The Making of Policies: Immigration and Immigrants in Italy

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explain three paradoxes of Italian immigration policies: 1) the relative continuity of immigration policies regardless of changes in the governing coalition; 2) the fact that policy changes relate more to conceptualisation and policyframing rather than to actual policies; 3) the discrepancy between a general public rhetoric hostile to illegal immigration on the one hand, and public action, which has introduced mass regularisations, on the other. The article is based on empirical research carried out in two stages. The first stage investigated the formation and development of the main systematic immigration reform law (the TurcoÁ/Napolitano Act passed in 1998), while the second analysed the formation and development of the 'reform of the reform' approved by the centre-right government (the BossiÁ/Fini Act passed in 2002). Although the research found a degree of convergence between the immigration policies of the two governments, it also revealed a discrepancy in the decision-making style of the two reforms: the one of the centre-left was based more on bargaining between government and opposition, while for the centre-right it was more the result of a unilateral move; the first was more governmental and open to consultation with civil society, the second was more political and sensitive to public opinion. To investigate variations over time, five main approaches to immigration and immigrants were identified: solidarist, functionalist, legalitarian, multiculturalist and identitarian.

Immigration Policies in Italy: Their Impact on the Lives of First-Generation Moroccan and Egyptian Migrants

“…From Section 2 it can be concluded that over time, Italian governments, regardless of whether they were led by a centreleft or a centre-right coalition, have continuously given great attention to reducing illegal immigration by implementing special measures against it (Zincone 2006a). Although these measures were used more often for electoral and propagandistic purposes (Colombo and Sciortino 2004b;Tursi 2004) than with the concrete aim of reducing illegal entries, they have contributed to make rules for migrants' entry and residence in Italy more restrictive.…”

Acquisition and Loss of Nationality|Volume 2: Country Analyses : Policies and Trends in 15 European Countries

“…It turned down or limited the rights of long term resident immigrants. This explains why till 2006 there has been a considerable degree of continuity in the immigrant and immigration policies introduced to by the centre-left and centre-right, even though accompanied by strong parliamentary conflicts and clashes in public rhetoric (Zincone 2006). In the case of nationality laws the relative continuity is also matched by a lack of formal political confrontation, and consequently public debate on the issue.…”

“…By contrast, similar proposals (local vote for non-EU residents and attenuation of the nationality law) have been put forward during the last centre-right government not only by the Catholic component of the coalition, which has traditionally been in favour of immigrants' rights, but also by Gianfranco Fini, Deputy Premier under the Second Berlusconi Government (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005) and leader of Alleanza Nazionale (the National Alliance), a party reborn from the ashes of the old Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement), which in turn was openly nostalgic for the fascist regime. It is hard to explain the fact that the centre-left cooled towards citizenship rights for immigrants when at last some right-wing leaders took up the cause Abandonment of the reform by the previous centre-left government can be seen as the result of these factors: 1) the relevance of specific actors within the informal decision-making process concerning immigration and immigrant rights, 2) a growing backlash by public opinion towards immigrants, believed to be too numerous, to include too many undocumented people, and to bring too much crime, 3) right-wing opposition which was using migration policies as an instrument of electoral competition, 4) the centre-left fear of losing this competition, which became more acute in the run-up to the regional elections in 2000 and the general elections in 2001 (Zincone 2006).…”

In the Shadow of Bell Towers: The Use of Religious Capital among Christian-Catholic Second Generations in Italy

“…In this sense, some social-insertion environments help to make up an information mosaic, the best possible indicator to describe the lights and shadows of integration into Italian society of those who are not (yet) citizens (Zincone, 2006). As various studies have shown, an immigrant integrates into the arrival society, but the real question is into which part of the society s/he integrates and, above all, how this process varies from one generation to the next: does the passage from first to second generations follow the "downward assimilation" logic described by Portes (1996) and Gans (2009) or does it delineate ascending mobility strategies typical of an immigrant middle class (Perlmann & Waldinger,1997;Winthol de Wenden, 2004).…”