individuals and by enhancing their status in the host member state.” Starting in 2009, when the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights entered into effect, the right to free movement has been elevated to a fundamental right within the EU,20 and the rights of EU citizens were further enhanced. From a cultural point of view, the boundaries between EU citizens and natives are blurred because both share a commitment to the political, social, and symbolic project of the European Union. Moreover, the project itself is founded on a cultural tradition that the Preamble of the Treaty of Lisbon describes as “[the] cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe,” which is allegedly shared by all the people and states in the EU. The novelty of this in-between status and its impact on the study of migration is especially acknowledged by Adrian Favell (2008b, 701), who notes that “textbook narratives in terms of standard accounts of immigration, integration and citizenship based on models of post-colonial, guestworker and asylum migration, and historical distinctions between pre- and post-1973 are finished and need to be rethought.” One of the main contributions of this study is to incorporate EU citizens into the analysis of integration and inquire into how governments respond to the presence of fellow EU citizens. This is a serious gap in the literature; traditionally intra-European movement and settlement have

Migrant Integration and the State   37

been less scrutinized (for exceptions, see Favell 2008b; Recchi and Favell 2009; Spencer et al. 2007). This is particularly surprising because contemporary inflows from the other member states amounted to 40 percent of the total mobility within Europe in 2007 (Herm 2008) and 30 percent in 2015 (Eurostat, dataset migr_imm1ctz, 2017) However, a large share of intra-­European migration consists of EU citizens who come from countries that only joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. While in principle EU citizens, regardless of the state from which they come, enjoy equal rights and duties, this is not the case in reality. EU citizens from the new member states have seen their rights limited and the full benefits of EU citizenship postponed by a series of transitional ­arrangements agreed to upon enlargement. Secured in the Accession Treaties, these transitional provisions allowed the older member states to decide individually whether to implement EU law and give access to all rights to the new EU citizens immediately after accession or delay it for a period of up to seven years. With regard to access to the domestic labor market, for instance, the broad majority of the member states have chosen to take advantage of the safeguard clause and have temporarily restricted entry to these EU citizens. Most important, transitional measures had damaging indirect effects. Because of delays in fully establishing equality between old and new EU citizens, governments have found enough ground to introduce differential treatment that disadvantages migrants from the new member states and legitimize a distinct narrative for this group. Restriction of the labor market first and foremost reflects economic concerns and the hope that growth will iron out the economic differences between the new and older member states and reduce the migration pressure. At times these transitional arrangements justified measures that were even less favorable than those enjoyed by some categories of third country nationals. As discussed in chapter 4, EU citizens did not have the right to health care, which was provided for undocumented third country nationals. The application of this temporary mechanism attracted much criticism from scholars who warned about a division of EU citizenship into “first class” and “second class” status (Fox, Morosanu, and Szilassy 2012; Adinolfi 2005; Carrera 2005; Carrera and Merlino 2009; Craig and De Búrca 2007; Jileva 2002). In particular, Fox, Morosanu, and Szilassy (2012) argue that the restrictions display institutionalized racism, which, paradoxically, is grounded in shared ideas of whiteness. Carrera and Faure

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Atger (2009, 1) take the argument further and claim that “one of [their] major consequences . . . has been the proliferation of different forms of European citizenship.” What the authors note is that these mutations occurred because of states’ prevailing preference for restrictions in the aftermath of enlargement. These generated the appearance of what Carrera and Faure Atger (2009, 15) identify as “various degrees of European citizenries in the light of EU law. This has provoked a cascade of diversified classes of European citizenship with different degrees of rights/liberties and, to some extent, a hierarchy of European statuses” (emphasis added). What is at stake here is that once formally established, unequal forms of European citizenship are replicated in more general policy decisions across Europe. Even if originally it was introduced for a limited time, this distinction between old and new EU citizens threatens to reproduce itself in future policies, even in the absence of transitional arrangements. In short, the real challenge is that status distinctions and, one might argue, diverse European citizenries could outlive the interim provisions and become longue durée conditions. This segregation of the two statuses has already influenced the way governments respond to the settlement of new and old EU citizens: integration arrangements have been set up for the former but not for the latter. It is for these reasons that I chose to consider separately the two groups of intra-EU migrants. Together with the new and old EU citizens, I focus on the co-ethnic immigrants who, compared to other non-EU migrants, are the beneficiaries of the most favorable treatment. In their case, states play a much bigger role in the decision-making process and in granting special entry and settlement conditions. This happens because states themselves decide whether to recognize special concessions and then which specific groups of aliens will be the beneficiaries. In a pathbreaking series of books and articles, Christian Joppke (2003, 2004, 2005) questioned the practice of favoring ethnic-related aliens that states employ in both an emigration and an immigration scenario. Analyzing the immigration policies of various countries over time, Joppke argues that countries have slowly renounced selecting migrants based on their ethnic origin and replaced the old system of ethnic selection with a mechanism based on universal principles, a process that he calls de-ethnicization. At the same time, countries attempt to revitalize the links with communities abroad and former emigrants, a process he labels re-ethnicization. ­According to Joppke, the source of ethnicization for the attribution of spe-

Migrant Integration and the State   39

cial rights to this latter category of people is their perceived connection with the nation. But he seems to forget that ethnic favoritism survives in the immigration policies of most countries. Even the countries that have eliminated forms of favoritism, for instance, Australia or the United States, still retain some sort of privileged entry both for former nationals and for nationals of certain countries.21 Widely accepted as “special affinity migrants” are former citizens and their children. They tend to enjoy easier access to citizenship and the labor market and at times even benefit from specially established government programs to promote and assist their settlement financially. Italy, in particular, has publicly funded programs in favor of the “return” of Italian emigrants and their families and descendants, a favorable treatment for which all descendants qualify regardless of how distant the Italian citizen is on the ancestry line. More often than not, states also extend additional rights to immigrants from countries with which they share a historical and cultural bond. This group of privileged aliens come from former colonies and territories as well as well as from places with common culture and language. But not all migrants who would otherwise be eligible for such rights can gain access to them. In turn, it is only the aliens for whom the receiving state ­recognizes a real bond who enjoy these rights. In the case of Italy and Spain, co-ethnic migrants are (i) descendants of former nationals or (ii) nationals of kin countries. In particular, in the case of Italy, the co-ethnic group is formed by descendants of Italians who emigrated in massive numbers at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the case of Spain, co-ethnic migrants include the descendants of Spaniards as well as the nationals of the Latin American countries with which Spain recognizes a historical bond in its past and present legal provisions.22 The three groups of immigrants—old EU citizens, new EU citizens, and co-ethnics—enjoy a privileged legal status and more rights than other non-EU citizens. This shows that simply distinguishing between aliens and nationals, which Calavita (2005b, 405) calls “the academic equivalent of conventional wisdom,” is utterly inadequate because not all aliens are equal from a legal point of view in the eyes of the state. Furthermore, EU citizens and nationals are not so unequal anymore because very few rights are still reserved exclusively for nationals. I now turn to show how these very different statuses affect the strategies of integration pursued by the states.

