Joanne van der Leun

Mixed Embeddedness: (In)formal Economic Activities and Immigrant Businesses in the Netherlands

Immigrants from non-industrialized countries have become part and parcel of the social fabric of many advanced urban economies, including those in the Netherlands. A significant number of these migrants opt for setting up shop themselves. Lacking access to large financial resources and mostly lacking in educational qualifications, they are funnelled towards the lower end of the opportunity structure of these urban economies. To survive in these cut-throat markets, many migrant entrepreneurs revert to informal economic activities that are strongly dependent on specific social networks - mostly consisting of co-ethnics - to sustain these activities on a more permanent basis. To understand the social position of these migrant entrepreneurs and their chances of upward social mobility, one has to look beyond these co-ethnic networks and focus on their insertion in the wider society in terms of customers, suppliers and various kinds of business organizations. To deal with this latter type of insertion, we propose the use of a more comprehensive concept of mixed embeddedness that aims at incorporating both the co-ethnic social networks as well as the linkages (or lack of linkages) between migrant entrepreneurs and the economic and institutional context of the host society. We illustrate this concept by presenting a case study of Islamic butchers in the Netherlands. Copyright Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1999.

Excluding illegal migrants in The Netherlands: Between national policies and local implementation

National immigration controls are no longer carried out solely by specialised ‘gate-keepers’ at external borders. Internal controls have partly shifted to human service workers who have to fence off public services in practice. Little attention in the field of migration studies has gone to the relationship between formal policies and practices of implementation. Based on interviews with human service workers before and after the enactment of the Linking Act in the Netherlands in 1998, which aimed at excluding illegal or undocumented immigrants from public services, the essay examines the tensions between different levels of policy making. These tensions are particularly visible in an era of ‘shifting down’ immigration controls. At the local level concrete dilemmas come to the fore. Norms and ideologies of professionals sometimes lead them to make decisions that contradict the aim of the official policy. A comparison between different sectors suggests that sectors with a high level of professionalisation are most likely to transform policy goals during the process of implementation.National immigration controls are no longer carried out solely by specialised ‘gate-keepers’ at external borders. Internal controls have partly shifted to human service workers who have to fence off public services in practice. Little attention in the field of migration studies has gone to the relationship between formal policies and practices of implementation. Based on interviews with human service workers before and after the enactment of the Linking Act in the Netherlands in 1998, which aimed at excluding illegal or undocumented immigrants from public services, the essay examines the tensions between different levels of policy making. These tensions are particularly visible in an era of ‘shifting down’ immigration controls. At the local level concrete dilemmas come to the fore. Norms and ideologies of professionals sometimes lead them to make decisions that contradict the aim of the official policy. A comparison between different sectors suggests that sectors with a high level of professionalisation a...

Just for Starters: Commercial Gentrification by Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Amsterdam and Rotterdam Neighbourhoods

Many large European cities are now displaying clear social, ethnic and spatial divisions. These different types of cleavages tend to overlap. Governments try to chase away this spectre of an increasingly divided city by embarking on various policies. These policies generally neglect the (potential) role of immigrant entrepreneurs in improving neighbourhoods. In this contribution, we have focused on the immigrant business start-ups in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Neighbourhoods with high shares of immigrants indeed turn out to show relatively higher rates of immigrant businesses than other neighbourhoods in these two cities. Immigrant entrepreneurs, may, therefore, strengthen the local economy of these neighbourhoods and offer not only specific goods and services but also jobs, nodes of information and role models. Urban policies should, hence, explicitly target their policies to this kind of immigrant-driven process of commercial gentrification by creating cheap commercial properties in these neighbourhoods.

