How can European societies more effectively promote the active engagement of immigrants and their children in the political and civic life of the countries where they live? This book examines the effect of migrants' individual attributes and resources, their social capital and the political opportunities on their political integration.

Proceedings of a seminar held in November 1997

Comparing differences in migrant political participation, the author discusses the influence that institutions have on opportunities and constraints for migrants' political engagement. The book adopts a multi-country comparative approach, highlighting three areas where institutions influence the scope for migrant actors in Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Germany and the UK: - Strategies adopted by organized migrant interests in response to specific political structures - The role of identity and its relevance in explaining varying political participation - Institutional effects on the relationship between migrant organizations and political parties

The end of socialism posed a historical challenge to European societies. The former socialist Central and East European countries were faced with what has been called a "triple transformation": Mutually dependent changes in the political, economic, and social spheres. At the same time, the old EU member states had to develop strategies to react to these developments and integrate former socialist societies.This post-socialist transformation of Europe coincided with a number of broader trends in the political, economic, and social spheres which are often collectively referred to as globalisation. Success or failure to adapt to these changes creates winners and losers. The focus of this edited volume is on various groups of "losers" and the challenges they face as a result of their marginalisation.This book presents the results of the Changing Europe Summer School on "Justice as a societal and political matter. Equality, social and legal security as conditions for democracy and the market" that took place in Berlin in July 2006. The Summer School brought together more than 30 young scholars from all over the world who work on issues related to Central and Eastern European societies and the enlarged EU.

This unique book offers an empirical assessment of how social and political involvement relates to theories of citizenship and democracy and is a companion volume to Citizenship and Involvement in European Democracies.

There are relatively few books that provide comparative analysis of European cities in relation to immigrants and political participation. This fresh and insightful volume, from the same team that published Multicultural Policies and Modes of Citizenship in European Cities in 2001, analyzes how the presence of immigrants is perceived in politics, how this affects their status and how far minorities are able to (politically) participate in European cities. The comparative studies address the influence of (minority) politics, as well as that of migrant mediators and ethnic organizations on the participation of minorities. There are a variety of case studies from northern and southern Europe, offering insights into countries that differ in their modes of citizenship. The volume will be of specific interest to scholars, researchers and policy makers in migration, citizenship and multiculturalism, as well as a more general audience of sociologists, political sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists and social geographers.

At a time when immigration and ethnic relations issues are hotly disputed across Europe, and challenged by minorities and xenophobes, the explicit aim of this collection is to present substantive cross-national contributions on this new quality of contentious politics. That European countrieshave dealt with the integration of minorities in different ways, often bound up in conceptions of nationhood and citizenship traditions, indicates that research will benefit from more systematic cross-national comparisons. Secondly, the new contentiousness of immigration and ethnic relationspolitics points to a need for more systematic linkages between policy analyses and the public conflicts that are mobilized by xenophobic, minority, and anti-racist movements. Thirdly, although the topics of the extreme right and ethnic minorities have been largely dealt with as distinct fields, agreater cross-thematic conceptualisation is necessary The book divides into four parts. In the first, authors offer conceptual approaches to migration and ethnic relations politics drawing strongly on cross-national observations. Parts two and three are empirical analyses based on a method of systematic cross-national comparison. Whereas theinstitutionalised aspects of immigration and ethnic relations politics are the topic of part two, the third focuses more on the public contentious dimensions. Finally, in light of the important claims that nation-states are no longer the significant framework of reference for politics in aglobalizing world, the contributions to part four address the emergence of the transnational level of political authority and its implications for national and sub-national politics, and challenges by social movements.