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FRO M S I N G L E TO M U LT I P L E I N T E G R ATIO N ST R AT EGIES

What states can do to facilitate the integration of immigrants is (1) grant rights and (2) develop duties. The first type of action is straightforward. States can increase the rights of noncitizens across all areas of citizenship rights—from civil and antidiscrimination rights to political, social, and cultural and religious rights—a strategy that has been called the rightsbased approach. The second strategy refers to situations where governments mobilize resources (institutional and financial) to integrate migrants, referred to as the interventionist approach. It is an umbrella category because it includes actions that migrants can opt to take. An example is language courses. The interventionist approach also includes mandatory measures that restrict immigrants’ rights in case they fail to successfully complete them. When such measures are implemented, migrants must attend and complete the course. This second class of actions is the mandatory integration strategy. Because this strategy rewards or sanctions immigrants based on their ­performance, it is also referred to as the sanction-based approach (Guild, Groenendijk, and Carrera 2009a; Kostakopoulou 2010a; Kostakopoulou, Carrera, and Moritz 2009; Vasta 2009; Goodman 2014). Based on these two types of action, states can build different integration strategies for different groups rather than one strategy for all. L I M I T S AN D S C OP E OF I N T E G R AT I ON: A P RO P O SA L

In his famous lecture “Citizenship and Social Class” Marshall refers to citizenship as “a status” that is “bestowed on those who are full members of a society” (2009 [1950], 148). What Marshall, a sociologist, points out is that full societal membership constitutes the basis for national citizenship. The latter is therefore only a status that is attributed by the state to individuals, whether at birth or by means of naturalization. If it is by ­naturalization, the state is again the one that decides under what conditions foreigners can access citizenship. While in his work Marshall only referred to citizens who are also nationals, he left room for a distinction between membership in the society and membership in the polity. Marshall alludes to the fact that the two need not necessarily coincide. While

Migrant Integration and the State   41

scholars and statesmen seem to be aware of the imperfect overlap of the two forms of membership, they do, however, assume that the distinction is only a matter of time and that, eventually, aliens become citizens. Naturalization is presented as a necessary step in integration and even as the crowning achievement of the whole integration process. There is an obsession in the literature and among statesmen with integration as naturalization and contingent on naturalization. Hannah Arendt ([1951] 1973, 275), who was herself an immigrant, writes, “only nationals could be citizens, only people of the same national origin could enjoy the full protection of legal institutions, [while] persons of different nationality needed some law of exception until or unless they were completely assimilated and divorced from their origin.” Some decades later, but in a similar tone, Brubaker (1989, 21) noted that denizenship is a “deviation” from the normal model of national citizenship and observes that the nation-states “transform long settled immigrants into citizens.” In a later text he argues that “although citizenship is internally inclusive, it is [also] externally exclusive. There is a conceptually clear, legally consequential, and ideologically charged distinction between citizens and foreigners” (1992, 21; my emphasis). Yet integration is not naturalization. Nor does naturalization alleviate the otherness of immigrants, as events across Europe have shown. Following the 2005 Paris riots, former French president Nicolas Sarkozy proposed to strip citizenship from people “of foreign origin” who target police through violent actions.23 Allegations were made that racial quotas were applied in the French national football team, which limited access to the team of French citizens of North African origin.24 In what concerns the first generation, naturalization did not “transform” them into full members in the eyes of the state because they are still targeted by policies of integration and their status as equal citizens is routinely questioned. For instance, when the integration test was debated in the Dutch Parliament “the most important issue of the bill was whether naturalized citizens born outside the EEA/EU should be included in the target group” (Strik et al. 2010, 60). They, in fact, were initially included and were withdrawn from the target group only after the Council of State advised that otherwise the law would be discriminatory. This case shows that naturalized citizens are still regarded as integration deficient, still lacking the full qualities of native-born citizens. In turn, the  qualities of native-born citizens are not q ­ uestioned or doubted: they are the “good” citizens. What is also

42  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

­ oteworthy is the perimeter that the i­nitial bill drew: “born outside the n EU/EEA” rather than “all foreign born.” In addition, the native population or the general public does not seem to place great importance on whether or not a migrant has become a citizen. A qualitative Eurobarometer study commissioned by the Directorate-­General of Home Affairs on migrants’ and the native population’s perception of immigrant integration matters illustrates that people on the street do not see a direct link between being integrated and acquiring the citizenship of the country: To have the nationality requires first of all to be integrated, but to be integrated doesn’t mean obtaining the nationality. (Portugal, native population, female, age 45–70) It might be important for them, they can have the feeling they’re integrated, but you can’t see he’s a Belgian from his looks. (Belgium, native population, female, age 18–35) There is no difference whether the person is a citizen or not. If he officially works and pays taxes, so where is the difference? (Latvia, native population, female, age 45–70) Rather than alleviate the status of alienage, naturalization reinforces it for those who are not recognized as equal members when applying for a job or on the street despite having become citizens. We can therefore conclude that naturalization does not necessarily transform migrants from others into citizens in the perception of the native population. The puzzle of integration, as I define it, is, in Preuss’s (1998) words, a search for the “abolition of all disabilities of alienage,” which is grounded in the search for full formal inclusion as well as recognition of being an equal from the native population in the local social fabric independent of the acquisition of nationality. In doing so, I embark on the intellectual project carved out by Bauböck (1994), Soysal (1994), Bosniak (2000, 2006), and Kostakopoulou (2007b, 2010b). Referring to the American case, Peter Schuck (1998, 163−64) notes that “the . . . distinctive meaning of American Citizenship . . . has been transformed in recent decades by a public philosophy that is steadily expanding the equality and due process principles in the pursuit of liberal

Migrant Integration and the State   43

values. These changes have reduced almost to the vanishing point the marginal value of citizenship as compared to resident alien status.” And, indeed, long-term denizens enjoy nearly all rights that citizens have, with the exceptions being welfare rights, voting rights (particularly in national elections), the right to be protected against deportation, and full mobility rights. Yet the recent evolution of citizenship has not been liberalization for all but offering easy access to the ultra-rich from around the globe. Indeed citizenship by investment or citizenship in exchange for cash is being rapidly introduced around the world, including Europe (see Barbulescu 2015b). When citizenship becomes shorthand for cash, its value beyond mere instrumental use is called into question. Despite attempts to “keep naturalization relevant” (Rubio Marín 2000, 100), Brubaker (1992, 36) ends up admitting that “formal citizenship is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for substantive membership.” In order to help immigrants achieve substantive membership, states would ideally enforce strict antidiscrimination policies, they would grant aliens full citizenship rights based on residence after a sufficient period of time, and they would offer (not require) courses on the national language(s) within a general setting of language training programs. Finally, they would offer courses on local and national culture and history of the places where they live in places specializing in such events: museums, cultural centers, and exhibition halls. After all, these are the spaces already designated in all communities to disseminate languages and culture. These activities would attract migrants if they considered the courses offered relevant to them and if they believed that the time and effort invested will have real positive impact in their jobs and in their lives. I said “ideally” because, as Linda Bosniak (2000, 46) points out in “Citizenship Denationalised,” “any debate over the possibility of citizenship beyond the nation is thus, in part, a debate over its desirability.” TA K I N G S E R I OU SLY AL L L E V E L S OF DECISIO N MA KING

An extensive literature has already shown that subnational authorities are increasingly assuming central roles in integration because of both their proximity to immigrant communities and their quest to promote their own interests and preferences in these policies (Ireland 1994; Alexander 2007; Caponio and Borkert 2010; Glick Schiller and Caglar 2009).

