FIERI
Forum Internazionale ed Europeo di Ricerche
sull'Immigrazione
International and European Forum of Migration
Research
The immigration policy process in
Italy:
an integrated scheme of interpretation
by
Giovanna Zincone
Università di
Torino
(zincone@cisi.unito.it)
and
Luigi Di Gregorio
Università di
Firenze
(ldigregorio@luiss.it)
Workshop Immigration Policies: between centre and peripheries,
nation states and the EU (Convenors: Stephen
Castles & Giovanna Zincone)
ECPR Joint Sessions, Turin, 22-27 March 2002
Abstract
This
essay examines the informal decision-making processes that determine the
content of immigration policies, taking into consideration the case of Italy.
We have combined two approaches, the systems analysis framework (input,
conversion, output, outcome, feedback), and the advocacy coalitions framework,
to observe the various phases and to understand which actors are involved in
them. The research demonstrated that weight of the actors involved might vary according
to the decision-making phase considered. The actors’ weight varies over
time and with the change in the political context. However, crucial actors
influence the decision making process beside the change in the political
context, included changes in governmental majority. This explains why even
though centre-right and centre-left public rhetoric and electoral manifestos
can be deeply different, the content of immigration policies is far less
different.
To survey the variations by the
time, the convergence and divergence between centre right and centre left
coalitions four positions were singled out: solidarist, utilitarian,
legalitarian-repressive, identitarian
The
empirical research concerned the formation of law no.40 of 6 March 1998, then
integrated into Testo Unico [hereon T.U. – consolidated, single
act] no. 286 of 25 July 1998, and the later measures of
application and modifications, during the centre-left governments. But it also
tried to apply the model to the reforms presented by the new centre-right
government in the law no. 189 of 2002, even though this period was not covered
by the empirical research. The empirical research was conducted through a
series of semi-structured in-depth interviews, with key actors and observers.
1.
The
policy process
By policy process we mean the process that includes the
initiative, formulation/adoption, application and implementation and the
evaluation of results for the purpose of correcting a public policy[1].
We used two
theories of the political process, both “antiformalist”. One
classic and well tested, even if widely held to be outdated, a second newer one
and much used in recent research and analysis. The first approach to which we
refer is systems analysis (which provides the scheme through which observation
is organised, because it allows us to identify the phases of the
decision-making process on immigration), the second is that of the policy
network, with particular
reference to the advocacy coalition framework (which we use to understand who counts in each phase).
The first
approach was created and developed as a post-behaviourist reaction, and has
produced different models, from which we chose the one formulated by David
Easton, and which has been the most successful from the theoretical point of view[2].
The model envisages interdependency between different systems, i.e. between
different sub-sets of relations between both individual and collective units.
One of the systems identified is the political system. The framework of the
political system includes all the others (social, economic, international and
so on) and it emits all the stimuli (divided into demands and supports),
defined as inputs[3]. These stimuli or inputs must be processed
and converted into responses by the political system (outputs), i.e. measures whose purpose is to
satisfy the demands from the
environment and thus to keep the system as a whole in relative equilibrium. The
performance of the outputs, is defined as the outcome. A feedback process provides information on the mistakes made
and makes it possible to correct
them and to restart the process, which thus appears as a circular mechanism. A
simplified model of the political process is given in figure 1[4].
Fig.1 Simplified model of
the mechanism of the political system.
Demands
Input
POLITICAL
Decisions
Output
SYSTEM
and actions
Supports
Feedback
The second approach that we use is that of
the advocacy coalition.
This is a version of the broader policy network theory, an equally successful approach that was
created and spread after the period of systems analysis[5], and is still alive today.
The advocacy coalition that supports a certain line of political action in a given
field is composed of “people from a variety of positions (elected and
agency officials, interest group leaders, researchers) who 1) share a
particular belief system – i.e., a set of basic values, causal
assumptions, and problem perceptions - and who 2) show a non-trivial degree of
co-ordinated activity over time”[6].
Compared to the set of actors that may make up an advocacy coalition –
according to the definition given by Sabatier – it is worth adding third
sector associations and organisations. The theoretical model envisages that
various groups interested in a policy change form sets, groups (usually from
one to four), made up of a number of members who play even very different
roles, but share the interest for a given reform, the same belief system and
act in a co-ordinated and continuous manner for a given period of time. An
important assumption of this specific version of the policy network thus includes the possibility of competing
or adversary networks, i.e. ones that support different lines of action on the
same issue.
The
different coalitions confront each other over the same issue, each aiming to
obtain the political change desired. Between the competing coalitions, we find
the policy brokers, i.e.
actors who try to mediate between the expectations, demands and pressures from
one or more sides. Politicians may either represent a
specific advocacy, or act as brokers. And government action may also swing between these two
roles.
Our
research found that only one advocacy coalition that respects the
characteristics outlined by Sabatier exists on immigration in Italy. However,
there are other constellations of actors, of varying degrees of informality,
capable of aggregating different actors and of putting pressure on the
decision-making process.
