Manlio Cinalli

Institutional Opportunities, Discursive Opportunities and the Political Participation of Migrants in European Cities

The idea that the political context sets the parameters within which political participation and mobilization occur is quite common among students of social movements and contentious politics (see Eisinger, 1973; Kriesi et al., 1995; McAdam, 1999; Tarrow, 1998; Tilly, 1978). This holds as well for the political activities carried out by migrants’ organizations (Bloemraad, 2006; Vermeulen, 2006). However, previous work has stressed the impact of the institutionalized political system, largely overlooking more cultural and symbolic contextual aspects. In addition, previous work has looked at the role of political opportunities for explaining collective action, focusing much less on how they influence individual participation and behaviour (but see Leighley, 2001; Morales, 2009). This chapter engages with the systematic analysis of a set of ‘opportunity structures’, ranging from institutional opportunities to discursive opportunities, for the political participation of migrants at the individual level. To what extent does the political context influence individual participation? If there is an impact, how can we disentangle the institutional from the discursive aspects of that context? What are the implications in terms of policy-making?

Public discourses about Muslims and Islam in Europe

A consortium of six European research teams based in Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland conducted, between 2009 and 2012, an EU-funded research project titled ‘Finding a Place for Islam in Europe: Cultural Interactions between Muslim Immigrants and Receiving Societies’ (EURISLAM). What has brought together these research teams is the fact that their own countries stand out as the main European states of Muslims’ settlement. The project aimed to advance theory and provide further empirical knowledge on cross-national variations in countries’ approaches to the cultural integration of Muslims, to be then linked to cross-national variation in cultural distance and interaction between Muslims and the receiving society’s population. The need to engage with this core research question has followed from the fact that, in spite of some crucial convergences across their distinct approaches (Garbaye, 2005; Joppke, 2007), national states have different ways to tackle cultural and religious differences (Cinalli and Giugni, 2011; Koopmans et al., 2005; Laurence and Vaisse, 2006). In addition, national idiosyncrasies within Europe have often been considered to be the main obstacle to the emergence of an EU-wide approach to issues relating to ethnic relations and migrants’ integration (Geddes, 2003). The quest to determine cross-national variations in terms of countries’ approaches to cultural and religious differences led us to engage with the more formal aspects of legislation and policy making (Carol et al., 2009). Besides this consideration of formal political arrangements, legislation and policies, however, the research also addressed the more informal understandings that resonate in Ethnicities 13(2) 131–146 ! The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1468796812470897 etn.sagepub.com

Political opportunities, citizenship models and political claim-making over Islam

This article engages with the systematic analysis of two main dimensions of political opportunities—namely institutional opportunities and discursive opportunities—so as to appraise their impact upon claim-making in the field of Islam. We account for cross-national variations of claim-making in terms of (1) visibility of Muslims, (2) use of collective action, and (3) salience of cultural issues in five main European countries of Muslim settlement, that is Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. In addition, we propose a conceptual framework that tackles a crucial conundrum that one finds in the scholarly literature, namely the variable (dis)alignment that may exist between the restrictive/expansionist stance of institutions and policy actors on the one hand and the restrictive/expansionist discursive position that prevails in the public domain on the other hand. Emphasis is also placed on a number of unexpected findings, such as the divergence between Britain and the Netherlands, the not so universalistic approach of French republicanism, and the small steps that Germany has walked towards multiculturalism.

Networks and Political Contention Over Unemployment: A Comparison of Britain, Germany, and Switzerland

In 2006, more than half a million Germans took part in about 500 May Day parades organized throughout their country. Leaders of the main trade unions mobilized mass support against the “reforms” of the Merkel government of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats: the reorganization of the public health system, the raising of the national retirement age, and the extension of the trial period of six months for young employees to two years. The unemployed played a crucial role in this mobilization, as they were the first to challenge the overhaul of the German welfare system, set in progress by the previous Social Democrat government. Since the summer of 2004, the unemployed have engaged in widespread demonstrations, opposing closures of state-run enterprises, provisions for a more flexible labor market, and plans to cut public spending on healthcare and pensions. In Switzerland, by contrast, the unemployed have voiced their claims through more conventional forms of action. In this case, there has been virtually no recourse to public protest, highly symbolic initiatives, and/or direct mobilizations in the streets for challenging national and subnational governments. Policy makers have paid increased attention to the unemployed, at least since the latter won a 1996 referendum on unemployment legislation.

Public deliberation, network analysis and the political integration of Muslims in Britain

Research Highlights and Abstract This article One of the first papers to bring deliberative theory and network theory together. Maps ‘who is talking to whom’ in the field of ethnic relations in Britain. Argues that, while Muslim actors do not necessarily couch their claims in general terms, they are well integrated nevertheless. In this article, we examine the assumption that, insofar as actors deliberate well, political integration will follow. We do so specifically with respect to the political integration of Muslims in the field of ethnic relations in Britain, using data retrieved from two quality British broadsheets. Our approach has two components. First, we consider the quality of the deliberative interventions actors make, comparing Muslim actors with other actors. Second, we use measures drawn from network analysis to assess the level of political integration as indicated by the ties that those deliberative interventions forge. Our findings show that the link between how Muslim actors deliberate and their political integration in the field is more complex that one might assume. Although Muslims do not deliberate as well as normative deliberative theory says they should, empirically they are politically integrated, having forged diverse relationships that avoid the danger of polarisation.