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Local-level researchers have argued that subnational authorities are more likely to have introduced their own vision of integration in federal or highly decentralized countries, especially in regions with nationalist claims (Caponio 2010a; Davis 2009; Hepburn and Zapata-Barrero 2014). In centralized states, regions, and cities, subnational authorities are less likely to have done so, but nonetheless they have been effective in altering, to a certain extent, national policy (Alexander 2007). Because Spain and Italy are such decentralized states and regional and local authorities have substantial competences, it is crucial to include them in the overall strategy of integration that ultimately affects immigrant communities in both countries. As subnational authorities enjoy a high degree of freedom and autonomy, limiting the research to national policies would fall short of identifying all the elements of the integration strategy that reaches immigrant communities. In order to have a comprehensive picture I argue that it is necessary to inquire into the strategies formulated by national, regional, and city governments. The EU also plays a key role here, but, as I show in the following chapters, most of the EU instruments for immigrant integration (the Common Basic Principles of 2004, the Common Framework of 2005, the Europe 2020 Agenda) are incorporated at the state level and have an impact on national strategies. I therefore consider the EU’s policy a constituent part of national policy rather than an independent additional policy arena. This also means that I examine only those elements of the EU’s policy that have been brought into national policies (examples of successful Europeanization) but do not treat those that have not been so incorporated (examples of “failed Europeanization”).25 For the selection of regions and cities included as case studies in this book, I follow the same methodological logic used to select the two countries: I keep stable key contextual elements while allowing for variation of the strategies of integration. The guiding rationale here is to focus on regions and cities where tensions and contention between the regions and the central state are minimal in order to control for the potential additional variation in the integration policies caused by such contestation. I focus on these regions and cities because my main interest is the variation in integration strategies for the different groups of migrants. Spain and Italy are highly decentralized states and follow an asymmetrical model in which some regions enjoy more competences and have more autonomy than others.26 The strongest autonomy is enjoyed by regions with nation-

Migrant Integration and the State   45

alist claims. In Spain such regions are Catalonia and the Basque Country; in Italy, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. Had I chosen other regions with higher levels of autonomy I would have only added an extra layer of complexity in the book, which already has multiple sources of variation: between different groups, between countries, across levels of policy making, and across time. The regions and cities selected have no “special status” but have a significant number of foreign residents. For Italy, these are the Latium Region (Regione Lazio) and the capital city, Rome. For Spain, these are the Autonomous Community of Madrid (Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid) and the capital city, Madrid. It has to be noted that both countries also have a fourth level of government, the province, which is an administrative unit that falls between the regional and local authorities. As Madrid is a single province and Autonomous Community, I have to include the province of Rome (Provincia di Roma) in the same category as the Latium Region. Finally, it was necessary, for reasons of time and resources, to consider only one region and one city in each country. A N OT E ON M E T H OD OL OG Y, C A SES, A ND DATA

The comparative method is the main research method used in the empirical work of this book. In doing so, I follow Lijphart (1971, 682–93), who states that the comparative method is a “basic method [in social inquiries] of discovering empirical relationships among the variables.” Comparison is used in two stages. First, I systematically compare the different strategies of integration that states pursue for different immigrant groups in one institutional setting, whether the same country, region, or city. ­Second, I contrast the strategies for the same group of immigrants in different institutional settings. This systematic two-step process of comparison has the advantage of allowing an argument to be built that states pursue multiple integration strategies for immigrants who live in the same country while simultaneously testing the argument in a second country. In addition, I make appropriate comparisons with the experiences of other European countries and with the United States and Australia, two traditional countries for settlement.

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In terms of data, I have used as primary sources official documents— primarily laws such as immigration and foreigners’ acts and plans for immigrant integration. I have used a “cascade approach,” collecting data at a national, regional, and city level throughout this book. Furthermore, I have carried out a series of expert interviews based on a semistructured questionnaire with key policy makers across the three levels of government and with immigrant associations in the two countries. Fieldwork was carried out in March and September 2010 and in June 2011 in Madrid and in February and March 2011 in Rome (see the appendix for the complete list of materials and individuals interviewed). The time frame of the study stretches across three decades: from 1985–86, when the first immigrant laws were passed in the Spanish (1985) and the Italian (1986) parliaments, to 2015. For decisive events such as elections or the passage of a particular act in parliament, additional evidence has been collected from the main national newspapers and from the registers of the parliamentary debates. In addition, chapter 3 is an attempt to move beyond the legal definitions of the four groups studied here in an effort to portray them in social terms. For identifying the socioeconomic as well as the demographic characteristics of the four immigrant groups, original statistical analysis was conducted using data from the European Union Labour Force Survey (fieldwork done in 2007) and from the Spanish survey Encuesta Nacional de Inmigrantes (fieldwork done in 2006). At the core of this book there are two concerns, theoretical and empirical. The theoretical one focuses on a state’s thorny relationship with immigrant integration and immigrant categories. I take Spain and Italy as examples because they distinguish in their law between all four categories: old EU citizens, new EU citizens, co-ethnics, and third country nationals. Table 1.1 shows the size of each of the groups in terms of shares of the total foreign population for the two countries. Overall, there are comparable shares of EU and non-EU migrants: 30 percent versus 44 percent for the former group and 70 percent versus 55 percent for the latter group. The slight imbalance within the group of EU migrants is caused by the EU15 group, which accounts for 21.9 percent in Spain and 2.8 percent in Italy. Co-ethnics, on the other hand, represent 20 percent of the total foreign population in Spain. For Italy, it is difficult to estimate the size of this group because there is no registry or registration required for descendants.

Migrant Integration and the State   47

Table 1.1.  Shares of the four categories within the total foreign population of Italy and Spain, 2015 (%) Broad Citizenship Group

Italy

EU15*

2.8 21.9

EFTA

0.2 0.7

EU10** Total EU25+EFTA

Spain

3.6 1.9 6.7

25.6

Total EU+EFTA

30.4

44.5

Total third countries

70.6

55.4

EU2 (Ro+Bg)

Co-ethnic third country nationals Other third country nationals

23.7

n/a 70.6

18.9 20 35.5

*Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden. **Poland and Lithuania only. Source: Istat residenti stranieri, 2015; INE Padron 2015Q2; author’s calculation.

These four groups comprise the categories that most EU countries use to distinguish between noncitizens.27 The groups of broad citizenship are calculated as follows. The “old EU citizens” group includes citizens of the EU25, that is, citizens of the EU15 states and citizens of the states that joined the EU in 2004. Despite the fact that they continue to be referred to as “new” member states in public and political discourse, I also include in this category migrants from the enlargement of 2004 because they have achieved full access to EU rights, including free access to the labor market after only two years in Italy and Spain. Polish citizens have a greater presence in Italy, but even here they represent only 2.3 percent of the foreign population. Furthermore, I also include to this category the citizens of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries, that is, citizens of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. These are few compared to EU25 citizens (less than 0.5 percent combined from the four EFTA countries in both Italy and in Spain; see table 1.1), and they benefit from similar legal entitlements as the European citizens.

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The second category comprises new EU citizens, which are the citizens of the member states that joined the EU in 2007, Romanians and Bulgarians (EU2), who fall under a different legal regime five years after their accession and who are well represented in both Italy and Spain. Within this category, Romanians outnumber Bulgarians by nearly four times in the two countries. The large numbers of Romanians in the new EU citizens category but also within the total immigrant population, where they form the most numerous community in both Italy and Spain partly explains why the policies targeting this group were so different and more restrictive than those targeting European citizens from the older member states (see ch. 4). The same holds for migrants from countries that joined the EU in 2004: because their numbers were relatively low in Italy and Spain, the authorities removed earlier the transitory restrictions on their labor market access compared to Romanians and Bulgarians. These facts suggest that there might be a correlation between the number of people who used their freedom of movement rights after each enlargement and the imposition of restrictions. However, this is not always the case, as the broader pattern is for the countries to apply their initial decisions taken in 2004 to 2007 accession states. The only exceptions from this rule are the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Finland; the former two imposed restrictions, while the latter opted not to apply them to nationals of the countries that joined the EU in 2007. “Co-ethnic citizens” are third country nationals but enjoy different legal entitlements than their non-EU compatriots. For Spain, I counted as co-ethnics those citizens named in the nationality and immigration law as bearers of extra rights, such as the citizens of Latin American countries. The laws also put Andorra, the Philippines, Portugal, and Burkina Faso in the same category. The descendants of Spanish citizens also have special rights. However, it was not possible to include them because of how origin variables are defined in the European Labour Force Survey: by region/ continent rather than nationality. No data based on immigrants’ descendants are available. This means that the figures in table 1.1 are underestimates. For Italy, which uses an ancestry-based definition for co-ethnics, it was not possible to calculate or even estimate the size of the group. The fourth and last group comprises all the third country nationals who are not included in the co-ethnics category. For analytical purposes, it is central to this book to have large comparable numbers of noncitizens in the four groups under study. Cases where