The
four positions variously expressed by the advocacy coalition and the
constellations of actors can be described in the following way:
1.
solidarist: aims at increasing
immigrants’ rights both in number and quality; it wants to protect
specially the weakest elements (undocumented immigrants, minors, women victims
of the people trade); however, it risks provoking a reaction of rejection by
citizens;
2.
functionalist: aims mainly at regulating
influxes on the basis of domestic labour demand and may also try to avoid the
rooting of immigrants in the host country; it is reassuring in terms of the
possible crises of rejection from the “nationals” but risks
legitimising rejection politically, and thus fostering perceptions of social
exclusion by the immigrants;
3.
legalitarian : aims at repressing
illegality and especially immigrant crime; it is a component necessary to avoid
internal rejection but may become dangerous when it puts
undocumented immigrants or people who overstay after the residence
permit has expired on the same level as criminals, especially as in Italy
almost all the present legal immigrants used to be once illegal. In addition,
excessive emphasis on the legal aspect can present immigration as mainly a
public order problem;
4.
identitarian : it aims at encouraging the
entry of the most similar immigrants, both in national terms (foreigners of
Italian origin) and cultural (Catholic foreigners); this should not be confused
with the assimilationist attitude based on civic-republican values à
la française; it is a very hazardous approach
because it presupposes citizenship based on lineage and religion that cannot
correspond to reality, neither match with basic democratic principles.
Particularly risky if combined with xenophobic attitudes.
The systems
analysis and the advocacy coalition frameworks thus represent the keys of interpretation adopted in
this article to focalize the different positions concerning the immigration
phenomenon. The first approach serves to ‘guide’ the reconstruction
of immigration policies phase by phase; the second one to identify the crucial
actors and the subject of their pressure in the various phases. As regards the
system analysis, we will try to demonstrate that the supporting coalitions do
not act simply as aggregators of interests in the input phase and as
gatekeepers in the
passage of the inputs from the environment to the political system. Indeed,
integration that limited itself to introducing into Easton’s model
coalitions of individuals or mixed actors would in any case remain anchored to
an input-based tradition, which has always characterised the analysis of the
policy production process. In our thesis, the advocacy coalition acts instead in all
the phases. It is a sort of de facto
legislator.
It
seems to us that precisely this is the most interesting result of our empirical
investigation: the combination of the two approaches did not serve only to
record more precisely the stimuli, the quantity and type of pressure at the
start of the decision-making process, but also suggested means to survey the entire process better. The
decision-making process thus appears as a continuous creative process of
formulation and adjustment, more complicated and complex than had hereto been
assumed. By integrating the two approaches, we have thus attempted to take advantage
of the descriptive clarity of the systems model and the greater realism of the
advocacy coalition framework. In addition, to maximise the
‘realism’ of the latter approach, we adapted it in some ways. The
contents of decisions are influenced not only by one or more advocacy
coalitions, i.e. by
integrated groups of actors, accustomed to collaborating and working together
to exert pressure, but also and often by sets of actors, by their very nature
different from each other, perhaps ideologically distant, and not used to
collaborating, but whose action ended up converging. In the case of disparate
and not knowingly allied agents, it seems useful to introduce a different and
new concept and to talk of a constellation of actors, rather than an advocacy coalition. For actors by their very nature
‘disparate’, it is sufficient to consider public opinion, which
makes its voice heard through opinion polls, or the electorate, which
communicates at least in part its discontent during election campaigns, or
meting out punishment in the polling booths. These actors can certainly not be
put on a par with an advocacy coalition or a lobby, but can contribute to guiding decisions
together with them. One example of ‘casual’ convergence is, for
example, the interest that unites the business world and Catholic associations
on the question of increasing immigrant influxes. We have also hypothesised a variation in the composition and
weight of the constellations in the various phases of the decision-making
process[7].
We shall
begin our analysis by identifying and describing the mechanisms, actions and
decisions that characterised the input phase, in other words that of the
identification of the problems that demanded a reform of immigration policies
at time to, their inclusion in the political agenda
and the pressure to obtain new regulations to discipline the phenomenon. The
next stage is then the outlining of the characteristics of the phase of
development and conversion, that is defined by the systems analysts as the black
box, because often they do
not deal with it, but which in our scheme plays the role of a sort of
‘control centre’ – these are the places where the actors that
formulated the 1998 law acted. Our empirical research ignored in part the phase
of implementation and feedback because this phase involves a large number of
peripheral actors, which limited research like ours could not take into
consideration. Nevertheless, we observed how, absorbing stimuli above all from
the periphery, the law was ‘corrected’ at the centre during the
introduction of implementation regulations, through amendment decrees and,
then, above all, through ministerial circulars, a decision-making tool that
political scientists too often fail to observe. We will consider this complex
and continuous review process only in part, but we note it for future research.
The time span observed in the empirical
research excludes the modifications made by the centre-right government led by
Berlusconi, and does not take into account the actors, advocacy coalitions and
constellations of interests that induced them. However, we shall make some hypotheses, to explain the
mixture of change and continuity in the “reform of the reform” made
by the Casa delle Libertà centre-right coalition.
2. The
initiative phase: input
An approach
in terms of systems and phases showed itself useful from the outset because it
highlights the importance of the previous ‘decision-making cycle’
of the feedback from decisions at time t –1.
