Search results

This article zooms in on the role of policy learning in non-incremental policy change. Can policy learning contribute to 'policy punctuations' or 'paradigmatic change'? This question is addressed from a constructivist angle. Within the constructivist approach debate rages on whether, and if so under what conditions, there could be a relationship between policy learning and policy change. The discourse coalition framework renounces the cognitivist concept of policy learning, whereas the critical frame analysis framework claims that critical reflection at the level of policy frames can lead to fundamental 'frame shifts'. This article reviews these two constructivist frameworks for policy analysis in terms of how they conceptualize and theorize the relation between policy learning and policy change. Besides offering a discussion of the theoretical assumptions of the two constructivist approaches that have been selected, this article offers an empirical congruence analysis of learning and change. This congruence analysis will be applied to one specific case: migrant integration policy-making in the Netherlands (2000–2015). This involves a clear case study where various non-incremental policy changes have taken place, from an integrationist to an assimilationist approach, which makes it a revelatory case for an in-depth study of policy learning and policy change.

The development of Dutch immigrant policy over the past decades has been characterised by the rise and fall of several policy frames. The role that social researchers and research institutes have played in these frame shifts has changed significantly. This article reveals that there was a clear relation between the structure of the policy-making process in the Netherlands, including the division of labour between social research and policy-makers therein, and the culture of policy-making or how immigrant integration was framed. A trend was discerned from a technocratic policy structure with a very direct role of researchers in depoliticised processes of policy-making to more engineering-like policy structures with a strong political primacy and a more selective approach to using scientific expertise for legitimating policy discourse. This article argues that these structural changes provided an important condition for the rise of a more assimilationist frame of immigrant policy in the Netherlands.

AbstractMigration out of areas affected by climate change has long been considered a common adaptation strategy. More recent studies, however, claim that migration should not exclusively be seen as an escape from areas under threat, but that it can also be understood as a powerful strategy towards change and innovation in those areas. This article examines the relationship between environmental stress and migration in the Vietnamese Mekong River Delta, one of the global hotspots of climate change. Based on an extensive survey among households and interviews with key actors, our study shows that indeed environmental stress is an important factor—though not the only one—behind the development of migration corridors, particularly to Ho Chi Minh City. Low-income households are more likely to have experienced migration than high-income ones. Low-income households also account for the largest group of recipients of financial remittances, which are mainly spent on basic household needs and health care, and not on longer-term investments. Our research also shows the important role of non-financial remittances in supporting climate resilience among vulnerable (low-income) households. Actually, in the Mekong Delta case, the transfer of knowledge and skills proves to be more prominent than the sending of cash. Such skills are brought along by returning migrants, and then passed on to others, leading to a diversification of local economies so that these become more resilient to environmental degradation.

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.

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.

This article examines mainstreaming as a governance strategy in immigrant integration governance. Diversity mainstreaming involves a whole society approach for raising awareness about migrationrelated diversity, mobilising a network of actors to embed diversity across policy areas. Bringing together the literature on superdiversity, policy targeting and governance mainstreaming this article examines empirically whether, and if so, why, and how, mainstreaming is applied as a governance strategy in France, the Netherlands and the UK. Based on a qualitative policy analysis covering the period 2000–14, we find mainstreaming 'incomplete' and driven by political and economic motives rather than considerations of superdiversity.