Immigrant Multiculturalism: A Contested Field in Cross-National Comparison

This paper reviews cross-national research on multicultural policies for immigrants in the main European and Anglo-Saxon immigration countries. It compares the policies themselves, and reviews studies that evaluate their outcomes. The size of immigrant population, as well as its composition in terms of countries of origin, religious composition, and human capital are key to understanding why multiculturalism has more strongly fallen from grace in Europe than in the classical immigration countries. In addition, religious rights are identified as the main source of controversies regarding multicultural rights, which, given the much larger Muslim populations in Europe, is another reason for the more critical evaluation of multicultural policies there. Regarding outcomes, the reviewed studies reveal a mixed picture, with basically no effect on socio-economic integration, some positive effects on political integration, and negative impacts on socio-cultural integration.