In
our interviewees’ opinion[8],
one significant factor in the input phase was indeed the failure of the
previous regulations, both in terms of poor control of illegal entry and in
terms of the failure to integrate legal immigrants; this is therefore an input
deriving from negative feedback from previous outcomes. A second reason often
mentioned is represented by the international obligations linked to the
Schengen agreement and to pressure from European partners[9].
We are thus faced with another typical systems analysis element: the
international ambience. Even the pressure from some politicians and a tiny
section of the public administration could be read in terms of system analysis,
i.e. as withinputs inside the political class itself. But pressures came largely from outside, form a network of actors
which appears as an advocacy coalition, composed above all of Catholic and
non-religious associations, including some trade union sectors. We will now
analyse the inputs found one by one.
The
regulatory structure previous to law no. 40/98 (known as the 'Turco-Napolitano'
law) – including law 39/90, the so-called ‘Martelli’ law
– was not held to be capable of
adequately disciplining the phenomenon in terms of integration[10].
This structure was, in fact, a series of “buffer laws”, partial
regulations that reflected both an ‘emergency’ attitude, that
tackled immigration each time as an emergency, and a
‘functionalist’ attitude, that considered immigrants only as work
force useful to the national economy, ignoring the problem of social and
cultural integration. The failure of the previous legislation also appeared
equally clearly in its ‘filter’ mechanisms, i.e. in the management
of influxes and in the control of the respect of legality at the borders
(rejection) and inside the country (expulsions). The Martelli law in fact
included the possibility of notifying expulsion but did not make it possible to
hold immigrants on remand, giving them the chance to disappear[11].
The shortcomings of this structure, which made it impossible to control illegal
immigration, was corrected by a series of regularisation measures – see
tab. 2 – whose unexpected consequence was to attract new illegal
immigrants, trusting that there would be new amnesties in the future, or with
the intention of procuring fake proof in order to take advantage of the amnesty
underway[12].
Tab. 2.
The five amnesties between 1980 and 1999
|
Planning
measure |
Definitive measure |
Term of entry |
Foreign applicants |
Applications accepted |
|
Circ.
Min. Lavoro 17/12/79, 8/3/80, 2/3/82, 9/9/82 |
- |
31/12/1980 |
5,000 |
5,000 |
|
L. 943/1986 |
L. 81/1988 |
31/12/1986 |
118,349 |
118,349 |
|
D. L. 416/1989 |
L. 39/1990 |
31/12/1989 |
234,841 |
217,700 |
|
D. L. 19/1995 |
L. 617/1996 |
19/11/1995 |
258,761 |
147,900 |
|
D.
P. C. M. 16/10/1998 |
D.
lgs. 113/1999 |
27/03/1998 |
250,747 |
214,421 (at 31 December 2000) |
Sources: Immigrazione.
Dossier statistico 2000, Caritas di Roma, Edizioni Anterem, 2000, p. 160, updated by us.
These
evident shortcomings led to a first attempt at comprehensive reform that begun
in 1993, through the creation of a commission[13]
(Commissione Contri), during the Ciampi government. The commission, which was
made up chiefly of representatives of the main ministries involved in
immigration policies and of academic experts, managed to rapidly produce a very
detailed and comprehensive draft law[14].
However, some of our interviewees[15]
considered it too complicated and not very feasible in practice, as in some
ways it went against the current of the healthy tendency towards reduction in
legislation and regulatory and administrative simplification in Italy in recent
years. Nonetheless, this proposal represented the regulatory basis for the bill
that led to law no. 40 of 1998[16].
Added to the
shortcomings already highlighted from within the Italian political system,
failings were noted more or less simultaneously from outside it, related to the
need to respect the border controls demanded by the Schengen Treaty. In
addition to factors external to the Italian political system, of an
institutional nature – i.e. linked to Italian membership of the EU and
the desire to join the Schengen area – note must also be taken of non
institutional international factors, such as the wars in the Balkans, and more
in general the difficult political and social situation of that area[17].
Already in the eighties, the closure of the borders to legal immigration for
employment purposes by some other European countries, such as France and
Germany, together with the continuing demographic and work force imbalances in
the Mediterranean basin, had accelerated the migratory trend towards Italy and
the countries of southern Europe in general. However, the instability of
Eastern Europe was doomed to make it another prominent source of immigration to
Italy.
In the
initiative and start-up phase, therefore, the crucial constraint posed by the
Schengen agreement and the pressure of European partners on the government to
proceed with a general review of regulations concerning foreigners, and
relatively rapidly, counted considerably. There is no doubt, in fact, that
Italy’s international image, as ‘Europe’s porous
frontier’ was a notable incentive for public decision-makers to act
swiftly on the question. Some of
our interviewees[18] think that
this was the decisive factor in the Italian government’s decision to put
forward a new law and, above all, to do so rapidly and taking into account the
demands from other member states of the European Union[19].
It should also be noted that, according to some of
our interviewed[20], the
pressure from European partners was very strong, not only on the timing of its
approval, but also as far as its substance was concerned: the law was to end up giving too high
priority to the Schengen measures and little attention to what is laid down in
the Italian constitution, according to one of our interviewed. In contrast,
there is also one who said that, as far as the content is concerned, no
attention was paid to the European requests[21].