Electoral participation of Muslims in Europe: assessing the impact of institutional and discursive opportunities

ABSTRACT This paper explores the hypothesis that the electoral participation of Muslims varies according to two main types of opportunities, namely, institutional and discursive opportunities (DOs), characterising their country of residence. More specifically, we assess the impact of institutional opportunities (IOs) in terms of civic and cultural dimensions. We then add up the analysis of DOs in their quality of legitimating public debates over Muslims. We conduct our study by relating survey data to standardised contextual indicators of institutional and DOs in four European countries. The results show that both institutional and DOs have an impact, under control of a number of individual characteristics. However, while the civic and cultural dimensions of IOs have an equally important effect, we find that DOs are less crucial for Muslims’ electoral participation. A number of broader implications of these findings are discussed.

Welfare States, Political Opportunities, and Claim Making in the Field of Unemployment Politics

The idea that the political context sets the parameters within which political participation and mobilization occur is quite common among scholars of collective action, but it has found only limited space among scholars dealing with the political activities of the unemployed. In this chapter, we assess the extent to which objects, positions, and forms of political claim making in the field of unemployment depend upon institutional approaches to unemployment. Our point of departure is represented by work on the impact of configurations of citizenship, political opportunities, and claim making in the political field of immigration and ethnic relations (Giugni and Passy 2004, 2006; Koopmans et al. 2005), and, more particularly, on first attempts to apply this latter type of work to the unemployment field (Berclaz and Giugni 2005; Berclaz et al. 2004; Giugni et al. 2009). More precisely, we deal with two main dimensions of the political context. We gathered data from the analysis of a large number of political indicators so as to examine the role of unemployment regulations and that of labor market regulations. Different combinations of these two dimensions are then identified so as to discuss the potential impact of specific institutional configurations of opportunities within the unemployment field. We also focus on more general opportunities relating to the institutional setup of a country when dealing with variations of forms of action, since mobilization in the unemployment field may well respond to more general stimuli that exist beyond this specific field.

Öffentliche Reaktionen auf die große Rezession im europäischen Vergleich

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Reaktionen organisierter kollektiver Akteure im offentlichen Raum im Kontext der 2008 begonnenen Wirtschaftskrise. Er zielt darauf ab, zu zeigen, wie europaische Burger im offentlichen Raum, vermittelt durch die Medien, auf die Wirtschaftskrise reagiert haben – oder zumindest, wie sie mit den daraus entstehenden Themen umgegangen sind. Uns interessieren offentliche Debatten zur grosen Rezession, wobei wir eine breite Definition offentlicher Debatten verwenden, die sowohl eine diskursive Dimension (Sprachakte) als auch eine Verhaltensdimension (kollektive Mobilisierung) abdeckt. Die Untersuchung verwendet einen weiten Blickwinkel, der nicht nur Lander einschliest, die unter der Krise gelitten haben, sondern auch Lander, die zum Teil von ihr verschont geblieben sind. Diese Lander sind Frankreich, Deutschland, Griechenland, Italien, Polen, Spanien, die Schweiz und Grosbritannien.

The Impact of Political Opportunity Structures on the Politicization of Civil Society Organizations in the Field of Unemployment and Precarity

Civil society organizations carry out a number of different actions: they may provide services, such as advisory or counseling activities, to their members or to a larger constituency; invest in educational and awarenessraising activities; organize social and cultural events; raise funds to ensure their survival; and so on. However, they can also engage in political activities. By “politicization”, here, we refer to the variable recourse of organizations to political activities: the more an organization engages in them, the more it becomes politicized. At the same time, political activities can take various forms, ranging from moderate and “hidden” forms, such as lobbying and representing interests, to more radical and disruptive forms, such as protest and direct action. Most crucially for this chapter, the political activities of civil society organizations do not occur in a vacuum; rather, they are likely to be strongly influenced by certain features of the context in which they are active.

How did European Citizens Respond to the Great Recession? A Comparison of Claims Making in Nine European Countries, 2008–2014

This paper examines the political responses of European citizens in the public domain, which is ‘claims making’, in the context of the economic crisis that started in 2008. The goal is to show how citizens in nine European countries have responded to the economic crisis—or at least how they have dealt with issues pertaining to it. We adopt a broad definition of claims making, including both a discursive (speech acts) and a behavioral (collective mobilizations) dimension. We do so using a broad focus that includes not only countries that have suffered greatly during the crisis, but also others that have, in part, been spared from it. Our aim is twofold: first, we want to provide a descriptive analysis of actors, issues, frames and other main characteristics of claims making, so as to consider potential (mis)matching with established scholarly knowledge of European models and institutional approaches. Second, we explain variations in claims making, in terms of both form and content, by means of comparing different political opportunities at work in the nine countries.