This paper examines the politics of leveling-down policy in education through the case study of the Israeli reforms in the 1960s, which sought to reduce gaps not only by strengthening disadvantaged students but also by deliberately limiting the avenues available for socially and economically advantaged students to ensure their superiority. This analysis locates the theoretical concept of leveling down within the broader historical context of postwar welfare state construction in Israel and Europe, specifically the expansion of the universal right to education. In so doing, it demonstrates how historical analysis can enrich the theoretical understanding of important political concepts, in this case elaborating on existing discourse previously largely confined to the fields of philosophy, law and sociology. Thus, the article seeks to contribute to the study of the history of education and to contemporary discussions on issues of equality and gaps in the education system.

Do immigration policies impact long-term political integration? I argue that the interplay between admission requirements and post-admission rights of migrants is highly consequential in shaping key democratic attitudes of increasingly diverse societies. Migrant selectivity boosts democratic satisfaction and political trust only when combined with inclusive internal regulations, such as high security of status, easier pathways to settlement, and social rights. Analyzing Commonwealth migrants in the UK after WWII through difference-in-differences and interrupted time series models, I find that ‘watermelon regimes’ (strict entry with inclusive post-entry rights) show lasting positive effects. Cross-national analyses with European data support the findings that watermelon regimes outperform free movement and stricter policies. Selection and context mechanisms explain why watermelon regimes enhance migrants’ economic integration, leading to political support. The benefits and costs of adopting watermelon regimes are discussed.

Health system integration has been actively promoted in recent years as a promising approach to defragmentize the current delivery framework of health services and contain costs. Yet, integration often faces significant barriers from the bureaucratic sphere. Successful integration is hardly due to good technical design alone; rather, it is often explained by how the policy dimension of the reform is managed. This study embraces a policy sciences perspective to explain the micro policy dynamics of health system integration reforms in a fragmented health system. Engaging the policy entrepreneurship literature, it investigates the county medical conglomeration innovations that have flourished in China in the past few years. Two pioneer counties were selected for in-depth case studies. Qualitative methods were extensively used in data analysis. Analytical attention was specifically focused on how a small team of local policy entrepreneurs championed the reforms amidst multiple constraints. The analysis revealed the varying momentum of policy entrepreneurs and the distinctive reform pathways across the two cases. A certain degree of similarity was also observed in their use of entrepreneurial strategies to promote integration reforms. Importantly, close vertical integration combined with a bundled global budget was adopted in both cases, and this model was subsequently diffused to other localities.

Previous research has identified intermarriage as an important factor in immigrant integration, but what affects immigrants’ willingness to intermarry or support intermarriage? A significant and understudied aspect of attitudes toward intermarriage among immigrants is the role of religion. We focus on a particular group of immigrants, Bhutanese refugees, for whom religious persecution featured prominently in their forced migration and resettlement in the US. Using an individual-level survey, we explore factors affecting their attitudes toward intermarriage. Specifically, we analyze the impact of social interactions, socioeconomic conditions, and demographic factors on resettled Bhutanese refugees’ attitudes toward intermarriage. Results indicate that, in addition to age, income, and English proficiency, resettled refugees who spend more time interacting with individuals from outside of their own ethnic, cultural, and religious group are more likely to support intermarriage. Social interactions may allow refugees to overcome religious restrictions and advance refugee integration into American society through intermarriage.

This article distinguishes isolationist and integrationist accounts of the legal-economic nexus. Isolationists deny the possibility of integrating different theoretical perspectives, while integrationists try to unify different accounts. Leading legal theorists have recently presented isolationist efficiency-, liberty-, and democracy-centred accounts of the market. It is argued that the legal–economic nexus is an integrationist concept, requiring an integrationist understanding of the constitutive role of law in the economy – a common view within the Law and Political Economy movement. Two integrationist strategies are presented: structural integrations and epistemic translations. Using them, an integrated consumer-centric account of the market is offered: consumers are not mere instruments; they are the lead actor, with all the entitlements in terms of powers, rights, and responsibilities that this position of authority entails.

