The role of educational institutions in the clientization of immigrants: The Swedish case

European nations are multicultural societies. Multiculturalism is more a part of these countries' intellectual debates, however, than part of their policies and practices. The public and governmental sectors of Europe still remain monocultural. Monoculturalism, which entails the cultural hegemony of the ‘white majority’ of European societies over ‘other’ cultural groups, is a part of the systematic reproduction of an established social order. Formal education is an important means of reproduction of the monocultural order. European monoculturalism is based on an ethnocentrism that has a long tradition in the Western worldview and is institutionalized in its political, judicial, educational and bureaucratic systems. Western monoculturalism has become increasingly problematic in the face of growing multiculturalism in Europe and jeopardizes the existing social order. The integration of diverse immigrant groups into the host societies is not compatible with the reproduction of Western cultural hegemony, a hegemony through which the policy of integration is simply reduced to a political goal that limits immigrants' action to that of adjusting themselves to objective norms and rules. Monoculturally educated groups, who are supposed to help immigrants become integrated into such societies, paradoxically construct obstacles to their integration.     

Envisioning European Solidarity between Welfare Ideologies and the European Social Agenda

This article uses the debates of the Working Group ‘Social Europe’ of the European Convention for the Future of the European Union that drafted the Constitutional Treaty to explore the views on the European social model among representatives of the European political class. The debates within the European Convention on basic social values, social objectives, the Union's competences, the open method of coordination, the coordination of social and economic policies as well as the role of social partners provide insight into the emerging visions of European solidarity at the crossroads between welfare regime ideologies and Europeanization. It is argued that, despite an overall consensus regarding a greater future role of the European Union in social policy, the contours of the European social model and the scope of the Union's competences remain contested. However, the observed cleavages are to be found mainly on the left–right political scale, and this suggests that we might gradually be observing a re-politicization of the social policy discourse at European level. Nevertheless, the holding on to arguments of subsidiarity and especially sovereignty represents a barrier to envisioning European solidarity and developing a stronger European social agenda.     

MEDIA FRAMINGS OF THE ISSUE OF TURKISH ACCESSION TO THE EU

Recent empirical research has argued that there is a movement towards a Europeanized public sphere in the European Union. Based on a representative sample from the British, French, Slovenian, Turkish, and US-American press, this article explores via a novel content analytic method that codes frames semi-automatically through keywords, in how far the discourses about the proposed accession of Turkey to the EU approximate a European public sphere. The findings show that discourses do not fulfill basic standards of democratic deliberation: Not only are there vast differences in the intensity of the debates, but the distribution of the main frames that structure the discourse – a "clash of civilizations" between "Islamic Turkey" and "Christian Europe" on the one hand versus a liberal-multiculturalist project that unifies different civilizations under one political roof on the other – are differently distributed across the countries surveyed. The actual manifestations frames vary by country. All frames employed also consider collectivities rather than individuals the major parties of the discourse, a conception that runs against the tenets of rational-democratic deliberations.     

Framing European integration in mediated public spheres: an increasing nationalization and contestation of European issues in party political communication?

This article proposes a claims-making analysis of party political communication over Europe in mediated public spheres in France, Ireland, the UK and Spain between 1993 and 2006. It demonstrates that office-seeking parties and especially the representatives of the executive power generally dominate Europeanized debates. In contrast, peripheral parties and other party actors such as party MPs and extra-parliamentary politicians face significant difficulties in obtaining visibility and resonance for their Europeanized frames. The empirical and longitudinal analysis also shows the prevalence of claims directed towards the EU level and of nationalized debates over Europe. Overall, even though critical engagements with Europe have progressed over time, the domination of mainstream parties and party actors in framing European integration and the pro-European consensus between office-seeking parties nevertheless limit the potential for contestation on European matters.     