These are differences of opinion evidently dictated by differing political
positions on the issue of the treatment of illegal and clandestine immigration. The large majority agrees on the relevance and the
positive influence of the EU pressure.
Finally, let us now
examine the third input, and recall the classification of the pressures exerted
in policy making and the consequent measures on immigration: solidarist,
functionalist, legalitarian and identitarian.
In the input
phase, there was a cross-party political will, i.e. also shared by the
opposition, to discipline the phenomenon and to introduce effective
‘repressive’ instruments to stop clandestine immigration[22].
However, still in this phase, if we shift from the side of
‘repression’ to that of integration and ‘solidarity’,
the significant and predominant role played by the only real advocacy coalition
at the national level on the issue of immigration emerges: the network of
religious, largely Catholic, but also lay associations[23],
the key player in demanding regulations that facilitate immigrants’
living conditions. An important boost from non-religious organisations came,
from the trade unions[24];
little pressure was felt from business, almost none from the Regions and local
authorities[25], and little
from either the national or the local public administration[26],
prone to inertia, maintenance of the status quo, despite the growing inability
to govern the phenomenon. In relation to this tendency towards inertia, there
is however an exception in the Department of Social Affairs, which promoted and
supported the need for reform. As we will see better later, the public
administration did instead take an active part in the phase of conversion, i.e.
in the formulation and adoption of decisions, also playing a creative role[27].
In the way
in which they treated the matter as an emergency, with a sometimes dramatic
emphasis on the growth of immigration and excessive confusion between lack of
documents, clandestine immigration and deviancy, the media contributed, even if
indirectly, to the initiative phase, giving visibility to the problem (although
too often with an overly negative interpretation), alerting and mobilising
public opinion on the greater need to govern influxes and, consequently, the
part of the political class most receptive to the mood of the electorate.
The action
of alarming public opinion was to reveal itself more influential later, at the time of implementation and review of the law.
3.
The
phase of formulation-adoption: the conversion and production of the output
Once
attention had been attracted and once the need for reform and its main lines
had emerged, the phase of formulation of the proposal began. In contrast to
what had happened with the Contri project and commission, in which external
experts had had a significant role, ministry officials played the leading role
in the final stage of drawing up the draft law – which then became the
basis of the 1998 law (A.C.- Act of the Chamber of Deputies - 3240), in the
Turco commission. This closure of the ministries to the outside world,
including the powerful advocacy coalition, could[28]
be interpreted as a further sign of the government’s desire to have the
law passed very rapidly, almost imposing it, so as not to disappoint its
European partners, who were rather sceptical about the ‘filtering’
capacity and reliability of Italy[29].
Some of the experts resented being excluded, but some of the experts, excluded
from the initial drafting phase, were then heard in the proposals for
amendments to the bill, and some of these amendments were then accepted[30].
The
1998 law is a cornerstone of the policy in question, as it often fixes ‘who
does what, how and when’ in the later phase of implementation and in the
event of amendments. The fact that a limited group of actors decided its
contents would seem to contrast with the breadth and ambition of the law
itself. This is why one of our interviewees spoke of the ‘legislators’
hypocrisy’[31], of not
having ‘their fingers on the pulse of the situation’[32].
This is a typical case in which, going back to Buchanan’s distinction, in
order to reduce the ‘internal costs’ of the decision, the delays
and conflicts to be faced involving too many actors, the ‘external
risks’ of rejection were increased. In this specific case, however,
further involvement of the voluntary associations would probably have created
greater imbalance towards the position of solidarity and, thus, moving further
away from public opinion. And so external costs would have been even higher,
despite the extension of the range of participating actors. This choice depends
on the divergence between the demands made by the associations and those
emerging by public opinion. The former lead to positions of solidarity, while a
fair part of Italian citizens started to be characterised by increasingly
functionalist and legalitarian attitudes, even if not identitarian. At least in
the period that we observed, i.e. before the destruction of the Twin Towers,
Italians showed little concern in giving priority to foreigner of Italian
origin and even less to people coming from Catholic countries. After September
11th, even the identitarian propensity became slightly stronger. It is clear,
therefore, that further aperture of decision makers in favour of the
associations would have reduced the risks of discontent in the immigrant
minority and in the “left of the left”, but would have increased
those in the much more numerous and decisive Italian public.
One further
aspect that should be underlined in the drafting of the bill concerns the
limited policy learning produced
by policy transfer, in
other words by the contacts with and observation of the experience of other
European countries. The limited role of technical specialists led to little
importance being given to comparisons[33],
to European trends and
moods on the question of immigrants’ rights. There was no actual exchange
of information between top Italian ministry officials and those of the rest of
Europe. With the obvious exception of border controls and thus of trafficking
in immigrants, immigration is still seen as a domestic question. Among other
things, there is little consideration for and understanding of the gradual
European centralisation of regulations[34].
In
Parliament, the progress of the bill was troubled, even though a negotiated
solution was sought over the substance of the law. The attitude in the chamber
was, as always, one of conflict, but less antagonistic in the Constitutional
Affairs Commission[35]
of the Chamber of Deputies, which examined the bill and even less in the select
committee with the greatest responsibility[36].
