Multi-Level Governance of Asylum Seeker and Refugee’s Integration: Examples from Belgium

The paper presents the intermediary findings of two projects investigating issues related to the integration of asylum seekers and refugees in French-speaking (Wallonian) regional and provincial environments in Belgium. Belgium is a federal country in which decision-making powers are divided between three autonomous levels: the federal state, three language communities and three regions. Therefore, the institutional actors involved in the reception and accommodation of refugees and asylum seekers operate at multiple governmental levels and also include CSOs. The first project is concerned with the perception of asylum seekers and refugees and local public opinion as well as migrants’ perceptions of Belgian reception policies. The interactions between these representations and perceptions, and the policy agenda of asylum and migration, is also under study. The second project takes a transnational approach, focusing on regions in the Meuse-Rhine (including Wallonia), to develop a training program for those who support refugees in their integration. The targeted workers are mainly interpreters, many of whom were once refugees themselves. The dialogue between findings from both projects will be explored through case studies that highlight how regional institutional actors, such as the Red Cross, and regional non-institutional actors (CSOs) manage integration and serve as interlocutors between the state level of governance and grassroots agencies. Regional governance is thus explored in horizontal relationships, between intermediate institutional actors, and in vertical relationships, between CSO’s and local organisations. By bringing findings from these two projects into dialogue, we will illuminate practices of multi-level governance in regional integration practices and policy-making.