Introduction

This chapter looks at targeting as an essential and insightful step in the policy solution formulation process. By studying how people are classified and categorized as target groups in Dutch immigrant integration policies, the chapter illustrates how the formulation of policy solutions is constrained by the taboos on the political and public agenda. By avoiding group-based policies for immigrants and applying indirect or generic policies instead, policy makers anticipate public and political approval in the pre-decision stage of policy solution definition. The analysis of targeting as part of the policy solution process contributes to this book's aim of a constructivist understanding of the policy formulation stage. In support of the editors’ claim that, like the policy stage of problem definition, the construction of policy solutions is also marked by conflict, critique, and opposition (see Chapter 1), this chapter illustrates how policy makers cope with the ‘conflictual nature’ of solution definition through different discursive strategies for targeting. These interchanging strategies help policy makers to navigate contestation and policy taboos, within both the administration as well as the broader public and political debate. Policy makers anticipate the public approval of their policy solutions in the selection of target groups and policy instruments. Although policy formulation largely takes place in the ‘hidden’ pre-decision stage, the public is present in the stage of policy solution formulation. By anticipating public and political approval, policy makers see themselves forced to restrict the possible policy solutions to those that are considered politically opportune.

Given the contested nature of migration policies and their key focus on identity, an analysis of targeting strategies in this field provides an insightful look into the dynamics of policy solution formulation. Based on an analysis of different targeting strategies in Dutch immigrant integration policy making between 2010 and 2018 and interviews with policy makers, this chapter contributes to the first dimension of the pragmatic constructivist approach to public policy, ‘meaning in action’, by illustrating how policy taboos influence the process of binding policy problems and solutions. Furthermore, the alternative strategies that policy makers apply contribute to the second and third dimensions of coalition forming and spaces of dispute.