Nevertheless, even examination in the Commission took quite some time, if we
consider that in order to bring the bill into the chamber the government had to
make recourse to an article (then repealed) of the rules of the Chamber, that
allowed the possibility, if desired by the majority, to take a bill from the
commission to the floor after six months of examination in the reporting
commission[37]. Once in
the chamber, most of the actors involved in that phase highlighted (as reported
in our interviews and in the minutes of the sittings we consulted) a limited
willingness to amend the government bill, and this led to a number of conflicts
even with components of the majority itself[38].
The political difficulty encountered by this law is shown by the fact that one
year was needed to approve it from when it was first presented in the chamber
(February 1997- March 1998). The government’s firmness of purpose can be
seen in the fact that no significant amendment proposed by the opposition was
included in the final wording, with the exception of one related to voting in
local elections. Here, the divergence between majority and opposition was
considerable. Even the question of fighting clandestine immigration saw
substantial agreement on the need to tackle the problem, but there were more
than a few differences over what measures to take to do so. On the fundamental
principles that lay behind the new law, the opposition did not accept the
mainly solidarist line of the majority. If we go back to the four positions
illustrated earlier, we realise that only one position, which of solidarity,
brings together an advocacy coalition in the true sense. While on the basis of the other
three, convergences were constructed among disparate actors, those that we have
defined with the less connoted concept of ‘constellations of
actors’. One interesting detail is given by the fact that, at times (and
today), the changes in the composition, and therefore in the aggregations
around the four positions, cut through the centre-right and the centre-left.
The party alignments and parliamentary coalitions, during the making and the
implementation of the low, were also variable in Italy: the centre-left Ulivo
lost Rifondazione Comunista while the centre-right Polo acquired the Lega,
transforming itself into the Casa delle Libertà.
On the parliamentary level, the
first position – that of solidarity – usually included Rifondazione
Comunista, the Greens, part of the DS and the Catholic component. The last is
present in both the centre-left and centre-right coalitions. The second,
functionalist position, was supported above all by the centre-right, but, with
time, also involved some of the more free market fringes of the centre-left. On
the other hand, the parties of the centre-right, especially the Lega, resisted
increases in influxes for identitarian reasons. The legalitarian position
started out from the centre-right but won over broad segments of the
centre-left under pressure from centre-left local authorities and leaders and
because of fears and discontent expressed by the electors of these parties.
Already in the law of 1998, there was the clear intention of the centre-left to
channel the management of immigration back into terms of legality. A difference
in emphasis and disagreements over the measures to use can, however, be found.
Disagreement also cut through the centre-right, where the Catholic component
was reluctant to accept the proposal of the crime of clandestine immigration. Finally, the 'identitarian' position, hostile to
multiculturalism and religious pluralism, represents the only position
that does not involve even marginally both political sides, but only a part of
the centre-right: Alleanza Nazionale, Lega Nord, and part of the conservative
Catholic hierarchy, with some exceptions. An anti-Berlusconi opinion maker – such as the political scientist
Giovanni Sartori – upheld
positions hostile to the immigrant minorities, Muslims in
particular, and their rights even
before 11 September[39].
On the other hand, the centre-left never opposed
preferential treatment for the descendants of Italian emigrants for instance in
acquiring and reacquiring nationality.
Even if the most substantial part of parliamentary support came from political groupings identified above all with the solidarity line[40], in law no.40 the centre-left government took into account functionalist needs (especially in managing immigrant entries through annual quotas) and legalitarian positions (for the first time it introduced a measure that made it possible to hold in custody and identify illegal immigrants in detention centres, in addition to toughening sentences for people traffickers), and identitarian views, because it had promised and maintained its support to enable Italians living abroad to vote for their own representatives in the Italian Parliament (law no. 459/2001). These Italians included the 164,000 descendants of Italians who had reacquired Italian citizenship on the basis of law no.91 of 1992, which had granted children and grandchildren of those who had opted in the past for a foreign nationality when Italy prohibited dual nationality. The centre-left also abandoned the idea of revising the 1992 law on citizenship, a law that differentiated the period of residence demanded for the naturalisation of foreigners between those of Italian origin (3 years), EU nationals (4 years) and non EU nationals (10 years), in contrast with the previous law of 1912 that specified the same period for all applicants (5 years). It also actually abandoned the vote in local elections for immigrants legally resident for more than five years in Italy, thus maintaining a difference compared to EU nationals who, following the Maastricht Treaty, can vote in local and European Parliament elections[41]. Over time, there was therefore a gradual shift of the centre-left towards positions closer to the security-functionality-identity cluster, entailing even a restriction of some social rights of immigrants, held to be too generous[42]. This was a shift that backs up the hypothesis of the ‘political cycle’, because it was with the proximity of both regional and general elections that the centre-left detached itself most from the advocacy coalition (Catholic associations, trade unions, groups of lawyers and magistrates, part of the political world) to which it was most sensitive and moved closer to public opinion. Italian public opinion – as emerges from polls[43] – sees a link between immigration and crime, believes that there are too many immigrants and so on. The conflicting directions of public opinion and the advocacy coalition meant that immigration represented one of the cleavages most capable of distinguishing not only between the centre-left and centre-right coalitions but also of dividing them internally. Some of the most solidarity-oriented components of the government coalition (Rifondazione Comunista, Verdi, part of the progressive Catholic id. Popolari, part of the Democrats of the Left, id. DS) put considerable pressure on the most conservative component of the government majority – present in the left as well as in the centre – which was most conscious of the public’s alarm about immigration. In addition, the Catholic component of the centre-right tried and in part succeeded in softening anti-immigrant measures and attitudes when the Casa delle Libertà came into power in June 2001.