Migrant Integration and the State   49

the size of the group is too small or not formally recognized could affect how the state pursues the integration of migrants from that group. For instance, Germany and the United Kingdom are countries with large numbers of immigrants and diverse groups. However, in Germany, many of those who are included in the “immigration” statistics have been living in the country for a long period, much longer than the period of residence required to become a citizen. In order to maximaze variation (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994) between these groups and between the policy outputs with regard to integration, I take the cases of Italy and Spain. In terms of the empirical concern, this book seeks to analyze how Italy and Spain have pursued their integration policies. More specifically, it seeks to shed light on how they started to promote the integration of immigration, the “tools” and “philosophies” that enable them to accomplish the goal, how they have evolved over time, and their reasons for instituting their policies. The two countries have been largely left at the margins in migration and integration studies because of their “emerging” character as immigration countries. However, in the past decade they have witnessed a fast and relatively sudden transformation from emigration to immigration societies, with the percentage of foreign residents now reaching the level of the more traditional European destinations and even outnumbering that of the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. In 2011, Italy and Spain were the second- and third-place countries in Europe in terms of numbers of foreign residents, with 4.5 million and 5.7 million, respectively (ISTAT 2011; INE 2011).28 In relative terms, Spain is at the top of the chart among countries in Europe, with 12.3 percent of its total population being foreign nationals (2011). This nearly matches the level in the United States, which in 2010 was 12.9 percent.29 With such high numbers of immigrants these two countries are key to understanding contemporary immigration in Europe. In addition to their central role, Italy and Spain share a number of characteristics that make them interesting cases for a study on immigrant integration. One of the peculiarities of these countries, which most scholars have noticed, is the speed at which the foreign population has grown (see Bonifazi 2007; Cebolla Boado and González Ferrer 2008; Colombo and Sciortino 2007; Pugliese 2006). In less than ten years the number of immigrants grew by 26 times in Spain and by 13 times in Italy, a far faster rate of ­increase than in any other EU member state in the same period. In

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­ emographic terms, recent immigration is the single most important facd tor in population growth, which turned the negative net migration balances at the beginning of the decade into positive ones today. Table 1.2 shows the evolution of the foreign population in those two countries. In 2000 migrants accounted for 0.7 percent of the total population in Italy and 1.5 percent in Spain. In only nine years (2000–2009) the proportions rose to 6.5 and 12.3 percent, respectively. While it might seem that there has been a significant inflow of migrants already, the pull factors remain strong even during the current financial crisis. The Italian Ministry of Labor and Social Policy released a report in February 2011 in which it estimated that under current demographic and economic trends, the labor market requires (il fabbisogno), an annual average of 100,000 additional foreign workers over the period 2011–15 and no less than 260,000 for the following period, 2016–20, in Table 1.2.  Foreign population in the top ten European countries and shares of EU and non-EU migrants, 2001, 2011 Country

Foreign Population % EU % non-EU (in thousands) % % Population Population 2011 2011 2001* 2011 2011

Germany Spain Italy United Kingdom** France Switzerland Belgium Greece Austria Netherlands

7,198 5,654 4,570 4,486 3,824 1,765 1,162 956 907 673

8.8 8.8 12.3 2.9 7.5 2.2 7.2 4.5 5.9 5.3 22.4 19.8 10.6 8.4 8.5 7.0 10.8 8.9 4.0 4.2

3.2 5.0 2.2 3.3 2.1 13.9 6.8 1.4 4.2 2.0

* In the absence of 2001 data, closest available year has been used. ** Provisional values. Source: Eurostat 2012 (online data code migr_pop1ctz and migr_pop3ctb).

5.6 7.2 5.3 3.9 3.8 8.5 3.8 7.1 6.6 2.0

Migrant Integration and the State   51

order to satisfy the needs of the Italian economy (2011, 7). Thus it is likely that the immigrant communities will continue to grow in the two countries over the forthcoming years, albeit not at the same pace as in the past. Another peculiarity of these two countries is that they are new destination countries. While “new” originally distinguished between the countries that started to receive migrants in the 1970s and the countries that hired migrants in the early postwar years,30 the distinction has also referred to certain characteristics of immigrants. In comparison to northern European countries, a mythology has grown around southern European countries, which were considered to have relatively porous borders and an inefficient asylum system (Finotelli 2009). The large gaps between policy and outcome or between political discourse and outcome in southern Europe seemed incomprehensible at first sight. A German journalist wrote about Italy in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 2006 that “no political theory is able to explain what is happening in Milano, Rome, Naples, or Palermo in spite of efforts to find one” (quoted in Finotelli 2009, 886). Porous borders did in fact characterize the southern European states, particularly in the 1990s and early 2000s, largely because of unfolding humanitarian and migration crises in the Balkans, including former Yugoslavia, and in North Africa. However, with time, a sizeble community of migrants residing legally in Italy and in Spain has consolidated, reaching 8 and 12 percent of their total populations, respectively. While a rich scholarship emerged nationally in both countries, s­ ystematic comparative analyses are still missing, and the existing studies tend to be disconnected from the more fundamental debates in the literature. Internationally, the broadly comparative studies of immigration systems that include Spain and Italy are exceptions; most focus on the cases of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, and Sweden. As a consequence, Italy and Spain are less known cases to an international audience, despite being among Europe’s five receiving countries (exceptions are Calavita 2005a; Baldwin-Edwards 1997; Finotelli and Sciortino 2006; Cornelius 1994; ­Finotelli 2009; Arango 2012; Zapata-Barrero 2003a). Waters and Jiménez (2005) studied locations in the United States that have experienced little prior immigration. They found that Latino immigrants encounter different conditions in cities that do not already have large numbers of Latinos, compared to cities that do. New immigration “gateways,” as the authors call the new destinations, lack both developed

52  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

racial and ethnic hierarchies and specialized institutional arrangements. Therefore, instead of making use of special organizations and policies, newcomers have to negotiate the modes of interaction and incorporation in the new settlements. Their findings indicate, first, that ethnic hierarchies among migrants are a recent phenomenon still in the making and, second, that new modes of integration are most likely to emerge in new destinations. The situation in Italy and Spain resembles Waters and Jiménez’s new “gateways.” Both experienced very little previous immigration, which means that racial and ethnic hierarchies, or, more generally, the position of foreigners in society, are not fully consolidated. Contemporary immi­ gration is certainly not the first encounter Spain and Italy have had with ethnic, racial, linguistic, or religious divides, as both countries have rich histories scarred by conflict. Ironically, in history, battles take place with only one enemy at a time. Once it was the religious other, then the racial other, and so on. If at some point in history hierarchies were built on opposition to religion, as was the case with the Spanish Reconquest or the expulsion of the Sephardic Jews (1492), at the time of the Spanish Kingdom ruled by the self proclaimed Catholic Kings (1474–1504), they were grounded on racial supremacy. Either way, with more and more migrants arriving from all over the globe, contemporary immigration brought all these elements back into play at the same time. The encounter with multiple others questions old hierarchies and opens up new negotiations ­between members of the host society and immigrants. It is then fair to argue that the new immigration countries have more freedom to introduce new and unexplored approaches to immigrant integration and, therefore, a higher potential of innovative institution building and policy making than the “traditional” postwar immigration European countries. Furthermore, Italy and Spain make good case studies because they have received similar groups of immigrants who have arrived during the same period. In particular, both have large communities of migrants from Romania (who are now the most numerous in the two countries) and also from Morocco and China (table 1.3). In addition to the theoretical and empirical reasons discussed so far for choosing Italy and Spain, there is a reason of a methodological nature. The two countries make good cases for a matched comparison. They have a number of similar structural elements: both are relatively new destinations, both have highly segregated labor markets (Venturini 2004), and in both a large sector of the economy is informal. In Italy the size of the informal

Migrant Integration and the State   53

Table 1.3.  Total number of migrants in Italy and Spain and main countries of origin (in thousands), 2015 Italy Spain Romania 1,131 Romania 700 Albania 490 Morocco 682 Morocco 449 U.K. 298 China 265 Italy 186 Ukraine 226 China 169 Philippines 168 Ecuador 164 Moldova 147 Germany 142 India 147 Colombia 138 Bangladesh 115 Bulgaria 132 Peru 109 Portugal 105 % top 10 source countries in total immigrant pop.

