Marianne Takle

Immigrant organisations as schools of bureaucracy

This article analyses the way Norwegian authorities facilitate and expect immigrant organisations to serve as schools of democracy – and to what extent there are elements of bureaucratic schooling. Moreover, it examines how immigrant organisations’ adaptation to these expectations can be understood as an adaptation to an administrative culture. The article concludes that adaptation to democratic ideals is emphasised in the political rhetoric, while in practice street-level bureaucrats educate members of immigrant organisations in how to establish and run a formal, hierarchical, rule-based and impersonal organisation in Norway. The emphasis on bureaucratic schooling is especially relevant in a Nordic context, where the voluntary sector functions as a parallel bureaucratic structure to the government administration. Most immigrant organisations formulate written statutes the way the authorities expect of them and in accordance with these statutes they construct their own democratic and bureaucratically structured organisations. By formulating their statutes, the immigrant organisations are socialised into the Norwegian administrative culture.

(Spät)Aussiedler: From Germans to Immigrants

The German legal system has a category (“belonging to the German people”) that regulates the immigration of (Spät)Aussiedlers (“late emigrants”). Since Reunification in 1990 until the present day, there have been a number of legislative changes to this groups “right to return.” This article explores the usefulness of four partly overlapping explanations of these changes and discusses their interrelationship. Although many aspects of the policy were changed for pragmatic reasons (that is, to reduce this kind of immigration), the main category of “belonging to the people” was retained. As such, it may be proposed that legislative amendments occurred within the framework of an ethnocultural understanding of nation.

Cultural Recognition and Democratic Participation: Immigrant Organisations in Oslo

The focus is on public policies on immigrant incorporation and integration in Norwegian society and whether immigrant organisations are imbued with the same norms and arrangements that have historically marked the voluntary sector in Norway. The chapter discerns at least two different theoretical models: one sees immigrant organisations as instruments of national integration, and the aim is assimilationist in the sense that this should serve to reduce the political salience of cultural diversity; the other posits immigrant organisations as elements in a multicultural policy and as important sites of cultural recognition. The main policy template is the Nordic tradition of voluntary organisation whose main justification is democratic: foster participation and political socialisation and training. Reality on the ground is not always aligned with these ideals.

When Policy Meets Practice: A Study of Ethnic Community-Based Organizations for Children and Youth

State-supported ethnic community-based organizations (CBOs) for children and youth develop within the framework of the Norwegian tradition of voluntary organization. This chapter shows that both the government and the ethnic CBOs perceive the organizations as an arena for cultural and social activities among young people who are growing up in migrancy , whether they are immigrant youth or Norwegian-born children of immigrants . The state and the CBOs differ, however, in their perceptions about the purpose of establishing special ethnic community-based organizations for children and youth. Some members of these organizations were born in Norway, but the government places the organizations within a migrancy framework in its financial funding scheme. In line with the Nordic tradition of voluntary organization, the government perceives the cultural and social activities within ethnic CBOs as a stepping-stone to individual democratic participation in the larger society. This policy is ambiguous. In contrast, the ethnic CBOs work to maintain their members’ cultural heritage, and may at times contest the Norwegian understanding of voluntary organizations as a stepping-stone to individual participation in the larger society. The chapter concludes that the CBOs not only maintain the state’s migrancy framework, but also refuse the government’s idea of integration as a process taking place within nation-state boundaries.

Democratic Mobilisation in Immigrant Organisations

Abstract By analysing the interactions between political opportunity structures and immigrant organisations’ mobilising their members to political participation, this article suggests and applies a systematic classification comprising three forms of democratic mobilisation: immigrant organisations function as a public arena for their members; they increase knowledge of political participation among members; and they develop a political culture among members. The article concludes that open political opportunity structures offer scope for action to resourceful activists. These activists see that the local political opportunity structures allow scope for political participation by persons with immigrant background, and use the immigrant organisations as an arena to develop a political culture of political participation. Immigrant organisations can serve as agents of political integration through projects, which aim to mobilise members to political participation.