Governing diversity: Dutch political parties' preferences on the role of the state in civic integration policies

This article analyses political debates about civic integration policies in the Netherlands, so as to identify different conceptions of the role of the state in ensuring social cohesion by governing diversity. Drawing on the literature on party systems, it presents an analysis of political party positions on the role of the state in civic integration along two dimensions: economic distribution on the one hand, and sociocultural governance on the other hand. I find that while the large majority of Dutch political parties adopt authoritarian positions on the sociocultural axis in favour of state intervention to protect Dutch culture and identity, their positions diverge significantly on the classic economic Left-Right dimension. The most contentious issue in Dutch civic integration politics is whether the state, the market or individual migrants should be responsible for financing and organising courses. Thus, this article proposes an innovative model for analysing the politics of citizenship, which enables us to comprehend how citizenship policies are shaped not only by views on how identity and culture relate to social cohesion, but also by diverging perspectives on socio-economic justice.Cities, Migration and Global Interdependenc

The nation and the family: the impact of national identification and perceived importance of family values on homophobic attitudes in Lithuania and Scotland

The meanings attached to the nation can be consequential for group members’ attitudes and beliefs. We examined how national identity definition can influence the extent of individuals’ homophobia with 159 Lithuanian and 176 Scottish university students who completed a questionnaire which measured their national identification, homophobia, and the extent to which they felt traditional family values were central to their nation’s identity. Consistent with nation-wide differences in the significance given to the family, Lithuanian participants perceived family values to be more important for their national identity and expressed higher levels of homophobia than did Scottish participants. Moreover, the relationship between level of national identification and homophobia was stronger in Lithuania than in Scotland. Analyses revealed that the perceived importance of family values helped explain the difference between homophobia levels in Lithuania and Scotland. In both sites we found an indirect effect of national identification on homophobia via the perceived importance of family values, but this effect was significantly stronger for Lithuanian participants. These findings illustrate the ways in which identification with the nation is relevant to attitudes concerning sexuality, and how this varies according to national context. Our work indicates that LGBT rights campaigns should be informed by the knowledge that homophobia may be perpetuated by national valorisation of the family

Gewone mensen : Populisme en het discours van verdringing in Amsterdam Nieuw West

The social analysis of European populism lacks ethnographic attention to agency and to the symbolic meaning of populist constructions in people’s everyday lives. This paper offers an ethnographic analysis, starting with an understanding of populism as a perspective on the world: frames or schemas for perceiving, interpreting and classifying society. The paper focuses on the perspectives of ‘autochthonous’ (native, white) residents in a socially and ethnically mixed neighbourhood in Amsterdam New West. I show how plans for the demolition and restructuring of the neighbourhood opened up the symbolic space for the articulation of a discourse of displacement in which people construed and articulated a ‘self-understanding’ in antagonistic relations with ‘others’: elites and sometimes (post)migrants. The analysis of this local discourse of displacement offers insight into the crisis of representation and voice in a postfordist society, and therefore into the deeper structures of Dutch populism