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At the 1999 Tampere summit, EU member states committed themselves to developing a comprehensive immigration and asylum policy. Although directives harmonizing border controls or anti-discrimination instruments have been adopted, it remains an incomplete and complex European policy area. This article seeks to explain the timing, form and content of this new domain. It combines the insights of March and Olsen's "garbage can' model with a sociological approach that emphasizes power competition among actors in the same field. Diverse actors have seized upon EU opportunities. Law and order officials in charge of migration control seeking to gain autonomy in intergovernmental settings linked their action to the single market and transnational crime. NGOs providing expertise to Commission units seeking competence in non-economic areas jumped on the "social exclusion' bandwagon by proposing anti-discrimination legislation. These developments - superimposed on policies regarding free movement of workers and servic...

The ability of European nation-states to control migration has been at the forefront of the immigration debate. Some scholars have argued that international human rights and the freedom of circulation required by a global economy and regional markets are the two sides of a liberal regime that undermine the sovereignty of nation-states. Others have gone even further and declared the double closure of territorial sovereignty and national citizenship to be outmoded concepts. This article inscribes itself in that debate by answering the following questions: (a) To what extent do international legal instruments constrain the actions of national policy makers? and (b) How have nation-states reacted to international constraints and problems of policy implementation? Focusing on Council of Europe's jurisprudence, the authors assess the extent to which national courts have incorporated European norms and governments take them into account. The article examines ways that national policy makers have responded by shifting the institutional locations of policy making. In evaluating state responses, the article identifies the devolution of decision making upward to intergovernmental fora, downward to local authorities, and outward to nonstate actors.

This article focuses on the situation of migrants and their descendants in European labour markets. This important socioeconomic dimension of the current crisis illuminates the role of pre-existing policies and institutions and points the way to political solutions. The article begins with a comparative puzzle: how can one account for cross-national, cross-local, and cross-sectoral variation in the labour market outcomes of migrant-origin minority groups and explain migrant-origin and gender differences. This is followed by a critical examination of debates on the ‘integration’ of migrants and the ‘second generation’ reflecting political diatribes on the across-the-board poor performance of minorities and the role of ethnic or religious factors. An alternative explanation underscores the importance of policy paradigms and institutional hurdles focusing on three aspects of European political economies: welfare state arrangements, education, and sub-national labour market policies. The arguments put forth rely on comparative aggregate data and surveys in countries representative of ideal types according to the original version of the varieties of capitalism, worlds of welfare, and integration models literature, in particular France, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

In the fall of 1989, two girls were expelled from a junior high school in Creil for refusing to take off their Moslem headscarf in class, marking the beginning of the affaire du foulard. For months, while the rest of the West looked to Berlin and the fall of the wall, French politicians and intellectuals engaged in intense debates. In a secular public school system, could female minors harbor a religious signifier? How could the exercise of religious freedom be reconciled with the neutrality of the public system, known as laicite? Was their expulsion compatible with their right to schooling and the State obligation to educate? The Socialists in power were divided. To put an end to internal struggles and stop the media frenzy, Minister of Education Lionel Jospin decided to refer the question to the Conseil d’etat, the high administrative court. The Council wise men issued a moderate guideline: the veil should be tolerated unless proselytism and other manifestations incompatible with public order in school justified expulsion.

This article examines the relationship between Moroccan migration to France and French policy regarding migrant flows and integration alongside other factors determining individual decisions to come and settle in France. The article recalls that France remains the main destination country in terms of flows and stocks for Moroccans and hosts Moroccans of varied legal statuses, age, gender and occupation. Based on explorative interviews, the article suggests that Moroccans are mainly affected by administrative practices yet most decisions to come were made based on economic calculus and kinship interventions. The article also stresses that Moroccans are feeling the brunt of anti-migrant racism yet this does not deter their will to stay because of their presence of children in France.

The politics of immigration in Britain and France now constitute interesting examples of the scope, reach, potential, and limits of European integration. There is something new here and the European Union (EU) could be largely ignored in what were essentially domestic debates about immigration and its effects on the two societies. The EU’s reach into these issues could be seen as surprising because immigration issues combine symbolic resonance with high levels of political sensitivity. In the words of Stanley Hoffmann (1966), states may well be loath to expose to the supranational method issues such as immigration and immigrant politics that are closely linked to their identities as states. If they were to play this dangerous game of Russian roulette, as Hoffmann put it, they would do so only if the gun was filled with blanks. European integration would thus be more likely to occur when it sustained and fortified state identities rather than undermining and eroding them.

