The ‘local turn’ in historical perspective: two city case studies in Britain and Germany
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852315592466 |
| Author | Sarah E. Hackett |
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Symposium Articles |
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
2017, Vol. 83(2) 340–357
!The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852315592466
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International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Article
The ‘local turn’ in historical
perspective: two city case
studies in Britain and Germany
Sarah E. Hackett
Bath Spa University, UK
Abstract
This article addresses the ‘local turn’ of migration and integration policies in historical
perspective in Newcastle upon Tyne and Bremen. It draws upon a wide range of govern-
ment documentation and offers a comparative assessment of both cities’ policies from
the 1960s onwards. It discusses the vertical dimension of policymaking though an
exploration of the local governance of migrant integration in relation to the national
level. Although Britain and Germany’s post-war immigration histories and political
structures have often been perceived as contrasting, this article reveals a convergence
in these cities’ governments’ approaches to their own local diverse societies. These case
studies question the long-term impact of overarching national constitutional structures
on city-level migration policies. Findings are framed within the local governance and
multi-level governance MLG debates.
Points for practitioners
European cities are increasingly being recognized for the role they play in devising and
implementing their own migration and integration policies. Yet very little is known
about the relationship between this ‘local turn’ and multi-level governance (MLG).
Practitioners can learn more about cities’ policymaking processes and the extent to
which these have been influenced by national agendas, as well as about how research of
a historical and cross-country and cross-city nature can inform the on-going policy
debate.
Keywords
Bremen, city-level migration and integration policies, history, multi-level governance,
Newcastle upon Tyne, political convergence
Corresponding author:
Sarah E. Hackett, School of Humanities & Cultural Industries, Newton St Loe, Bath Spa University,
BA2 9BN, UK,
Email: s.hackett@bathspa.ac.uk
Introduction
Multi-level governance (MLG) has become a widely used term of late with refer-
ence to democracies across the globe. Taken to mean the negotiation of authority
between governments at various territorial levels, it is often perceived as an effective
way of questioning the role played by central governments, and exposing types of
political contributions and influences that a national approach might fail to notice
(Bache and Flinders, 2004: 203; Gamble, 2004: v). However, despite MLG’s recent
popularity within a European context, it is a concept that is deeply embedded
within a concrete historical framework comprised of an ever-greater decentraliza-
tion that emerged in the years following the Second World War, and culminated in
the creation and development of the European Union (Hooghe and Marks, 2001:
xi; Piattoni, 2010: 5). Yet a corresponding body of academic research did not
emerge in earnest until the 1990s, with Gary Marks’ 1992 paper on structural
policy within the European Community often identified as a useful starting
point. An abundant literature has since developed addressing an array of policy
areas including social cohesion, higher education and the environment (Kearns and
Forrest, 2000; Piattoni, 2010). Nevertheless, there has long existed a marked
absence of inquiry on the topic of migrant policies and especially on the local
level thereof (for a few recent studies, see Joppke and Seidle, 2012; Hepburn and
Zapata-Barrero, 2014).
This article has two key aims. First, it will provide an insight into local-level
migration and integration policies by exposing the ‘local turn’ in two European
cities,
1
Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East of England and Bremen in the
North West of Germany. The traditional academic literature has tended to assess
and analyse immigration and integration policies in Europe from a national per-
spective (Joppke, 1999; Geddes, 2003). While studies addressing migration at a
local level are certainly nothing new (Ireland, 1994), it was not until recent years
that the importance of locality was recognized. Indeed the content and conclusions
of this article hope to go some way towards furthering the notion that cities and
local governments play a critical role in the migration process, as well as building
upon the wider renewed interest in comparative urbanism (Ward, 2008;
Østergaard-Nielsen, 2011). More specifically, they constitute a response to Nina
Glick Schiller and Ays¸eC¸ ag
˘lar’s calls for scholarship to move beyond ‘the ethnic
lens’ and ‘methodological nationalism’, and do more to address the relationship
that exists between migrants and the cities in which they live, thus constructing ‘a
comparative theory of locality in migration studies’ (Glick Schiller and C¸ ag
˘lar,
2009; C¸ ag
˘lar and Glick Schiller, 2011).
In doing so, the case studies of Newcastle and Bremen both support and develop
some of the key theses proposed in the academic literature, such as Michael
Alexander’s (2003) aim to expose the often obscured significance of local-level
policymaking, Rinus Penninx’s (2009) revelation concerning the importance of
locality in putting integration policies into effect, and Nina Glick Schiller’s
(2012) argument that a city’s relationship with its migrants is influenced by its
policies, economy and history. Furthermore, they uncover the ‘local turn’s’
Hackett 341
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