64.7% 61.5%

Total foreign population

5,014

4,412

Source: ISTAT 2016; INE, Padron Municipal, 2016. Data from 1 January 2015; ­author’s compilation.

economy, according to estimates from 2000, amounts to 27 percent of GNP, whereas in Spain it is estimated at 22.6 percent (Schneider 2002, 16). Both countries are also highly decentralized semifederal states (Börzel 2000; Colomer 1998; Keating and Wilson 2010) that divide competences on immigrant integration among all levels of government. Both countries also have similar welfare regimes (Ferrera 1996, 2005). Moreover, the Catholic Church is one of the main political and social actors in the Mediterranean, with the exception of Greece. Shared structures matter because they remain stable when switching back and forth between the cases throughout this book, helping in this way to control for their effects (Lijphart 1975). Furthermore, these shared characteristics also make for a better understanding of the cases themselves and how integration is shaped by them (Dion 1998; Mahoney 2000).

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C ON C L U D I N G R E M A RKS

Immigrant integration policies can take many forms. A vast literature has documented how states respond to the presence of immigrants and how they pursue the integration of the immigrant populations. In comparison to individual immigrants and members of the host society, states have disproportionately more legal, institutional, and financial resources. Because of this, states are key actors in the process and have an obligation to assist immigrant integration. In this chapter, I have argued for a distinction between two actions that the state can take to intervene in integration: it can grant or withhold rights, and it can introduce or not specially designed programs for immigrant integration. I proposed an analytical framework that takes into account these two dimensions of integration and that has the capacity to take into account newer forms of integration policies such as the mandatory, sanction-based ones and can include more complex variations of the policies that states introduce. The main argument of this chapter has been that integration and state intervention in integration cannot be theorized if the cases studied are restricted to traditional immigrants rather than to all foreigners. It has proposed arguments for extending this category to include European citizens from the old and the new EU member states, co-ethnic migrants from third countries, and other third country nationals. All these groups were born abroad and are not citizens of the country where they live—the only two definitions for immigrants in migration studies. As the following chapters show, one important source of variation is the immigrant category the policy targets.

CHAPTER 2

Migration in Italy and Spain and Integration Outcomes

Only thirty years ago it would have been difficult to imagine that Italy and Spain, the countries that had seen the departure of millions of their people, would themselves become destinations for millions of immigrants. Nearly 26 million Italians left Italy between the 1880s and the 1970s (ISTAT 1978; Sori 1979; Gabaccia 1984, 2000). In the same period, three million Spaniards emigrated (Yánez 1994). Frequent emigration waves from the 1870s to well into the 1970s convinced Spaniards and Italians that their countries had little to offer foreign migrants. Spaniards and Italians preferred destinations in the New World, where most of the countries encouraged settlement migration and welcomed arriving immigrants. For Spaniards, decisions on where to go were determined by persisting colonial links with the territories that were part of the former Spanish Empire. At the turn of the nineteenth century, more than three quarters of Spaniards who migrated went to Latin America. A smaller proportion of Spaniards chose the more proximate African continent and went to Morocco, Algeria, or Equatorial Guinea. Finally, others ventured to the United States and to the Philippines and Australia. Italians, on the other hand, went primarily to the New World, settling in North and South America (particularly Argentina, Brazil, ­Uruguay, and Venezuela) but also, in smaller numbers, in Australia and New Zealand. 55

56  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

After World War II and only half a century after the first wave, Italy and Spain experienced a new movement of emigration. This time the destinations were other European countries. In the 1950s, countries in Northern Europe were more industrialized than Spain and Italy and in need of workers. In order to reduce the labor shortages and sustain postwar economic growth, most European countries introduced programs of mass ­recruitment of foreign workers (Baldwin-Edwards and Schain 1994; Freeman 1979; Hollifield 1992; Piore 1979). Although few in comparison to migrants from other countries, Spaniards and Italians were the Europeans who most frequently took advantage of these programs. Interestingly, the need for immigrants in Europe often led to Italians and Spaniards going to the same destination. Nearly all found employment in the same destination countries: Belgium, France, Switzerland, and, to a lesser extent, Germany (Blumer 1970; Romero 2001; Villar Ramírez 1999). The waves of emigration ended in 1973 without warning. That year marks a point in time when traditional patterns of migration were not only disrupted, but reversed. After centuries of emigration, Spaniards and Italians were now returning to their countries. What is surprising is that at the same time foreign immigrants also followed this trend, entering and settling down in Italy and Spain. However, that the two countries became destinations for immigrants was not due either to their decision to attract foreign workers or their more appealing economic outlook compared to that of their neighboring countries. Pivotal factors were the suspension by northwestern European countries of their recruitment programs because of the oil crisis of 1973 and the downturn of their economies. In the case of Spain, the period coincided with the death of Franco and the initiation of a transition to democracy, which gave sufficient guarantees to political dissidents to return. This political change contributed to an increase in the number of Spaniards who were coming home (Garmendia 1981). It is in this context that Spain and Italy became “fallback destinations” or “second best” options, thus changing their role in the European migration system from sending to receiving countries (Colombo and Sciortino 2004, 50). The hitherto negative balance of net migration changed to a positive one in 1972 in Italy and in 1975 in Spain (King and Rybaczuk 1993, 176). During the 1970s, however, only a small number of foreigners took (legal) residence each year in Spain and Italy; the number of nationals who

Migration in Italy and Spain and Integration Outcomes   57

left both countries remained both high and controversial As late as 2000, the number of immigrants who were residing legally in the two countries and, therefore, were potential targets of integration policies continued to be low (under 2 percent of the total population). Nevertheless, between 2000 and 2007 Spain and Italy experienced significant levels of immigration, similar to the other Western European countries (table 2.1). For many decades, the Italian and Spanish governments merely concentrated their efforts on managing emigration and sought to maintain links with their citizens living abroad. With this aim in mind, established institutions such as ministries of foreign affairs and embassies expanded and became more efficient in managing emigrants’ needs. The situation was very similar across other Southern European countries. However, little was done for foreign migrants in Spain and Italy. The rapid arrival of large immigrant communities caught the authorities in Italy and Spain by surprise. “Older” migration countries were able to anticipate the waves of immigrants and had established a number of immigration schemes. Some recruited migrant workers through guestworker programs (e.g., Germany, Austria, Switzerland), while others, such as the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands, attracted workers from their former colonies. Countries with an even longer tradition of immigration, especially the United States, Australia, and Canada, recruited migrants through immigration quotas, which in the past often included Table 2.1.  Evolution of foreign residents in Italy and Spain, 1970–2010 (n, % of total population) Italy Spain

1970 1980 1990 2000

2010

143,838 198,483 538,193 1,340,655* 4,570,371 0.2% 0.3% 0.8% 2.2% 8.8% 145,574 183,422 407,647 895,720 4,926,608 0.4% 0.4% 1% 2.1% 10.4%

Results for 31 December of each year. *1999. Sources: For Italy, Colombo and Sciortino 2004; ISTAT for 2010. For Spain, Fondo documental INE, Anuario estadistico 1971, 1981, 1991; and Ministerio de Empleo y Seguridad Social for 2000 and 2010.

