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Making Regional Citizens? A Comparison of the Immigrant Integration Policies of Italian Regions and Spanish Autonomous Communities

Comparative Politics
Integration
Public Policy
Regionalism
Christina Zuber
Universität Konstanz
Christina Zuber
Universität Konstanz

Abstract

Unlike regulations of immigrant entry that are mostly decided at the national level, the integration of immigrants into the host society affects a range of policy areas that fall within the jurisdiction of sub-national authorities. For quite some time authors have identified a “local turn of integration policy” (Emilsson 2015) and have studied the role of cities and local authorities in steering processes of immigrant integration. By contrast, integration policies made by regions in political systems that have an intermediate layer of government have received less systematic attention (Manatschal & Stadelmann-Steffen 2013). This paper contributes to filling this gap. I compare immigrant integration policies of autonomous communities in Spain and regions in Italy, two recent immigration countries with an intermediate layer of government that has similar competencies in the field of immigrant integration. To map differences and similarities in regional integration policies, the paper first presents a novel database of regional integration policy documents, coded systematically through qualitative content analysis. This allows measuring the conditions regions set for integrating newcomers socially, economically and culturally in a comparative way, grouping regions by whether they aim to reach more inclusive, or more exclusive policy goals. Applying Mill's Joint Method of Agreement and Difference, the goal of the paper is then to explain differences in regional integration policies within the same national setting, as well as similarities in regional integration policies across different national settings. I hypothesise and test whether regional economies, the strength of ethnic/linguistic identities, and the dynamics of regional party competition transforming these structural factors into political conflicts can explain why some regions set tougher, others softer conditions for becoming a full “citizen of the region”(Hepburn 2011).