The Fragmentation of Migration and Crime in the Netherlands

International migration processes have drastically changed the face of Dutch society. Following changes in migration patterns, the research on migrants and crime is developing into two distinct lines of research. The postcolonial guest worker migrations from the 1950s and 1960s and subsequent family reunification led to attention to problems of crime among second‐generation youngsters. More recently, asylum migration (peaking in the 1990s) and irregular migration generated problems of crime among first‐generation asylum seekers and immigrants without a residence status. These groups are much more fragmented than the preceding immigrant groups, and their societal position is even more vulnerable. Findings in both fields make clear that research on immigrants and crime should take into account the changing contexts of reception and incorporation. The role of the state has become crucial in understanding some of the patterns found.

Ethnic profiling in the Netherlands? A reflection on expanding preventive powers, ethnic profiling and a changing social and political context

Over the past decades the Netherlands has developed into a culture of control in which criminals and immigrants are mainly seen as ‘dangerous others’. Tying in with this emergence of the culture of control is the development of a more preventive criminal justice system. By means of expanding preventive powers the criminal justice system is more and more aimed at detecting risky (groups of) persons as soon as possible. This so-called actuarial justice is accompanied by a great deal of discretionary power on the hands of those who have to enforce the law, bearing the risk that such powers may be carried out (in part) on the basis of generalisations relating to race, ethnicity, religion or nationality instead of on the basis of individual behaviour and/or objective evidence. The leading assumption in this article is that recent social, political and legal developments have increased the possibility for ethnic profiling in the Netherlands. Being a country of immigration, mostly immigrants tend to fall victim to these practices. Illustrated by the stop and search powers that have been introduced at municipal level in 2002 and in 2006 in the context of counterterrorism, the authors not only aim to provide insight into the complexity of actuarial justice in relation to ethnic profiling in the Netherlands but also aim to fuel the scientific debate on empirically researching ethnic profiling.Over the past decades the Netherlands has developed into a culture of control in which criminals and immigrants are mainly seen as ‘dangerous others’. Tying in with this emergence of the culture of control is the development of a more preventive criminal justice system. By means of expanding preventive powers the criminal justice system is more and more aimed at detecting risky (groups of) persons as soon as possible. This so-called actuarial justice is accompanied by a great deal of discretionary power on the hands of those who have to enforce the law, bearing the risk that such powers may be carried out (in part) on the basis of generalisations relating to race, ethnicity, religion or nationality instead of on the basis of individual behaviour and/or objective evidence. The leading assumption in this article is that recent social, political and legal developments have increased the possibility for ethnic profiling in the Netherlands. Being a country of immigration, mostly immigrants tend to fall victim to these practices. Illustrated by the stop and search powers that have been introduced at municipal level in 2002 and in 2006 in the context of counterterrorism, the authors not only aim to provide insight into the complexity of actuarial justice in relation to ethnic profiling in the Netherlands but also aim to fuel the scientific debate on empirically researching ethnic profiling.

Illegality and Criminality: The Differential Opportunity Structure of Undocumented Immigrants

Over the past ten years, politicians and the media in North America, Western Europe and Japan have become more concerned with the issue of undocumented immigration (Cornelius et al., 1994; Der Spiegel, 1995; Espenshade, 1995; Groenendijk and Bocker, 1995; Meissner et al., 1993; Morita and Sassen 1994). In most ‘advanced’ societies confronted with growing numbers of immigrants, both the public and politicians increasingly believe that the national absorption capacity is insufficient to accommodate all immigrants. People fear that a surplus of immigrants will disrupt the culture, economy and the level of public services of the welfare state. Most Western countries have therefore adopted more restrictive migration policies. Despite this, migration flows are still increasing. The new restrictions place special emphasis on the most feared immigrant, that is, the undocumented or ‘illegal’ immigrant.

