Suchergebnisse

Existing studies on policymaking on migration issues in Italy assign either marginal or variable relevance to expert knowledge. In a recent history of Italian immigration policies (Einaudi 2007), the role of academic experts emerges as marginal compared to the centrality of political actors, in particular the Ministers responsible for immigration issues and the parties' political leaders. However, according to another reconstruction carried out by Zincone (2011), centre-left governments have shown a greater inclination to rely upon independent experts and top-level civil servants than centre-right politicians, who show a greater trust in internal party staff. A party's political ideology, in particular the left-wing pro-immigrant and right-wing anti-immigrant positions, seems to have some influence on processes of institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation in research-policy dialogues. This chapter intends to develop further these insights through a systematic analysis of knowledge production, policy-research dialogue structures, and the uses of knowledge in the migrant integration policy field.

Italy is usually characterised by political scientists as a country with a high degree of penetration of party politics over public administration and civil society. Experts are often considered either marginal or controversial figures. Especially when involved in policymaking, experts tend to be linked to specific political parties, and claims of impartiality are met with suspicion. This explains why in Italy it took a rather long time before a true dialogue between academia and policymakers developed, while once a formal dialogue structure was set in place, in the late 1990s, it did not last very long. Since then, the use of expert knowledge by policy makers has been primarily of a symbolic nature, either of a legitimising or of a substantiating kind, or it has not been used at all. For instrumental utilisation to occur, responsible and interested policymakers and public officials must be in place, a condition that seems to have been met in only few specific cases.

Numerous studies have shown that there is a structural gap between restrictive migration policies and expansive inflows in democratic countries; yet scholars have not sufficiently reflected on how this gap is shaped in times of crisis. Focusing on the case of Italy in the decade between 2007 and 2017, this article assesses the extent to which the different challenges triggered by the economic and humanitarian crises have affected the structural gap, and which actors have mostly contributed to shape it. Our analysis of the Italian case shows how in the decade of the economic crisis the migration policy gap has not been the result of pressure by actors in the economic and liberal norm spheres, but rather reflects conflictual relationships within the political-institutional sphere between Italian governments and EU institutions.

This book examines the nexus between City Networks, multilevel governance and migration policy. Examining several City Networks operating in the European Union and the United States of America's multilevel political settings, it brings migration research into conversation with both policy studies and political science. One of the first comparative studies of City Networks and migration, the book argues that multilevel governance is the result of a contingent process of converging interests and views between leaders in network organisations and national governments, the latter continuing to play a key gatekeeping role on this topical issue even in the supranational EU system. Tiziana Caponio is Associate Professor at the University of Turin and Fellow at Collegio Carlo Alberto, Italy. In this conceptually and empirically rich analysis, Tiziana Caponio changes the way we think about migration by focusing on cities and the important role played by city networks. By changing the focus to the city, Caponio also changes the way that we understand these issues and sets out an innovative agenda for both academic researchers and policy-makers. Andrew Geddes, Director, Migration Policy Center/EUI Caponio explores the topical issue of migration policy, and the central role that cities play in it, using the theoretical lens of multilevel and network governance and making significant strides in the understanding and conceptualization of both theoretical approaches and the necessary and sufficient conditions for their activation emphasizing the role of distinct sets of actors. The cross-Atlantic comparative approach lends wider purchase to her analysis and enriches the institutional dimension of her exploration. Simona Piattoni, Professor of Political Science, Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento.

AbstractAlthough existing studies have documented the capacity of migration city networks (CNs) to mobilize on the vertical/intergovernmental dimension, there is less evidence of how CNs can contribute to scaling up network governance with societal actors beyond local jurisdictions and favour the emergence of multilevel governance arrangements. In this article, I aim to contribute to deepening our understanding of migration CN horizontal state‐‐society relations by throwing new light on how CN leaders' agendas affect the policy actions undertaken by two migration CNs in Europe and one in the United States. Evidence shows that migration CNs engage differently with non‐public actors depending on agendas that reflect the aims of their leaders. These agendas can be more or less conducive to scaling up migration network governance. When horizontal/state–society relations are conceived as subordinate to vertical relations, lobbying and political advocacy prevail with little room for the emergence of multilevel governance.

First published online: 22 July 2021 ; City networks (CNs) are often enthusiastically regarded as key actors in processes of Europeanization and multi-level governance (MLG) policy-making in Europe and beyond. However, systematic research on highly contentious issues like migration is still scarce. Building on an understanding of MLG as a specific mode or instance of policy-making, in this article I seek to understand why and how CNs engage in MLG-like policy-making on a typical issue of state sovereignty. I apply the causal process-tracing method to analyse the genesis and policy actions undertaken in the last two decades by two migration CNs in different multi-level political settings: the Eurocities Working Group on Migration and Integration (WGM&I) in the EU and Welcoming America (WA) in the US. The results show that, notwithstanding the differences in the institutional settings, in both contexts instances of MLG policy-making have taken place in the shadow of the will of the national governments, which remain fundamental gate-keepers even in the EU supranational polity, where the European Commission has been particularly active in supporting migration CNs' initiatives. ; The study was realised in the context of the project MInMUS, 'Migration Policies in Multi-level Political Settings. City Networks in Europe and North America,' funded by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Marie Curie Standard Fellowships, Grant Agreement n. 794012. This article was published Open Access with the support from the EUI Library through the CRUI - Wiley Transformative Agreement (2020-2023)

Existing literature on City Networks (CNs), including studies on the migration and diversity policy field, look at CNs as instances of Multilevel Governance (MLG) policy-making. Yet, systematic research on the link between CNs and MLG is still scarce. The goal of this working paper is to understand how CNs on migration in different contexts conceive and frame their role in the governance of migration. What type of vertical and horizontal relations are CNs engaged in? And to what extent do these relationships configure the emergence of MLG-like policymaking processes? To answer these research questions, I undertake a policy frames analysis of the official discourses and main policy actions promoted by four CNs in different multilevel political settings, i.e.: the Eurocities Working Group on Migration and Integration, the European Coalition of Cities Against Racism (ECCAR) and the Intercultural Cities Programme (ICC) in Europe; Welcoming America in the United States. A key finding is that MLG, far from being an automatic outcome of city networking, is only one possible frame of policymaking interactions and not even the more relevant one.