The Integration of Ethnic Minorities into Political Culture: The Netherlands, Germany and Great Britain Compared

Autor: Ruud Koopmans, Thom Duyvené de Wit
Rok vydání: 2005
Předmět:
Zdroj: Acta Politica. 40:50-73
ISSN: 1741-1416
0001-6810
DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.ap.5500096
Popis: This article investigates the political–cultural integration of ethnic minorities in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom. We propose to build on the recent social movement literature that stresses institutional and discursive opportunities and constraints that challenger groups face in attempting to realize social change. The opportunity structure with regard to the political–cultural integration of ethnic minorities is determined by the definitions of national identity and citizenship in the countries under investigation. After a detailed description of both the individual (i.e. access to individual citizenship rights) and collective (i.e. group rights and obligations tied to the national concept of citizenship) dimensions of citizenship in each of the three countries, we conclude that the Dutch and British integration regimes can best be defined as individually civic and collectively pluralist while the German regime most resembles the individually ethnic and collectively monist model. We then proceed to establish the effect of this difference on the political claims by ethnic minorities by employing the method of political claims analysis. Our findings support the expectations that the Dutch and British models of citizenship render ethnic minorities' political claims more publicly visible, moderate their action repertoire and stimulate a focus on the politics of the country of settlement more than the German model. Furthermore, the identity of the claimants reflects the integration policies in all three countries. However, further investigation into the different nature of multicultural policies in the Netherlands and Britain suggests that there is a limit to the beneficial effects of cultural pluralism.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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