Returning to the
reconstruction of the policy process, the law and the consolidation act of 1998
specified that implementation of many articles would not be immediate, but
subject to execution by an equally large number of collective actors. First of
all, the triennial planning document[44]
had to be prepared. An active part in this was also played by the trade unions
and employers’ associations, until then rather left outside of the matter
and, later, the drafting of the implementation
regulation, in contrast to law 40, saw the participation of local
authorities and Regions[45].
The trade unions, employers’ associations and Regions some role during
the drafting of the “corrective” legislative decrees no. 380 of 19
October 1998 and no. 113 of 13 April 1999, for which it seems that there was
also informal consultation by the local authorities with the solidarity
advocacy coalition. While there were therefore relatively few major actors
involved in the formulation of the law, the drafting of later regulations saw
the participation of a broader range of actors. This demonstrates once again
the considerable leverage used by the government, even against its own majority
during the drafting and approval of the law, something that was
‘paid’ later with more room left for other actors in the
immediately successive stage of implementation.
4.
Policy
implementation and impact:
outcome and feedback
As mentioned earlier, in this
research we observe the phase of implementation, evaluation of results and
feedback only for the most evident features and starting from the formal
aspects, i.e. from the mechanisms and actors that the law itself entrusts with
these tasks. At the end of the period of the centre-left government that had
passed it, and before the reforms made by the centre-right, which the empirical
research was not able to take into consideration, the 1998 law was not yet
fully in force, not only because of certain procedural delays[46],
but also because of referenda organised by the Lega Nord starting on 20
February 1999[47], as well as
various appeals made between 1999 and 2001 over the constitutionality of the
law and the later T.U [48],
which hindered one of the main ‘legalitarian’ mechanisms, the
opening of the detention centres for illegal and undocumented immigrants.
Already
during the governments of the centre-left, the outcome produced by the immigration policy and the
consequent reactions allow us to understand something of the functioning of the
machine in the implementation phase. We will deal only with some major aspects,
as this phase was not the subject of our empirical research.
For the first time,
compared to previous immigration measures – law no. 943 of 1986 and no.
39 and 1990 (and later decrees and extensions) – the Turco-Napolitano law
was not accompanied by an amnesty. The solidarist coalition and some of the constellations
mentioned during the phase of conversion continued to clash over this
‘failing’[49].
The solidarist coalition (advocacy coalition) immediately applied pressure after the law, obtained
the regularisation measures requested (corrective decree no. 113 of 13 April 1999,
preceded by a Decree of the Council of Ministers on 18 October 1998) and then
continued to push intermittently for further regularisations.
The advocacy
coalition –
especially sectors of the trade unions, part of the magistrate and the Italian
Association of Magistrates for minors and families, organisations of democratic
lawyers, especially the ASGI – also pressed for the protection of the
rights of minors (assisted repatriation for those unaccompanied, maintenance of
the residence permit on coming of age) and to make the residence permit
possible for purposes of social protection in favour of prostitutes (abolishing
the risky obligation to denounce the pimp, and allowing family reunion). These
same associations and some local authorities also asked for clarification of
the means of calculating income for purposes of family reunion (what had
already been earned and over what time span v. what would certainly be earned
thanks to an employment contract); they then asked for changes to the
requirement that accommodation respond to the parameters for social housing
just in terms of its health conditions; finally, they demanded more humane
conditions in the detention centres. These requests were satisfied at least in
part in the corrective decree no.113 of 4 April 1999, in the Ministry of the
Interior directive of 30 August 2000 that established internal regulations for
the holding centres and above all in numerous ministerial circulars.
An
occasional ally of the solidarist coalition was the functionalist lobby of the
employers, the two forming a ‘functionalist – solidarist’
constellation that wanted to use the immigrant labour force better and thus
asked for influxes to be increased, for suitable housing policies, and
sometimes even for regularisations in order to employ immigrant labour already
present without running the risk of penalties. This constellation led to an
increase in official immigration flows: 58,000 visas in 1998 and 1999, 63,000
in 2000, 83,000 in 2001, to which should be added family reunions (50-60,000
per year). The attempts by the centre-right to resist
new pressure from both the ‘functionalist’ employers, and the
‘solidarist’ Catholic component (which stated by demanding the
regularisation of domestic servants and assistants for the elderly) failed at
least in part, even during centre-right present Government. The Minister for
Welfare, Maroni, first maintained that he wanted to close influxes because of
an excess of immigrants on unemployment lists, but then agreed to a decree for
33,000 seasonal workers. In addition, Art.33 of the new bill allows new
regularisation for domestic servants and those providing family assistance,
on condition that the employer declares his/her willingness to regularise their
position within two months of the law coming into force. A series of tax
incentives is also envisaged to encourage private donations for initiatives of
a humanitarian nature in countries outside the OECD.