58  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

restrictions on people from certain countries and preferences for others. Having organized entry themselves gave those countries several advantages that the newer immigration countries, such as Italy and Spain, could not count on in their later waves of immigration. To begin with, in the older European immigration countries the simple fact that authorities initiated the recruitment of migrants sent a signal to the population that foreign workers were indeed needed by the economy and that they, as the elected governments, were in control of the situation. Also, because these migrants had entered legally using an immigrant option made available by the government ( immigration quotas, guestworker programs, postcolonial migration), they benefited from certain rights (especially social rights) and avoided irregular status. Perhaps even more important, migrants avoided bearing the costs and the stigma of irregular status. Quite the contrary occurred in Spain and Italy. Neither country provided a legal means of entering the country for work until immigration laws were enacted in 1985 and 1986 and thus condemned labor migrants, up to that point, to an irregular status. As many scholars have pointed out (Aparicio Wilhelmi and Roig Molés 2005; Calavita 2005a; Finotelli and Sciortino 2006; Garcés-Mascareñas 2012; Sciortino 2000), when legal options were in place, they proved rather rigid and inadequate for the real demand for foreign labor. Both countries opted to establish annual labor quotas. Yet the size of the quotas set by the government (regions were consulted) proved significantly lower than the actual recruitment of new labor migrants. What this meant was that many migrants lived for some period as undocumented. This did not prove to be a problem, however, for foreign workers when it came to finding a job. The size of the informal economy, which is far larger than in most European countries, made undocumented entry compatible with finding a job relatively easy. Moreover, in practice and in law, both Italy and Spain provided universal access to health care for all residents regardless of their status. A large segment of the population in both countries is outside the labor market. This is especially the case for women. According to Eurostat (2012), women’s participation was 52.7 percent and 68 percent, respectively, in the third quarter of 2012. Enjoying easy access to employment and to services meant undocumented migrants faced fewer obstacles than they may have faced in other ­countries. However, immigrants in an irregular situation were heavily stigmatized in public debates. It was just a small step from stigmatization of ­irregular migration to establishing a direct link to criminality. In Italy

Migration in Italy and Spain and Integration Outcomes   59

­ olitical parties took this step, as chapter 5 shows, and played the undocup mented migration card in an effort to position themselves after the Tangentopoli affair. In Spain the main political parties were more moderate if not silent and did not openly target migrants. This happened because the success of a peaceful transition to democracy that followed Franco’s death depended on the stability of the newly formed bipartisan party system that legalized and recognized the opposition Left political parties (Gunther, Montero, and Bottella 2004). Another straightforward advantage of organized recruitment from abroad was the guarantee to local workers that the immigrants would not compete against them directly in the labor market. But this did not happen in either Italy or Spain. Local workers felt unprotected by their governments when confronted with foreign competitors in the labor market about whose arrival they were neither consulted nor warned. In these countries, labor migrants found employment by themselves or with the help of family members after arrival. They looked for employment and took their chances in the labor market as the Italian and Spanish workers were used to doing. During the early stages, public authorities did little to intervene or mediate in the hiring process to the extent that Baldwin-­ Edwards (1998) remarked that the free market reigned. Ultimately, irregular migration is the most flexible type of migration, with the fewest entitlements to social benefits and labor rights, and the only type where those who fall under this category can be easily deported. Spain, however, introduced a special type of visa, visado para la búsqueda de empleo,1 that was designed precisely to allow migrants from non-EU countries to come to the country and Spanish employers to decide whom to hire in an open market. In order to turn the visa into a residence permit, the immigrant would only need to show a valid employment contract. Studies on the performance of foreign workers in the Spanish and Italian labor markets have recently demonstrated that they do not compete for the same positions as local workers, nor do they progress in their jobs the same way over time (Allasino et al. 2004; Bernardi and Garrido 2008; Bernardi, Garrido, and Miyar 2011; Izquierdo, Lacusta, and Vegas 2009; Reyneri 1998). Instead, local and foreign workers tend to have different career trajectories and to be concentrated in complementary sectors of the economy, with immigrants occupying the lower-ranked positions in the occupational structure. While segregation in the labor market can be explained in a variety of ways, starting from differences in social capital to linguistic competences or even the self-selection of immigrants in jobs

60  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

where they think they have a better chance of being hired, it is nonetheless evident that immigrants and natives do not compete for the same jobs and do not operate under the same labor market conditions. What I have shown so far is that the transition from nonimmigration to immigration countries took place under different circumstances for  the Western European and Mediterranean countries. While some of the the former used guestworker programs and organized recruitment, the latter were much less organized. In Italy and Spain, not only were the circumstances different, but from the start it was a highly tense re­ lationship between the state, members of the host society, and immigrants, with the state assuming only a minimal role in organizing the process. On the positive side, guestworker programs in the other European countries influenced Italy and Spain by shattering the illusion of temporary migration (see, e.g., Castles 1985; Freeman 1979). At least in theory, Italy and Spain were in a better position to approach integration at the initial stages of ­immigration than were other countries with previous immigration ­experiences. Given the variety of strategies of immigrant integration that countries elsewhere implemented, the two countries could have easily replicated those integration policies and philosophies. Indeed, the vast literature on Europeanization shows that such a transfer would only match the more general patterns of convergence due to strong policy learning and policy transfer processes among the EU member states (Knill and Lehmhuhl 1999; Olsen 2002; Radaeli 2004). However, if we compare the integration policies of some member states using the Migration and Integration Policy Index (MIPEX 2011),2 we observe no strong evidence that Italy and Spain followed the trend set by the “older” countries of immigration. MIPEX tracks the level of integration across a series of indicators and finds that, on the contrary, there is still considerable diversity among European countries. Table 2.2 gives the scores Italy and Spain receive together with the scores for the other new immigration countries and the northern immigration countries. Not only have the new immigration countries reacted differently than their counterparts, but the southern European countries themselves took various steps toward integration that differ from 50 points for Greece to 94 points for Portugal. Despite their similar background and experiences, Italy and Spain receive 84 points, while Italy scores 60 points, tenth position, in terms of legal integration.

Sweden (79) U.K. (59) Germany (59) Sweden (75) U.K. (53) Germany (64)

Access to nationality 63 39

Political participation 50 56

Finland (87) Ireland (79)

60 84 Sweden (100) (rank 10th) (rank 4th) U.K. (55) Finland (71) 61 79 Germany (77) Ireland (39) (MIPEX II) (MIPEX II)

* From max. 100 Sweden to min. 21 Slovakia. Sources: MIPEX III (2011); MIPEX II (2009).

MIPEX overall score high score = high legal integration*

Finland (71) Ireland (39)

Sweden (100) U.K. (55) Germany (77)

Labor market mobility 69 84 Finland 57) Ireland (58)

Other European New Countries of Immigration

Old European Immigration Italy Spain Countries

Portugal (94) Greece (50)

Portugal (70) Greece (40)

Portugal (82) Greece (57)

Portugal (94) Greece (50)

Southern European New Countries of Immigration

Italy and Spain versus traditional European countries of immigration and other new immigration countries.

Table 2.2.  Rights of noncitizens in selected EU countries: MIPEX scores.