Identities in the third space? Solidity,elasticity and resilience amongst young British Pakistani Muslims

Over the last decade the issue of identity has been prevalent in discussions about British Muslims, with the events of 9/11 serving as a touchstone for media debates about religious, national and cultural affiliations. The 7/7 terrorist attacks in the UK led to young British Pakistanis being subjected to intense public and institutional scrutiny and wider political concerns being expressed about the failure of multiculturalism. Young British Pakistanis have thus had to negotiate and maintain their identities in an environment in which they have been defined as a threat to national security whilst simultaneously being pressurized to align with 'core British values'. Within this context, we convey the findings of a qualitative study involving British Pakistanis living in the North-west of England. In presenting the experiences and perspectives of participants, three interconnected processes salient to the maintenance of identity are delineated: solidity, elasticity and resilience. Having unpacked these processes, we draw upon Bhabha's third space thesis to explore the political potentiality of and the limits to hybridic identities.     

Black political mobilisation and the struggle for equality

One of the most interesting aspects of recent debates in Britain about issues of race and ethnicity is that increasing attention is being given to the political dimension. Within both academic and social discourses there is growing awareness that we need to examine the role of politics in shaping public debate about key aspects of contemporary racial relations in British society.     

‘Setting the captive free’: Thomas perronet thompson,british radicalism and the west indies, 1820s–1860s

This article explores the aims and agitation of British radicals who interested themselves in the West Indies during the early and mid nineteenth century. It analyses debates about slavery, race, empire, free trade, sugar and the conduct of those who hold power at home and in the West Indian colonies, using lines of inquiry suggested by the conduct, speeches and writings of Thomas Perronet Thompson, the radical MP and political economist who devoted much of his public career to colonial and particularly West Indian matters. Thompson can be taken to represent a body of opinion that wanted significant changes in the economic and constitutional relationship between Britain and the West Indies, and he was no less committed to a radical reform of the political, economic and social make up of the colonies themselves. Radicals frequently disagreed with each other on the West Indies, however, and Thompson's role in these disputes also reveals a great deal about the context within which the aforementioned debates proceeded.     

Evaluating Migrant Integration: Political Attitudes Across Generations in Europe1

This article engages debates about migrant integration by analyzing political trust and satisfaction in 24 European countries. The evidence suggests that first-generation migrants have the most positive attitudes, while native-origin and second-generation migrant-origin individuals have similar political trust and satisfaction scores. To explain these outcomes, I focus on the importance of subjective integration factors related to the stages of migration. I claim that first-generation migrants, who have gone through the disruptive process of changing countries, will have lower expectations and be more likely to have positive evaluations of the host society. In comparison, native-origin and second-generation migrant-origin individuals have been raised in the same society and are likely to share perspectives toward that society’s political institutions.     

The exclusionary side effects of the civic integration paradigm: boundary processes among youth in Swiss schools

Civic integration policies have become common in many European states and require that immigrants commit to integrating into the host society. This article draws on a study with young people in Swiss schools and investigates how these new political debates around civic integration find resonance in everyday narratives about immigration. The boundary approach is used as a framework to study the daily (re)production of the ‘Swiss–foreigner divide’. It reveals that assimilation into ‘Swiss culture’ (e.g. speak the local language and conform to social norms) remains a criterion defining who can become a legitimate member of Swiss society. Nonetheless, integration deficits are often perceived as the rule and transformed into a stigma so that ‘foreigners’ are frequently not recognised as legitimate members of society. This study indicates how the Swiss youth in this study legitimise and (re)produce exclusion and how this exclusion is embedded within past and current Swiss immigration policies.     

‘Loyal resistance’: N.P. van Wyk Louw (1906–1970) and the intellectual

The article analyses the seminal role played by the poet N.P. van Wyk Louw in defining the intellectual in Afrikaans public discourse. It shows that Van Wyk Louw’s defence of key concepts such as ‘liberal nationalism’ and ‘the open discussion’ in the 1950s was a movement away from his earlier views on Afrikaner nationalism, in which he focused on non‐rational forces. In the contested terrain of debates on Afrikaner nationalism Van Wyk Louw emphasised the need for the intellectual to ground his interventions in the tradition of European political thought, which demanded a respect for justice and an attempt at reconciling nationalism with liberalism. The article finally comments on the relevance of Van Wyk Louw’s contribution to current debates on public intellectual life in South Africa.     