The
‘legalitarian’ coalition, made up not only of members of the
centre-right, but also local administrators of major cities governed by the centre-left and with support from
public opinion, pushed to obtain tougher repressive measures and to fight
further regularisation measures. This constellation grew stronger with time,
even finding support in the centre-left majority. As it strengthened, it
received growing rewards: in July 2000, the Prime Minister of the centre-left
Giuliano Amato had already on his trip to Tirana asked and obtained[50]
from Albania the destruction of boats over a certain size, and trilateral
collaboration was initiated with France and Germany to fight international
crime; the then opposition of the right produced the Landi-Fini draft law that
envisaged the crime of clandestine immigration. After innumerable modifications,
this led to a bill signed by the then centre-left Justice Under-Secretary,
Brutti, which set out a rhetorical toughening of penalties for the smugglers of
illegal immigrants. This constellation has also continued to play a dominant,
although not absolute, role in the centre-right governments.
Measures
of the ‘legalitarian-repressive’ type are closely bound to the
newer 'functionalist' line, as can be understood from the law approved by the
Berlusconi government (law n.
189/2002), from which the fear emerges of a
“full-blown invasion of Europe by hunger-stricken peoples, prey to
unending unemployment or conditions of under-employment”, due to which it
is necessary to offer protection through guaranteed legal mechanisms with
deterrent effects on clandestine immigration in order to establish, instead,
well-defined and effective legal influxes. To strengthen the 'legalitarian'
position the “Bossi-Fini” law introduces
the crime of clandestine immigration, although in a
version “softened” by the Catholic component of the coalition; the
measure envisages that the crime exists only in cases of recurrence for an
immigrant without a residence permit or one no longer valid for the second time
(imprisonment up to 6 months) or the third time (imprisonment up to 4 years).
Foreigners may also be imprisoned if immediate expulsion is not accepted or if
they hide their identity. Immediate trial is envisaged for this crime. A
temporary success of the repressive constellation was the purpose of
generalisation of the immediate execution of the expulsion measure. Expulsion
by being accompanied to the border (Art. 13), rather than an order to leave
Italian territory, becomes the rule rather than the exception[51].
Again of legalitarian inspiration are the measures that assign to the Ministry
of the Interior the co-ordination of border controls (Art. 10), as well as
those that sanction the possibility of using Navy vessels to monitor the coast
and stop boat people eventually using weapons (Art. 11). (This measure too was
immediately mitigated embedding the use of weapons with the framework of
legality and international law). Another legalitarian measure concerns the
introduction of the crime of aiding entry for the purpose of transit to other
countries (Art. 4), or the one that doubles, from 30 to 60 days, the maximum
duration of detention in the holding centres of the foreigners expelled or
refused entry (Art. 13). Measures also voted by the centre-left parties.
Finally, the toughening of fines for employers of illegal labour with foreign
employees without the appropriate papers (from a variable fine of from 2 to 6
million lire to one of 5000 euro for each employee and the arrest up to 1 year)
(Art. 18) can again be considered of legalitarian inspiration. A contested
proposal of taking non EU immigrants finger prints was approved in May 2002.
The members of the center-right governamental coalition, catholic parties
intend to extend the measure also to EU residents and Italian citizens, to
avoid discrimination. That proposal has been accepted and it will be operating
in the next future.
On
the identitarian side, again closely linked to the functionalist position
(immigrants must not become stable components of society), preferential quotas
are set for foreigners of Italian origin resident in non EU countries entering
the country for employment (Art. 17). The rule that job centres should make
prior checks in Italy on the availability of other workers already on
unemployment registers to take up the position offered before issuing the authorisation
of work from abroad (Art. 17) can be interpreted as both identitarian and
functionalist.
As
far as the most strictly functionalist attitudes are concerned, it is necessary
firstly to underline the
innovations[52] linked to
the so-called “contratto di soggiorno per lavoro subordinato” (Art.
6) [residence contract], which replaces the “residence
permit”, with the clear intention of linking residence to employment and
making both of them temporary if possible. Legal immigration in the past in
Italy was also based above all on this type of entry and on family reunions.
The real innovation is the procedure. The ‘Turco-Napolitano’ law
envisaged various forms of legal access, while the new hypothesis of reform
provides for only one type of entry, the individual job offer from an employer[53].
The same logic lies behind the limitation of family reunion (it forbids the
possibility of reunion for dependent parents when there are other children and
always for dependent relatives such as cousins or grandchildren unable to work[54])
(Art. 23), as well as the new terms for obtaining the carta di soggiorno “indefinite residence
permit”(from 5 to 6 years of legal residence) (Art. 9), and the advance
application for renewal of the residence permit (from 30 days to 60 or even 90,
depending on the case) and the duration of the new residence permit (duration
equal to the previous one, instead of double the period, as envisaged in the
current regulations). Furthermore, the institution of the job-seeker visa is
abolished. The institution of
the job-seeker visa (art.23 of 1998 TU) provided for allocating an annual quota
of resident permits to people in
search of a job. Such workers could enter the country sponsored by private
individuals, regions, municipalities and associations
listed in a register. Sponsors had to deposit a guarantee, demonstrate a
sufficient income, be prepared to offer decent accommodation and pay the
contribution for public health insurance. According
to the new 2002 reform, the employer must undertake to ensure accommodation and
the expenses for the return of the immigrant worker to the country of origin.