62  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

Certainly, MIPEX suffers from some measurement problems, but it does afford relevant insights into the variation that still exists among policy choices that different European countries make for integration. How can this variation be explained? After a constant convergence of integration policies over the past decade (see Jacobs and Rea 2007; Joppke 2007a, 2007c), why are there persisting differences between European countries? Becoming immigration countries after other European countries did not prevent Italy and Spain from developing integration policies that are as complex, sophisticated, and self-contradictory as those of other states. However, for Italy and Spain, the European Union plays a more important role than for their European counterparts in defining integration policies. A number of scholars attribute to the EU a substantial impact on Italy’s and Spain’s immigration policies (Geddes 2003, 171; Corredera, Paz, and Diez Cano 1992; Baldwin-Edwards 1997; Pastore 2001; Freeman 1995; Watts 2002; and Bigo 2001). For these authors, the main factors that explain the Europeanization of immigration policies are Spain becoming a member of the EU and both countries’ entry into the Schengen area. Cornelius (1994, 345), for instance, notes that Spain’s first immigration law in 1985 “is almost entirely the result of external pressures associated with Spain’s accession to the European Union, on the first of January 1986.” Martiniello (1992, 210) notes that Italy’s first immigration law, passed in 1986, was “largely inspired by the European policies and by the orientation proposed by the European Community in terms of migration policy in 1985.” In both countries, the first immigration laws focusing on admission made legal entry especially difficult by introducing a vast set of sanctions for all those who arrived illegally (Aja 2006; Borrás 1995; Papperini 1987). Freeman (1995, 895) referred to the actions of the southern European countries as “partial and ineffective attempts to organize legal entry, curtail illegal entry, and regularize those already inside the country without authorization.” Throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, Italy and Spain continued to pass a series of new laws that regularized the growing foreign population (table 2.3). Italy’s last amnesty took place as recently as 2009. Periodic “exceptional” amnesties (sanatoria in Italian; regularización in Spanish) were the main “integration” instrument. They transformed ­irregular migrants into those qualified to make use of social services and into being lawful inhabitants of Spanish and Italian municipalities.

Migration in Italy and Spain and Integration Outcomes   63

Table 2.3.  Amnesties in Italy and Spain, 1982–2009 (in thousands)

1982 1985/6 1990/1 1995/6 1998 2000 2001 2002 2005 2009* Total

Italy 5 Spain -

105 43

218 110

244 21

217 - - 639 - - 164 234 - 573

55 1,478 - 1,145

*Only concerns domestic caregivers and nannies. Source: ISTAT 2005, Gli stranieri in Italia, gli effetti dell’ultima regolarizzazione; SOPEMI 2004, 2006.

Interestingly, while the fight against illegal migration began in the 1980s, when both Italy and Spain received very few migrants, today it is at the top of the immigration agenda. Integration became a concern only much later, in the late 1990s. Parliaments in both countries passed comprehensive immigration laws that dedicated large sections to the rights of the immigrants and their integration. Surprisingly, these laws were passed at almost the same time: in 1998 in Italy by the left-wing Prodi government and in 2000 in Spain by the right-wing Aznar government. The timing of the two laws is related to the approval of the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam and reinforces the claim that the Spanish and Italian policies were in favor of Europeanization. Indeed, the Treaty of Amsterdam made explicit reference to immigration issues for the first time. It also created new competences in asylum policies for the EU (Geddes 2003; Guild and Harlow 2001). This was the same year in which the Schengen Agreement came into force for these countries, although some member states had entered in 1995. From that moment on, the European Union has consolidated a p­ ivotal role in the management of migration and has started to accumulate what might be called “soft competences” in the area of integration (see Rosenow 2009). This is quite a break from the past, when immigration and especially integration were entirely competences of the member states. In 1985 when signing the Schengen Agreement, member states were still reluctant to share information even with the European Commission. In that year Germany, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the United Kingdom took the Commission to the European Court of Justice because of their concerns that they might be obliged to provide information on their

64  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

­integration policy.3 The Europeanization process in the form of soft competences started with the conclusions of the Tampere Council (1999), which called for “comparable rights” for third country nationals and EU citizens. Later, the Hague Programme (2004) stressed the need for “coordination of integration policies” between the member states and introduced a set of eleven Common Basic Principles. A clear step toward more communitarization was article 79(4) of the Treaty of Lisbon (2007), which for the first time gave competence to the EU to “establish measures to provide incentives and support for the action of Member States with a view to promoting the integration of third country nationals residing legally in their territories.” Also in 2007, the European Fund for the integration of third country nationals was established to operate and financially support integration programs in all member states.4 More recently, the Stockholm Programme (2009) underlined the EU’s support to further reinforce the exchange of good practices on integration between the member states. The Charter of Fundamental Rights, which became legally binding in 2009, reaffirms the right to family and private life included in the European Convention of Human Rights (articles 7 and 9), and the right to nondiscrimination on racial, ethnic, or religious grounds (article 21), but it also establishes a mandate for the European member states to respect cultural, religious, and linguistic diversity (article 22). The Treaty of Lisbon specifically excludes the harmonization of integration policies for third country nationals, but it creates a new competence for the European Parliament and the Council, which, acting together with national parliaments, can establish measures or programs that would provide incentives for integration (article 79.4, Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union [TFEU]). Finally, the “Europe 2020” strategy, ratified in March 2010, defines integration in economic terms and is linked to outcomes of employment and earnings.5 PU B L I C OP I N I ON AN D AT T I TUDES O N P E R C E I V E D I N T E G R AT I O N

Public concern with immigration is increasing across European countries. In 2004, 60 percent of EU citizens ranked the immigration problem as more important than terrorism, pensions, taxation, education, global warming, public transport, defense, and foreign affairs (Fligstein 2008).

Migration in Italy and Spain and Integration Outcomes   65

Based on data from the 2003 European Social Survey, Fligstein (2008) found that 50 percent of respondents expressed opposition to immigrants of a different race or ethnic group. In Italy and Spain, in particular, the native population is more hostile to migrants who are of a different race and religion. Research has also shown that significant intracountry cleavages emerge between regions, with stronger discontent in regions with fewer immigrants and highest tolerance in regions with most migrants (Barbulescu and Beaudonnet 2014). Using data from the same European Social Survey of 2003, Bail (2008) indicates that in all countries surveyed, people are most positive about immigrants with whom they feel they share the same culture and about immigrants they consider to have an occupation needed by the economy. On a scale from 0 to 10, where 10 is very important and 0 is least important, the most positively assessed were immigrants’ culture (valued at 7.35 in Spain and 7.17 in Italy, both of which are below the European average, 7.54) and occupation (6.67 in Spain and 6.52 in Italy against a European average of 6.74). However, when it comes to immigrants’ religion both Spaniards and Italians consider it more important than other Europeans (3.91 in Spain and 4.44 in Italy, much above the European average, 3.52). The same can be observed with regard to race, to which Spaniards and Italians give more importance than other Europeans (2.94 in Spain and 2.55 in Italy against a European average of 2.44) (Bail 2008, 49). Not only do Italians, Spaniards, and Europeans in general view migrants from outside the European Union differently, but they also evaluate their integration differently. The stereotyped non-European is often the nonwhite immigrant Muslim, the indigenous Roma, or the Jew (Fligstein 2008). As Mudde (2007, 78) puts it, these are the non-European “special enemies” against whom Europeans defined their borders and identity for centuries. Indeed, Sides and Citrin (2007) also show that many Europeans regard immigrants from outside Europe, as well as indigenous minorities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), as “non-European.” The Transatlantic Trends survey by the German Marshall Fund of the United States is unique in being the only large survey that collects data on public opinion regarding the integration of migrants. There are good reasons for not collecting such data. We do not know what “integration” means to such a large number of people. People might have different definitions of and preferences for what integration of migrants is and what it

