Tag: historical

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Call for Papers: Discrimination and Racism in Cross-National Perspective — IMISCOE 2020

Discrimination and Racism in Cross-National Perspective

Panel organised at the 17th IMISCOE Annual Conference Luxembourg

30 June – 2 July 2020

Organizers: Patrick Simon (INED), Didier Ruedin (University of Neuchâtel)

For a long time racism has been studied without references to discrimination and was mainly conceived as a specific expression of prejudice. The turn to more subtle and systemic forms of racism has paved the way to the development of studies in terms of ethnic and racial discrimination. This researche on discrimination against immigrants and their descendants in Europe has grown significantly in the last twenty years, paralleling the settlement of immigrant populations. They document differential treatment and discrimination in different markets (e.g. labour market, housing) and social spheres regulated by principles of equality (e.g. school, health service, police). Patterns of discrimination are embedded in institutional contexts and a larger societal environment, characterised not only by economic uncertainties and increasing political polarisation in public debate around immigrant related issues, but also by increasing diversity and opportunities of contact. Such changes in the context are likely to affect attitudes and ideology diffusion in majority and minority members. However, studies about discrimination do not refer specifically to racism, and the methodological gains in measuring discrimination did not transfer directly to the measurement of racism. How far racism and ethnic and racial discrimination are distinct, and how they relate to each other are key issues we would like to explore in this panel.

This workshop will bring together researchers on discrimination and racism, tackling these issues from various disciplines, theoretical backgrounds and methods. We welcome empirical studies of discrimination patterns across a large variety of domains, theoretical perspectives on how the prevalence of ethnic discrimination and racism should be explained and conceptualised, and studies on the consequences of anti-discrimination policies and legislation, in historical perspective as well as in contemporary contexts. We also welcome papers which use and discuss theories about cross-country differences, ethnic hierarchies, and evolution over time, including studies which compare the historical experiences of discrimination and racism among early European immigrants in the US with more recent immigrant groups on both sides of the Atlantic.

Submit your abstract specifying the research question, data, methods and findings (200 words maximum) at http://neuchatel.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0B2Oxgv352FCI9n no later than 25 November 2019. For further information get in touch with Didier Ruedin (didier.ruedin@unine.ch). The notification of acceptance will be made by 30 November 2019.

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Swiss Immigration and Integration Policies since 1848

mipex1848I’m very excited to announce a new publication outlining Swiss immigration and integration policies since 1848 (yes, that’s 167 years’ worth of data). We use the latest version of the MIPEX questionnaire to trace how immigration and integration policies have developed since the inception of modern Switzerland in 1848. Policies are covered in 7 areas and a total of 148 indicators, with the situation at the national level recorded for every year.

This gives us a more accurate picture of how policies have changed over time than previous efforts, including a limited extension of the MIPEX data to 1995 undertaken as part of the SOM project.

I’m also very happy to announce that the full data are already available, including a detailed description outlining the reasoning and decisions behind the scores.

In the paper we provide a first description of the data: an assessment of Swiss immigration and integration policies at the national level in a systematic and truly historical manner. Three periods of policies are identified; we refer to these as expansive, restricting, and expanding. Indeed, if immigration and integration policies are captured in a broad and multidimensional way, we can see that the highly politicized direct democratic decisions in the past few years have not (yet) had a major impact on Swiss policy. In recent years the expansion of rights seems to have slowed, perhaps stalled, but there is no evidence of overall more restrictive policies.

Ruedin, D., Alberti, C. and D’Amato, G. (2015), Immigration and Integration Policy in Switzerland, 1848 to 2014. Swiss Political Science Review. doi: 10.1111/spsr.12144