The making of migration policy: Exploration of the field

The study of the processes of policy making for immigration and immigrant incorporation should be considered as a ‘young’ research field; most of the research in this area consists of ‘grey literature’ (i.e. PhD dissertations and research reports).

Policy-making seems to represent a sort of fourth-generation research topic. First generation studies were essentially concerned with the demographic composition and evolution of migration flows into and immigrant stocks within European countries. Second generation research has focused primarily on immigrants’ economic integration and their social behaviour. The third generation has dealt mainly with integration policies and political participation. Lastly, the fourth generation has tackled the problem of understanding how immigrant and immigration policies are decided upon and carried out. More recently, a new generation is starting to carry out research on the issue of the multilevel governance of immigrants and immigration.

In order to better understand multilevel governance we investigate decision making processes by adopting an analytical perspective that focuses on the following dimensions: 1) the various levels of government at which decisions are made (i.e. the central State, Regions/Länder/ Cantons/federated states; provinces and more frequently – as we shall see below – municipal administrations) and the relations between these different levels of government, either more top-down or more bottom-up oriented; and 2) not just formal decision making processes but also semi-formal and informal ones (i.e. bottom-up pressures arising from civil society). Examples of such semi- and informal processes are the roles played by trade unions, NGOs, immigrant associations, social movements, experts and media. A bottom-up orientation includes two types of perspectives: a) inputs from lower levels to upper levels, and b) inputs from civil society to the public arena. This kind of analysis began in the late 1980s, spurred by changes in public decision making mechanisms – processes of power fragmentation and devolution to both lower levels of governments and civil society organisations (Pierre 2000; Scharpf 1993). This perspective looks to both changing patterns of public-private (and civil society) relations and to the redefinition of traditional hierarchical governing structures (Pierre 2000).

In the domain of immigration and immigrant incorporation, multilevel governance still represents a poorly investigated research object. This topic has developed unevenly in Europe both in time and in the themes that have become the focus of researchers’ interest.