Search results

Our quest in this book was to unravel how the city of Rotterdam comes to terms with its superdiverse character. It speaks to the rapidly evolving literature on superdiversity by taking as the central case study a city that may be representative of a much broader range of cities in Europe (and beyond) that seem reluctant in coming to terms with superdiversity, and that are not ranked as global cities. The example of Rotterdam reveals the spectrum of contradictions and paradoxes that come along with this uncomfortable relationship with superdiversity. Rotterdam is both a city of inclusion, the first with a mayor of Moroccan descent, and a city of exclusion, with political discourses in the City Council that are exclusionary and sometimes outright discriminatory. The core question to be addressed in this concluding chapter is why in some cities, like Rotterdam, the transformation into a superdiverse city is more problematic and accompanied by political upheaval, while in other cities it seems to be a more smooth process. The term superdiversity is merely describing a certain reality that characterizes Rotterdam and is not used as a normative term. With this book, we want to contribute to the growing literature that is trying to explain under which conditions a superdiverse city or neighbourhood is perceived by its inhabitants as an overall positive configuration and under which conditions people perceive it as being a more negative phenomenon and it leads to a more negative discourse.

This article examines what assimilation trajectories were manifest among present-day Mediterranean Muslims and pre–World War II Jews in Dutch society. Alba and Nee conceptualized assimilation in terms of processes of spanning and altering group boundaries, distinguishing between boundary crossing, blurring, and shifting. This study carves out to what extent assimilation processes like boundary crossing, shifting, and blurring had taken place for those two non-Christian minority groups in Dutch society. This research is based on findings of recent (quantitative) empirical research into the assimilation of pre–World War II Jews in the Netherlands and on the collection of comparable research and data for the assimilation of contemporary Mediterranean Muslims. Our study suggests that processes of boundary crossing, such as observance of religious practices and consumption of religious food, and blurring, such as intermarriage, residential segregation, and religious affiliation, are much less advanced for Mediterranean Muslims in the present time. Though several factors might account for differences in boundary-altering processes between pre–World War II Jews and contemporary Mediterranean Muslims such as differences in length of stay in the Netherlands, the secularization process, and globalization, Jewish assimilation might provide us some reflections on assimilation of Mediterranean Muslims. The continuous arrival of Muslim newcomers might affect attitudes and behavior of settled Mediterranean Muslims, while policy to restrict family migration might be insufficient to stimulate Muslims to integrate in Dutch society given the quite negative mutual perceptions, the slow process of residential spreading, the continuation of observance of religious practices, and the low intermarriage rate.

This study applies a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) design to examine how configurations of quantitative and qualitative aspects of media coverage associate with changes on the policy agenda. We analyze media coverage of sixteen focusing events related to Dutch immigration policies—an intractable policy controversy that is regularly under media scrutiny. In addition to the quantity of media attention, we take into account whether dominant framing in media coverage is contesting the current policy frame and whether the framing in the media is consonant. Our analysis indicates that frame contestation is a necessary condition for media effects. Quantity of media attention and frame consonance are relevant indicators of changes on the policy agenda only when the majority of media coverage is contesting the current policy frame. Furthermore, we found that in the case of intractable policy controversies, media framing can create specific dynamics, such as "David versus Goliath" dynamics where human-interest framing of a single case challenges current policy, or "negotiation dynamics" where competing managerialist frames negotiate policy solutions. An integration of framing and agenda-setting literatures helps develop a better understanding of the occurrence of media effects on the policy agenda and how this effect takes shape in the case of intractable policy controversies.

Received: 19 March 2016, Accepted: 23 March 2016, Published: 20 June 2016 ; The article is the introduction to the special issue on 'Solidarity in diverse societies : beyond neoliberal multiculturalism and welfare chauvinism' ; This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. ; The problem how immigration and welfare states can be reconciled with each other is perhaps more relevant now than ever. High levels of immigration, such as in the current refugee situation in Europe, raise urgent questions about conditions for maintaining the solidarity needed for welfare states. What impact does immigration and the associated rise of cultural diversity have on feelings of belonging and solidarity? How does migration affect the value foundation on which the European welfare states are built? And also the other way around, how do welfare regimes condition immigration policies and political approaches to diversity? Will Kymlicka discusses these issues in the lead essay for this special issue. His propositions are critically examined by seven commentators.

The discourse on the integration of ethnic minorities in the Netherlands has undergone profound changes over the past few decades. This article analyses how discourses in politics and academia have revolved around changing emphases upon the social capital processes of 'bonding' of individuals within groups and 'bridging' of individuals to the wider society. Four episodes of discourse and policy may be distinguished: denial of being a country of immigration until the 1970s; the Minorities Policy in the 1980s; the Integration Policy of the 1990s; and the rise of a more assimilationist discourse after the turn of the millennium. The country thus began in the post-war period with a pluralist perspective toward integration rooted in the traditional religious and ideological 'pillarisation' of society, shifting first to a multi-cultural perspective, then to an integrationist, and, finally, in the new millennium, to an assimilationist perspective. (Nations and Nationalism)

ABSTRACT.The discourse on the integration of ethnic minorities in the Netherlands has undergone profound changes over the past few decades. This article analyses how discourses in politics and academia have revolved around changing emphases upon the social capital processes of 'bonding' of individuals within groups and 'bridging' of individuals to the wider society. Four episodes of discourse and policy may be distinguished: denial of being a country of immigration until the 1970s; the Minorities Policy in the 1980s; the Integration Policy of the 1990s; and the rise of a more assimilationist discourse after the turn of the millennium. The country thus began in the post‐war period with a pluralist perspective toward integration rooted in the traditional religious and ideological 'pillarisation' of society, shifting first to a multicultural perspective, then to an integrationist and, finally, in the new millennium, to an assimilationist perspective.

Immigrant integration has become an intractable policy controversy in the Netherlands. One facet of this controversy involves the different ways in which immigrant integration has been framed by national and local governments. National government has formulated a "citizenship approach" to immigrant integration, whereas local governments often chose a more accommodative approach to migrant groups. In this article, the authors argue that this discrepancy originates from the divergent institutional logic of national and local integration policies. National integration policies have resulted from belief in strong central policy coordination, a sharp turn from depoliticization to politicization, responsiveness to a series of focus events, and mood swings during the past decades. Local integration policies, in contrast, are characterized by a considerable degree of pragmatic problem coping, in particular, the instrumental use of migrant organizations. As such, the divergent logics of national and local integration policies seem to represent two different worlds of problem framing.