The human right to health: exploring disability,migration and health

Across the globe, an estimated one billion people are on the move today, of whom 244 million are international migrants. Not only have global horizons expanded in the realm of work and study; global conflict and exploitation have resulted in forced migration. Migration is a political issue, which raises questions of identity, citizenship, diversity and integration and is utilised to play upon the fear of the stranger, the ‘Other’ and difference in contemporary society. Disabled migrants are a hidden population whose experiences are often overlooked or subsumed within wider debates around disability and ethnicity. This article considers the intersection of disability and migration in contemporary society through the lens of healthcare access. Reflecting on the impact of citizenship rights on the realisation of human rights in the context of contemporary migration, using health as an example, the article considers the implications for disabled migrants, focusing primarily on the European Union.     

Framing Syrians in Turkey: State Control and No Crisis Discourse

The mass arrival of Syrian refugees and their continuing presence have triggered many new debates regarding migration in Turkey, which – as a result of its open-door policy – now hosts the highest number of refugees in the world. Yet, when we investigate the ways political institutions and actors have framed migration, we observe, unlike in European discourses, the complete absence of the word “crisis”. In public statements by politicians, “control” emerges instead as a recurrent (albeit implicit) theme. Here, management of the refugee issue becomes a sign of state power, exercised through various mechanisms. Through analysis of state discourse on Syrians in the Turkish media, we find that crisis framing has been deliberately avoided, which we contend is a sign of an implicit “silencing” via media control. This choice of discourse reflects a clear policy to manage public reactions to the mass arrival of refugees.     

Public relations role in a global competition “to sell” alternative political and socio-economic models of market economy

This article extends the transitional public relations approach to international public relations research. The arguments are presented that public relations strategies and instruments were and are further on used in that competition to promote, and sometimes impose certain political and socio-economic models of market economy. The main global players, first of the United States, but most recently also China are trying to “sell” their own model not only in the former socialist/communist but also in developing countries. On the other hand, the campaign to promote European social model has just been initiated by the European Parliament.     

Negotiating Emancipation

The idea of the public sphere is integral to the scholarship and practice of Women in Development. Unlike the private sphere, it is constructed as that space in society that provides enabling conditions for women’s emancipation. With the advent of neoliberal development and the consequent re-organization of relationships between individuals, states and markets, traditional views on the public sphere are beginning

to falter. There is a growing need to investigate the usefulness of the notion of the contemporary public sphere for women’s emancipation. This article unpacks the construct of the public sphere: the spaces it refers to, the peculiarity of its ideologies and the constructions of women’s emancipation. It reviews two bodies of scholarship, western feminist political theory and gender critiques of neo-liberal development, and

examines the recent theoretical debates on women’s political identity within the public sphere. The article highlights that emancipation of women (their political identities) in the time of neo-liberalism is a complex interplay of gender constructions within and between states, markets and civil societies.     

Children and the ‘Social Cohesion’ Agenda in Sport: Children's Participation in ‘Ethnically Mixed’ Sports Teams in the North of England

This study is set in the North of England in the context of debates around the integration of communities, after a series of street disturbances in the early 2000s. The debates centred upon ‘social cohesion’ and the social mixing of Pakistani British and White British communities. The current study explores this from the context of 10‐ to 11‐year‐old Asian, Black and White British boys participating in cricket and football clubs. It draws on the sociology of childhood approach that sees children as active participants and co‐creators of their own lives. This more nuanced approach sheds important light on children's own negotiations of home, peers, sports clubs and identities that are key to how cohesion is achieved.     