This article argues that power–dependence relations are a crucial dimension of analysis to understand how states navigate between realist and liberal logics and particularly between the balancing and integration strategies. Specifically, I distinguish between three types of power–dependence relationships: limitation, neutralisation, and competition. Limitation and neutralisation make the balancing strategy viable by allowing power to offset dependence and thus preserve the autonomy of the state. On the other hand, when limitation and neutralisation are no longer workable, particularly in the case of cross-temporal interdependence, the balancing strategy becomes unreliable, and integration tends to become an attractive alternative. In the case of competition between a state’s different sources of dependence, the loss of flexibility brought about by integration may prove costly by limiting the state’s ability to address various dependencies simultaneously. Empirically, I illustrate these mechanisms by showing that post-war European integration started as a response to a situation of cross-temporal interdependence between France and West Germany, which tended to make the limitation and neutralisation strategies unreliable. However, military integration was later hindered by the tension between competing sources of dependence for France, which increased the cost of the loss of flexibility entailed by military centralisation.

The European constitutional navigation of the noughties succeeded to stipulate that European integration had ushered European society (Article 2 TEU). This choice remains underexplored. In light of current European uncertainty, the contribution explores meaning and promise of European society. The concept can counter the Europeans’ incomprehension of their union by integrating their heterogeneous European experiences into one familiar notion. It shows their conflicts as normal and possibly productive, occurring in one society rather than between discrete Member States. It suggests to understand their democracy as a principled struggle for compromise. Not least, European society substantiates the EU’s new principled constitutionalism that goes against excesses of the ‘will-of-the-people’ approach.

This paper questions whether asylum seeker integration is promoted through inter-organisational relationships between non-profit and voluntary organisations (NPVOs) and government agencies. It focuses particularly on the role of NPVOs in service delivery (co-management) and in the delivery and planning of public services (co-governance). It presents a research study on the public services provided to asylum seekers in Glasgow and asks the following questions: What role do NPVOs play in the planning and delivery of public services? When planning and delivering public services, to what extent do NPVOs work across organisational boundaries and what kind of relationships exist? And in practice, what makes inter-organisational relationships work? This paper offers new empirical evidence and also contributes to the theoretical debate around the integration of asylum seekers.

Drawing from 41 qualitative interviews with Norwegian voluntary football clubs and local public stakeholders, this paper explores whether voluntary sport clubs (VSCs) are a convenient measure for including refugees in society. The following research questions are addressed: what expectations of refugee inclusion initiatives do local stakeholders hold towards voluntary sport clubs, and how do the clubs grapple with pursuing non-sport and sport objectives and systems simultaneously? The results show that the football clubs face high expectations of refugee inclusion. Although the football clubs generally understand and accept the expectations, inclusion and integration activities are costly in terms of time and competence and challenge the club’s capacities. Two competing logics are identified in the data: a functional logic passively welcoming everyone that are keen and resourced to play football and a moral and proactive logic, that expects the clubs to reach out to include refugees that are alien to the organization of indigenous sport. We find that despite external expectation, the sport clubs are not fast-tracks to refugee integration because the logic sustaining their existence and practices are at odds with the logic prescribing refugee integration through sport.

Immigrant volunteering is a disputed topic. For some scholars, an important instrument for the social integration of immigrants, while others frame immigrant volunteerism as a regime of 'ethical citizenship' centred around the paradigms of 'civic integration' and 'deservingness'. Our research collected the experiences of hundreds of migrant volunteers in Italy (658 questionnaires plus 89 in-depth interviews) to address three research questions in particular: immigrant volunteers' levels of social inclusion, their reasons for volunteering, and the links between volunteering and other forms of social and political participation. Our findings show that volunteering is more dependent on social integration than on social marginality, represents a way to achieve a higher level of social integration, and can be framed as a way to perform active citizenship and anti-xenophobic claims. In particular, volunteering allows immigrant to present themselves as active subjects, oppose demeaning stereotypes, and express political commitment. Ultimately, this substantiates a form of citizenship ‘from below’ that re-writes the script of citizenship and enriches it with new ideas of entitlements and belongings.