Immigrant Integration Policy Frames in Italy: A Multilevel Governance Perspective

In the 2000s, a new argumentative turn to the study of integration policy has emerged, looking at models in terms of competing policy frames and trying to elucidate the actors and dynamics that account for their rise and fall in the context of policymaking process. While this emerging literature has so far focused on national-level policy, in this paper we undergo a systematic analysis of policy frames at the intermediate level of regional governments in Italy and we adopt a multilevel governance perspective, aimed at investigating the relations between regional and national level framing processes. In the 2000s the culturalist discourse gained increasing ground at the national level and in 2008 was formalized by the introduction of an Integration Agreement to be signed by the immigrant at the moment of the issuing of the first residence permit. Through a policy frame analysis of the annual integration programs of two politically opposed regions (Emilia-Romagna and Veneto) we assess if and to what extent this new culturalist orientation has been incorporated at a regional level. Our findings suggest that the national level culturalist policy frame account for just a part of the story and is only partly reflected in the two considered regions approaches toward immigrant integration, while far more relevant appear to be horizontal convergence between the two regions triggered by factors such as pressures from local services and NGOs and labor market needs.