Does more knowledge about the European Union lead to a stronger European identity? A comparative analysis among adolescents in 21 European member states

Strengthening European identity is often considered as one of the mechanisms to address the perceived lack of legitimacy of the European Union (EU). In this study we test the explanatory power of cognitive mobilization for the development of European identity (more knowledge about the EU leads to a stronger European identity) and we challenge this model by the inclusion of both an economic utilitarian explanation for European identity (benefiting more from EU integration leads to a stronger European identity) and a political trust approach (having more political trust leads to a stronger European identity). The multilevel regression analysis on the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2009 data, which is collected among adolescents in 21 member states, shows that knowledge about the EU has a significant but limited effect on European identity. Personal economic benefits because of EU membership and having trust in national political institutions, in contrast, are more important determinants for the development of European identity.     

The European Democratic Deficit,the Market and the Public Space: A Classical Liberal Critique

This article argues that attempts to utilize a Habermasian conception of the public space as a remedy for the democratic deficit deemed to be inherent within the political institutions of the European Union (EU) are unlikely to prove successful. It is argued that the instrumental goal demanded of the public space is contrary to the communicative rationality intrinsic to the Habermasian model. Moreover, the Habermasian conception of the public space as an arena independent of both the market and the state is non-operational because a public space independent of the market is inconceivable. An alternative conceptualization of the public space, focusing on the role of the market as a communicative process, and an alternative remedy for the European democratic deficit, focusing on liberal representative democracy, are proposed.     

Transnationalisation,Public Communication and Active Citizenship. The Emergence of a Fragmented and Fluid European Public Sphere

This paper is focused on the emergence of the European public sphere debate. This discussion has become more and more prominent between scholars of European Studies who have given it both normative and empirical attention. This is due to a variety of reasons, but in particular the increase in research about the legitimacy of European integration, which has been the subject of a wide debate since at least the beginning of the 1990s. Firstly, the article critically assesses the normative arguments that have supported the development of the European public sphere, by focusing on the social, political and cultural dimensions of European integration. After having assessed this debate and underlined current challenges emerged in light of recent events (such as the euro‐crisis, the rise of euroscepticism and the rise in far right movements), the article then introduces the empirical research on the europeanisation of the public sphere, by looking at the development of an agenda that has more and more concentrated on the fragmentation and fluidity of such construct. This discussion is key to introduce the final part of the article, which focuses on the role of civil society in the broader European constituency and in the public sphere. The article highlights some of the ambiguities inherent to the current research agenda, by calling for a more comprehensive approach to study active citizenship in Europe that departs from a consideration of the NGOs activists as the main locus of analysis.     

Sources of Negative Attitudes toward Immigrants in Europe: A Multi-Level Analysis1

In recent times, many nations are experiencing an increase in anti-immigrant attitudes on the part of natives. Most papers only explore one or two sources of anti-immigrant attitudes at a time, which provides an incomplete picture of the effects at work. This paper tests eight different explanations for anti-immigrant attitudes: cultural marginality theory, human capital theory, political affiliation, societal integration, neighborhood safety, contact theory, foreign investment, and economic competition. Analysis is conducted using combined data from the European Social Survey and Eurostat/OECD and individual-, regional-, and national-level predictors. Results indicate that key predictors of anti-immigrant attitudes are regional and national interpersonal trust, education level, foreign direct investment, and political variables.     

Conceptualizing the Space of a Journal’s Pages: Dostoevsky as Editor of Time

This research focuses on the interpretative dimension of European Union (EU) integration and on its role in post-communist democratization. It offers an understanding of the significance of taking part in political life. This significance takes shape under specific circumstances, which are part of the asymmetrical power relations with the EU. My findings are based on field trips in two post-communist countries that are situated at different stages of the EU integration process: Bulgaria, which became an EU member in 2007, and Macedonia, which is a candidate country. Methodologically, I use qualitative methods that triangulate findings into converging cultural trajectories. I conclude that EU integration, as a phenomenon within the world of meaning, acts simultaneously as a boost to and an inhibitor of democratic political culture. People create different subcultures where different interpretations of the EU integration process lead to dissimilar effects. Discursive communities of people representing these different subcultures may also produce dissimilar effects on the national level.