The new reform again demonstrates the desire to avoid immigrants putting down
roots in Italy.
However, as we have noted, through the Catholic component, the advocacy coalition still manages to make its voice heard even by the Berlusconi government. In particular, it has obtained the measures already cited concerning the amendment that establishes the regularisation of domestic servants and those providing family assistance, and the provision of tax incentives for donations for initiatives of a humanitarian nature in countries outside the OECD (Art. 1), and the softening of many repressive measures. In addition, the Council of Ministers has recently approved a bill concerning religious freedom, whose first presentation in Parliament had as first signatory the progressive Catholic Romano Prodi, then Prime Minister for the centre-left and today President of the Commission of the EU. The present bill is very similar to the previous one. In extremis, during the last meetings of the Chamber of Deputies, the ‘solidarist’ part of the Centre-right coalition managed to obtain several other relevant amendments, such as: a) the abolition of the 5% limit of availability regarding the access of foreign people to the popular houses; b) the reformulation of the norm which punishes the employer who employs an immigrant without a residence permit: the sanction does not intervene whenever the immigrant is renewing the permit (Art. 18); c) the introduction in the bill of the regulation of the decentralized assistance for asylum seekers and refugees (Art. 32); d) the introduction of a re-examination, if requested, of the decision concerning the rejection of the recognition of the refugee status, regarding foreign people who presented the demand, during the phase of illegal entrance or in conditions of illegal residence. The examination is up to the same territorial commission, integrated by a member of the central commission (Art. 18)[55].
To
summarise, after the approval of the Turco-Napolitano law, the situation
appeared in these terms: on the one hand, there was “the powerful lobby
that backed the ‘weak’”[56],
the solidarist advocacy
coalition, at times in tune with functionalist positions expressed by business,
and on the other, above all, the political groups of the right and local
leaders not only of the ‘legalitarian’ right, more sensitive to the
mood of public opinion and anxious not to lose contact with the electorate,
which were pressing for more repressive solutions, and at times objectively
allied with ‘identitarian’ groups interested in safeguarding the national or regional
identity. In the middle, the centre-left government was first strongly
conditioned by the solidarist coalition, with the legalitarian adjustment due to the constraints of
Schengen, then shifted in the legalitarian direction under pressure from voters
and the peripheries, and tried to act as a broker,
i.e. to find a solution that combined functionalist, legalitarian and
solidarist demands by opening up legal influxes. This alternating attention, on
the one side to the advocacy coalition (solidarist), and on the other to sectors and to
single demands of public opinion (legalitarian and security-based) provoked
confusion in the management of the phenomenon. It is also true, and perhaps
even more so, that the centre-right strives to act as a broker between
coalitions and constellations which push in over-divergent directions. It does
so by putting together pieces of contradictory measures, zigzagging,
proclaiming principles and measures that it then has to withdraw either because
solidarist or functionalist opposition is too strong
or because it acts in ignorance of legal constraints (constitutional, EU and
international). It seems, therefore, that the immigration issue is one of great
divergences and conflicts and yet is also treated in a less
“polarised” manner than the political debate would indicate: the
legalitarian, but especially the functionalist tendencies also made themselves
heard by the centre-left government,
while 'solidarist' concessions have also been obtained from the
centre-right government. The main factor that explains these divergences and
convergences should be sought in the variable influence and weight of the
advocacy coalition and of the constellations that participate informally in the
decision-making process in question.
In conclusion, our model of interpretation thus suggests that the actors that count, coalitions and constellations, change not only in the various policy-making phases, but also over time and that they are appreciated differently according to the government majority, in terms of the “policy windows” that open up to them case by case. But it suggests also that no government majority can afford to completely ignore any position, and that no-one can be completely insensitive to the strong pressure of anyone of them. Then – if we do not consider the public rhetoric – policies change less than politicians usually expect.
List of people interviewed
1. Luca Einaudi, Member of the Co-ordination
Group
2. Domenico Maselli, Member of Parliament who
presented the bill in the Chamber of Deputies
3. Rosanna Moroni, Member of Parliament
4. Fabio Evangelisti, Member of Parliament
5.
Alberto Di Luca, Member of Parliament
6. Rolando Fontan, Member of Parliament
7. Guido Bolaffi, - Head of the Social Affairs
Department
8. Livia Turco, Minister for Social Affairs
9. Vaifra Palanca, Secretary of the Commission
for Immigrant Integration Policies
10.
Renato
Finocchi Ghersi, Head of the Social Affairs Department legislation office
11.
Isabella
Menichini, Foreign Affairs Minsitry Official
12.
Giulio
Cazzella, Ministry of the Interior Official
13.
Giorgio
Napolitano, Minister of the Interior
14.
Paolo
Bonetti, External expert
15.
Sergio
Briguglio, External expert