Integration processes and (local) policies: status of the issue lessons to be learned

Abstract

The article starts out from some general observations regarding integration processes, their conceptualization, and the lessons to be drawn from the empirical data contained in the UNESCO-MOST project «Modes of Citizenship and Multicultural
Policies in European Cities». We are convinced that any integration policy should be based on a systematic, exhaustive knowledge of processes of integration and exclusion, because if policymakers are to influence or guide such processes, they need a clear overview of which instruments they can potentially use to intervene, and at what stage of the process or at what points in time they should do so. Such knowledge will provide a solid basis for policymaking, but it is not enough. The process of policymaking and policy implementation has its own logic, which does not necessarily run parallel to the logic of integration processes. This why we return to some basic notions of this logic in a second section. In the third section we gradually zoom in on what happens at a local level and on the ways that cities may or may not attempt to influence integration processes by deliberate and systematic interventions.We describe the wide diversity of such local policies, but we also consider whether or not it is possible to see convergence over time. At the end of the essay we return to national-level policies on immigration and integration, which serve as an ever-present, though not determinant, context for immigrant integration processes in general and for local integration policies in particular.We discuss the relations between EU, national and local policies and their possible future development.