T. Dukes

Towards Social Cohesion: Bridging National Integration Rhetoric and Local Practice: The Case of the Netherlands

Over recent decades, population diversity in the Western world has strongly increased. Cities in particular have over time become more diverse and multicultural. They face the complex challenge of maintaining and strengthening social cohesion among their diverse population, with its plural identities, lifestyles and behaviour. However, in Europe, the current (national) debates on integration, with their monocultural visions and strong emphasis on the risks stemming from ethnic and religious diversity, hamper fostering social cohesion at the level of the city and impede identity-building strategies of groups and individuals. Focusing on the Netherlands as a case study and using the cities of Amsterdam and Rotterdam as examples, this article shows that social cohesion policy would benefit from framing the integration debate differently. Research, performed in these cities, serves as a basis for alternative and more fruitful interpretations of diversity, identity and integration.

The role of local contexts: explaining the policy process of the URBAN programmes in Amsterdam and The Hague

In the second half of the 1990s, European URBAN-I programmes were implemented in the Dutch cities of Amsterdam (Bijlmermeer) and The Hague (Schilderswijk). In both cities, the local authorities held a relatively strong position vis-à-vis other actors involved. At the beginning, the organizational structures of these programmes were rather similar. Whereas the voice of the local authorities remained relatively strong, over time the URBAN policy process in these two cities diverged, resulting in quite different organizational structures. The local institutional contexts and policy frameworks seem to have played a key role in accounting for these differences.