Shifting Modus Operandi of Jihadist Foreign Fighters From the Netherlands Between 2000 and 2013: A Crime Script Analysis

This article describes the development of foreign fighters’ preparatory modes of operation between 2000 and 2013, based on an analysis of 17 closed police investigations and 21 semi-structured interviews with police investigators, public prosecutors, and lawyers. Through the use of grounded theory methods and a crime script analysis, we find that the phenomenon is not as new as is often portrayed. It changes over time as changing opportunity structures have an impact on the activities foreign fighters undertake during the preparation phase. We demonstrate how geopolitical changes, social opportunity structures, and technological developments affect the modus operandi over time. One of the implications of our findings is that the dynamic nature of the foreign fighting phenomenon requires flexible and tailored prevention measures.This article describes the development of foreign fighters’ preparatory modes of operation between 2000 and 2013, based on an analysis of 17 closed police investigations and 21 semi-structured interviews with police investigators, public prosecutors, and lawyers. Through the use of grounded theory methods and a crime script analysis, we find that the phenomenon is not as new as is often portrayed. It changes over time as changing opportunity structures have an impact on the activities foreign fighters undertake during the preparation phase. We demonstrate how geopolitical changes, social opportunity structures, and technological developments affect the modus operandi over time. One of the implications of our findings is that the dynamic nature of the foreign fighting phenomenon requires flexible and tailored prevention measures.

Introduction to the Special Issue: Implementing Human Rights: Civil Society and Migration Policies

Immigration issues have gained salience at political agendas of governments and in public discourse in most countries of the global North. Public attention for the presence of immigrants and their offspring has mobilized outspoken moral positions over the last 20 years in Europe and the United States. These positions have translated into increasingly restrictive state-level migration policies (Bonjour, 2011). State policies to control unwanted migration have evolved since about the early to mid-1990s and overwhelmingly have been control oriented. There are no states in the world that do not regulate immigration, as this is a crucial feature of national sovereignty (Opeskin, 2012), and many states have increased restrictions on immigration. Apart from trying to curb the influx of people from other parts of the world in a selective way, governments have increasingly designed internal or post-entry policy measures aimed at protecting the labor market, fencing-off publicly funded social provisions and expelling unwanted persons (Leerkes, Engbersen, & Van der Leun, 2012). At the same time it is obvious that these measures can never by fully effective as they do not influence the powerful underlying forces that drive international migration (Engbersen & Broeders, 2009; Koser, 2005). As a result, irregular migration and irregular residence have become a fact of life across the globe including all EU countries (Triandafyllidou, 2009; Van Meeteren, 2014). In addition to state policies, and to a certain extent in reaction to these, civil society has also responded to the presence and needs of immigrants, including those without residence rights.

Gimme Shelter: Inclusion and Exclusion of Irregular Immigrants in Dutch Civil Society

The present article investigates the role of civil society in internal migration control by looking at the exclusion of irregular immigrants within Dutch society. Based on qualitative fieldwork and an inventory of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and their tasks, we have analyzed the bureaucratic field of service provision to irregular immigrants, which is characterized by constant negotiations at different levels. We can safely conclude that even after years of strong exclusionary rhetoric from the part of the national government, civil society still plays an important supportive role with respect to the shelter of irregular immigrants in need. Yet, this does not imply that every irregular immigrant can easily fall back on organizations within civil society. NGOs have to choose who deserves support and who does not. Their consideration and deliberations to some extent mirror the priorities of the national policy, which stresses the importance of return of irregular immigrants to their country of origin.

The Influence of criminal history on the likelihood of committing lethal versus nonlethal violence

This study focuses on the criminal history of serious violent offenders. Our aim is to determine: (a) to what extent the criminal history of lethally violent offenders differs from nonlethally violent offenders and (b) to what extent one’s criminal history influences the likelihood that violence ends lethally. We use criminal record data of offenders convicted of lethal violence (i.e., homicide offenders, N = 2,049) and offenders convicted of nonlethal violence (i.e., attempted homicide offenders, N = 3,387). The results suggest that nonlethally violent offenders have a more severe criminal history and that offender’s criminal history can be influential in predicting lethal versus nonlethal outcomes.