66  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

is to be “integrated.” Futhermore, it is unclear which migrants or migrant group is being identified when people speak of migrants failing to integrate. The survey question uses generic wording to refer to immigrants and immigration, a systemic problem when using survey data (­ Favell and Barbulescu 2018). Survey questions do not distinguish between EU nationals and non-EU nationals and do include in the immigrant category the second generation. We also know from studies on immigration illiteracy that individuals consistently overestimate the number of immigrants in their society (for a review, see Herda 2010). Beyond problematic questions of what sort of integration is being evaluated here and who is included in the immigrant category, these figures stand for levels of acceptance of individuals for “immigrants” in their society. Against any yardstick, the figures are worryingly low. For Spain and Italy, only 48 percent and 59 percent of respondents perceive first-generation migrants as integrating “well” and “very well” (German Marshall Fund of the United States 2015). In countries with longer immigration histories, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, the numbers are low: 51 percent, 50 percent, and 44 percent, respectively. Once the poster child of tolerance and equality of opportunity, Sweden is at the bottom, with only 35 percent of individuals surveyed responding that migrants integrate well in their society. In 2011, the Transatlantic Trends survey asked respondents to evalute the integration of not only first- and second-generation “immigrants” but also that of Muslim communities and “children of Muslims.” This is a pattern we observe in all the countries where the survey was conducted: Muslim immigrants, as well as their children, are consistently evaluated as integration laggers and perceived as integrating less well than other immigrants (fig. 2.1). In the five European countries surveyed, only 40 percent of respondents thought that first-generation Muslims integrate “well” or “very well” (German Marshall Fund of the United States 2011). In Spain, the negative trend is more accentuated than in any other country surveyed. Only 29 percent of Spaniards agree that Muslims integrate well into Spanish society. This largely negative evaluation is in strong contrast to the overall positive evaluation of other immigrants. The Muslim population in Spain originates from Morocco, a country where a moderate form of Muslim faith is established and that was a joint protectorate of Spain and France for half of the past century (1912–56). Yet for the majority of Spaniards, Muslims still seem to bring to mind the long and uneasy history of conflicts and territorial disputes at the periphery of Europe.

Migration in Italy and Spain and Integration Outcomes   67

Figure 2.1.  Migrants who integrate “well” and “very well,” 2011 I generation 66

59

children of Muslims

62 52

41

52 49 49

Spain

60 49

48 37

29

Italy

Muslims

France

Germany

45 44

UK

68 55

52

56

50

40

Europe 5

US

In Italy, less than half of Italians (41 percent) think that Muslims integrate well or very well. Despite the fact that the share is significantly higher than in Spain (there is a 12 percent difference between the two), policy makers and politicians have already identified this community as lagging behind in terms of integration (Zincone 2007). The fact that Lega Nord within a Center Right coalition won the election in 2008—a party that owes part of its electoral success to its anti-immigrant agenda—only acted as a catalyst to the enshrining into statute of mandatory integration policies that were already on the table during the previous administration (as Zincone [2007] then warned). Even more worrying is the fact that differences between how people appreciate immigrants’ and Muslims’ integration do not disappear when it comes to opinions on second generations. Overall, children of immigrants and children of immigrant Muslims are perceived as integrating better than their parents. France is an exception to this rule. The French think that there is no intergenerational improvement in integration for the second generation of Muslim immigrants and that being raised and going through the French education system did not have an impact on their integration into French society. Italians and Spaniards again are the most optimistic about the integration of the second generation of Muslim immigrants and about the impact of being born, raised, and educated in their countries. In their case, Spaniards and Italians perceive intergenerational differences as positive and the share of well-integrated second generations as more than 20 percent higher than their parents (25 percent in Italy, 23 percent in Spain). Both intergeneration evaluations are above the European average, 15 percent.

68  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

The difference between perceived integration of immigrants in general and the integration of Muslim immigrants is reduced with the second generation in Italy and in Spain. This latter community is perceived as catching up with other immigrants in the second generation. Comparatively, the United Kingdom is the only country where the perceived integration of the first generation of Muslim immigrants is better than that of the second generation. Interestingly, the United States is the only country where citizens believe that being part of the second generation has the same effect on both children of Muslims and children of other i­ mmigrants. To summarize the data presented here, citizens in Italy and Spain, as in other European countries, consistently regard migrants from non-­ European countries as being culturally different from them and as not faring well in becoming full members of society. This negative trend is more accentuated when immigrants are Muslims. The fact that public opinion in Spain and Italy as well as the rest of Europe holds that migrants are lagging in integration and that a good share of this population does not integrate well or does not integrate at all could be interpreted as a mandate for states to introduce more effective integration policies. More interventionist measures based on mandatory programs and sanctions could thus have been regarded as legitimate. The parties introducing these measures could also win more votes as immigration is a concern for the majority of European electorates. Developing a new integration strategy would send a clear signal that the government is taking action to improve the situation. Furthermore, the fact that Spaniards, Italians, and European voters in general assign relatively high importance not only to culture but also to race and religion might be interpreted as a mandate for stricter and compulsory integration policies for third country nationals from other cultures, religions, and races. I N T E G R AT I ON OU T C OM E S A N D I MMIGR A NT S’ SOC I OE C ON OM I C P RO FILE

The analysis presented in this section is based on my own exploration of microdata from the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) for Italy and Spain. The reference year for both countries is 2008. The EULFS is conducted in all EU27 member states together with the associated European Free Trade Association (EFTA) states under the rules estab-

Migration in Italy and Spain and Integration Outcomes   69

lished by Council Regulation (EEC) No. 577/98 of 9 March 1998. Data are collected by the national statistical agencies and harmonized by Eurostat. EU-LFS is a large household survey that collects information on the participation in the labor market of all individuals in the household age fifteen or over. Before I discuss the main results of the analysis, it is important to note that for Italy I was not able to identify the group of coethnics as a result of the lack of the key variable in the country micro-file. Thus, for Italy, only the other three groups are considered. Finally, this section ends with some descriptive analysis for Spain, due to the lack of comparable data for Italy, on patterns of naturalization. For this, I have used the Encuesta Nacional de Inmigrantes (ENI 2007) carried out on a nationwide representative sample of the immigrant population to gather information on a broad set of sociodemographic characteristics, labor market trajectories, migration histories, and naturalization processes. Table 2.4 shows the gender composition of the groups for the two countries. The proportion of men and women across the groups is generally similar, with slightly more women than men in both countries. The largest imbalances are found in Italy among EU25+EFTA citizens and new EU citizens (EU2). For Spain the largest proportion of women is found among co-ethnics (mainly Latin Americans). Finally, men are clearly overrepresented in Spain but only among third country nationals. Table 2.4.  Immigrant groups by gender composition (%)

Italy Spain Women Men Women Men

EU25+EFTA 66 34 51 49 EU2 (Ro & Bg) 54 46 52 48 EU27 58 42 51 49 Co-ethnic third country nationals n/a n/a 55 45 Other third country nationals 49 51 47 53 Nationals 52 48 52 48 Total Migrants

51 49 52 48

Source: EU-LFS 2008; author’s calculations.

70  M IGRANT INTEGRATION IN A CHANGI NG E U RO P E

In terms of age, an overwhelming majority of the immigrants, 95 percent and 96 percent of the total foreign population in Italy and Spain, respectively, are working age, which here is counted as being under sixty-two. It is worth pointing out that a clear pattern in the two countries emerges from the age groups, as shown in table 2.5. EU citizens are the oldest migrants. This age difference has several causes. An important one is that the immigration of European citizens is not necessarily connected to the labor market but instead tends to be associated with family reunification where one partner follows a spouse to his or her home country in search of a certain lifestyle and, finally, for retirement, in particular from Northern to Southern Europe (Gonzáles Enríquez 2008; King 2002; King, Warnes, and Williams 2000; Recchi and Favell 2009). Santacreu, Baldoni, and Albert 2009, 58, found that among EU citizens the most frequently cited reasons for moving to Italy are for family and personal reasons (39.7 percent). Indeed, Italy is the leading destination in Europe for EU citizens who migrate for these purposes. For Spain, the same authors show nearly one in two EU citizens move for quality of life (49.3 percent). Among European countries, Spain is the main destination for Europeans who seek to improve their quality of life. For work purposes, EU citizens are more likely to choose the United Kingdom (22.4 percent) or Germany (19.7 ­percent). Table 2.5.  Immigrant groups by age (%)

Italy Spain