Abstract
The reception of asylum seekers in Italy has become an increasingly contentious issue: many actors, public and private, are involved at various levels of government, and cooperative behaviour cannot be taken for granted. The multi-level governance approach sheds light on the possible patterns in vertical relations, while it does not effectively explore the horizontal relations, which are however crucial, especially at the local level. Moreover, we argue that the definition of multilevel governance as negotiated order among public and non-public actors is too rigid and normative. Local policies of reception are instead a playing field where different actors come together with different interests, values and frames. This paper discusses the implementation of asylum seekers’ reception in Italy, looking at both the multilevel and the horizontal dynamics, and it uses the concept of ‘battleground’ in order better to grasp the complexities of the interaction between actors. The article discloses conflicting and competing frames between different tiers of governance, since municipalities try to resist government imposition related to asylum seekers’ reception in their areas. As for the horizontal dynamics, this paper argues that four possible patterns emerge in the relation between state and state actors: a) closure vs. civil society activism; b) tolerance; c) institutional activism vs. anti-immigrant mobilizations; d) cooperation. Overall, the paper aims at addressing the limits of the MLG approach by means of a conceptual tool (the “battleground”) which yields a more vivid understanding of implementation dynamics.
Highlights
At the end of the 1990s the interplay and intertwining between different levels of political regulation of migration started to be increasingly studied in order to provide better understanding of the migration policy process
The intersection between vertical and horizontal dimensions should be the distinctive feature of this approach (Bache and Flinders, 2004), which entails an exploration of both vertical and horizontal dynamics of migration policymaking in multilevel settings
This article has argued for the convenience of integrating the venue shopping and the MLG approaches with a new perspective in order to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the policies related to asylum seeker reception, in the phase of implementation
Summary
At the end of the 1990s the interplay and intertwining between different levels of political regulation of migration started to be increasingly studied in order to provide better understanding of the migration policy process. An exclusionary frame has emerged at the local level, since mayors and municipalities have resisted the imposition of refugees by national powers upon local communities (Marchetti and Mannocchi 2016) Considering this process through the lens of policy analysis evidences that after a long time of non-decisions, a focusing event (i.e. the so-called ‘refugee crisis’) moved the government out of its emergency routines in coping with asylum seekers’ reception and added a new item to the agenda for action (Peters 2015). In a second phase, when asylum seekers and refugees have settled, exclusionary policies manifested anytime local authorities denied refugees the residence card (certificato di residenza) or anytime municipalities hamper the possibility of receiving it, in Italy migrants who obtain international or humanitarian protection are entitled to welfare provisions on the same conditions as Italian citizens Among the best practices are those of Parma and Bologna, which have implemented domestic hospitality within SPRAR projects
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