Introduction: Closing the Gap between Political Demands and Policy Outcomes, Actors and Venues in Immigration Control Part 1: Formulating Policy 1. National Models, Policy Types and the Politics of Immigration in Liberal Democracies 2. Contentious Politics of Asylum in Britain and Europe: Public Opinion, the Media and Political Mobilization 3. The Extreme-Right and Immigration Policy-Making: Measuring Direct and Indirect Effects Part 2: Implementing Policy 4. Street-Level Democracy? How Immigration Bureaucrats Manage Public Opposition 5. Excluding Illegal Migrants in The Netherlands: Between National Policies and Local Implementation Part 3: International Policy-Making 6. Shifting Up and Out: The Foreign Policy of European Immigration Control 7. The Myth of Free-Riding: Refugee Protection and Implicit Burden-Sharing 8. Shaping International Migration Policy: The Role of Regional Consultative Processes

Ce commentaire sur l’article de John Roemer et Karine Van der Straeten « Politiques sociales et immigration en France : une analyse des opinions et des comportements électoraux » souligne les apports de l’article en le positionnant par rapport aux études comparées et interdisciplinaires sur ces questions et développe quatre points. Tout d’abord, (1) il est important de ne pas assimiler préjugé raciste et opinions sur l’immigration. Les travaux sur les opinions sur l’immigration s’intéressent aux questions de visibilité de la question, d’information des enquêtés, et aux sentiment d’appartenance à un groupe menacé. (2) Le commentaire souligne le fait que les États-providence se sont développés en supposant l’homogénéité ethnique et depuis les années 1970 les gouvernements européens ont cherché à contrôler les nouveaux flux migratoires. (3) Le commentaire discute de la relation entre « welfare chauvinism » et welfare-bashing » dans l’électorat dit populaire. (4) Enfin, l’auteur traite du lien entre l’opinion de l’électorat, ses effets sur les partis politiques et les réformes de politique publique en matière de politiques redistributives en mettant en avant les variations inter-pays dans ce domaine. This review essay focuses on John Roemer and Karine Van der Straeten’s article “Politiques sociales et immigration en France: une analyse des opinions et des comportements électoraux”. It underlines their contribution to the debate by situating their research in a broader comparative and interdisciplinary perspective and highlighting four points. (1) the need to distinguish the notion of racist prejudice and anti-immigration opinion; (2) the relation between the development of the welfare state and nation-building (3) he relation between welfare chauvinism and welfare bashing among the electorate and (4) the link between public opinion and policy reforms and cross-national variation therein.

This account reviews the state of the literature on migration since the West European Politics special issue on migration was published in 1994. Particular attention is dedicated to the theme of immigration control and the critical question of policy gaps between immigration policy goals and outcomes. Regarding policy gaps, we identify three dimensions of this thesis that are addressed in some form by the contributors to the volume. These include: the disjuncture between public opinion and policy elites at the decision-making and implementation stages; the relationship between principals (states) and agents; and the dynamic between international and domestic arenas of policy-making. Offering a comparative analytical framework to empirically map the variations that exist across countries and policy stages and levels, this essay disaggregates the various components and actors involved in migration policy-making. It suggests that in order to test the gap thesis, a more nuanced empirical analysis of an expanded migration policy field composed of multiple actors and venues is warranted.

When guestworkers and postcolonial migrants came to Europe during the postwar boom, the institutions of the modern welfare-state were mature; they had been conceived in the age of nation-building, creating solidarity between a body of citizens. Starting in the 1970s, the composition of immigrant communities changed, as family reunification took place. Foreigners’ contributions to the welfare-state no longer outweighed the benefits that they received. The question of the inclusion of non-nationals in welfare-states designed before the “age of migration” rose up in the policy agenda after the 1973 oil shock, when governments sought to curtail migration and became preoccupied with welfare-state spending. Socioeconomic restructuring, stagflation, and unemployment created a context in which it was easy to blame immigrants for economic downturns and social problems.

Transatlantic Cooperation after 9/11: “Homeland Security” Issues Transatlantic cooperation in the area of “homeland security” stepped up after 9/11. This article examines how the European Union and its member states responded to US demands in this domain. Three areas of US-EU negotiations are analyzed: the transfer of passenger data (PNR) to US authorities, the Container Security Initiative and the issue of machinereadable passports that include biometric data. In most of these domains, the United States managed to take advantage of institutional, intra-European divisions. Yet, a case can be made that there is also a genuine transatlantic convergence at work – as suggested by a comparative examination of the methods used within the frame of antiterrorism and the fight against illigal immigration.