IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v58y2021i14p2991-3008.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Urbanising migration policy-making: Urban policies in support of irregular migrants in Geneva and Zürich

Author

Listed:
  • David Kaufmann

    (ETH Zürich, Switzerland)

  • Dominique Strebel

    (ETH Zürich, Switzerland)

Abstract

Cities worldwide develop a variety of urban policies that address the precarious situation of irregular migrants. By doing so, cities intervene in a policy-making realm that is commonly perceived as the prerogative of national states and they thereby challenge the national state as the only regulatory body over immigration and citizenship. We compare policy-making in support of irregular migrants in the two biggest Swiss cities of Geneva and Zürich. Whereas Genevan authorities and local societal actors established a successful regularisation programme (called Operation Papyrus), actors in Zürich aim to create an urban ID card programme (called Züri City Card). We find that the institutional setting of the two cities (as a city-state or as a city in a state), the presence or absence of multilevel governance networks as well as societal actors’ different venue shopping strategies are key for explaining these different urban policy-making processes. Cities formulate place-based urban policy responses, but these specific urban policies can be viewed within the global struggles to improve the precarious situations of irregular migrants and to fight exclusionary national politics. In essence, this article documents and explains how cities contest national state sovereignty over immigration and citizenship and it thereby calls for an urbanisation of migration theory and practice.

Suggested Citation

  • David Kaufmann & Dominique Strebel, 2021. "Urbanising migration policy-making: Urban policies in support of irregular migrants in Geneva and Zürich," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(14), pages 2991-3008, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:58:y:2021:i:14:p:2991-3008
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098020969342
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098020969342
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098020969342?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Kaufmann, 2018. "Varieties of Capital Cities," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 18179.
    2. Walter Nicholls, 2016. "Politicizing Undocumented Immigrants One Corner at a Time: How Day Laborers Became a Politically Contentious Group," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 299-320, March.
    3. KEVIN WARD & DAVID IMBROSCIO & Deborah Martin & Clarence Stone & Robert Whelan & Faranak Miraftab & Allan Cochrane, 2011. "Urban Politics: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 853-871, July.
    4. Thomas Swerts, 2017. "Creating Space For Citizenship: The Liminal Politics of Undocumented Activism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(3), pages 379-395, May.
    5. Pralle, Sarah B., 2003. "Venue Shopping, Political Strategy, and Policy Change: The Internationalization of Canadian Forest Advocacy," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(3), pages 233-260, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Arthur Acolin, 2024. "Book review: The Sanctuary City: Immigrant, Refugee, and Receiving Communities in Postindustrial Philadelphia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(8), pages 1617-1620, June.
    2. Jiaxin Li & Jiongjiong Yuan & Yong Huang & Yuan Zhang, 2023. "Revealing the widespread existence and serious adverse health consequences of low-price rental housing in urban villages in Xiamen, China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ross Beveridge & Philippe Koch, 2021. "Contesting austerity, de-centring the state: Anti-politics and the political horizon of the urban," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(3), pages 451-468, May.
    2. Christopher Pallas & Johannes Urpelainen, 2012. "NGO monitoring and the legitimacy of international cooperation: A strategic analysis," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 1-32, March.
    3. Livia Johannesson & Noomi Weinryb, 2021. "How to blame and make a difference: perceived responsibility and policy consequences in two Swedish pro-migrant campaigns," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 54(1), pages 41-62, March.
    4. Marijn Faling & Robbert Biesbroek, 2019. "Cross-boundary policy entrepreneurship for climate-smart agriculture in Kenya," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 52(4), pages 525-547, December.
    5. Emmanuelle Perin & Evelyne Léonard, 2011. "European sectoral social dialogue and national social partners," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 17(2), pages 159-168, May.
    6. Manuel Fischer & Philip Leifeld, 2015. "Policy forums: Why do they exist and what are they used for?," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 48(3), pages 363-382, September.
    7. Eva (Evangelia) Papatzani, 2021. "Encountering Everyday Racist Practices: Sociospatial Negotiations of Immigrant Settlement in Athens, Greece," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 61-79, January.
    8. Scott Rodgers & Clive Barnett & Allan Cochrane, 2014. "Where is Urban Politics?," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(5), pages 1551-1560, September.
    9. Kristin L. Olofsson, 2022. "Winners and losers: Conflict management through strategic policy engagement," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 39(1), pages 73-89, January.
    10. Susannah Fisher, 2012. "Policy Storylines in Indian Climate Politics: Opening New Political Spaces?," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(1), pages 109-127, February.
    11. Emmanuelle Perin & Evelyne Léonard, 2016. "Soft procedures for hard impacts," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 22(4), pages 475-490, November.
    12. Elizabeth Rough, 2011. "Policy Learning through Public Inquiries? The Case of UK Nuclear Energy Policy 1955–61," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 29(1), pages 24-45, February.
    13. Holger Wilcke & Rosa Manoim, 2019. "Contested Health Care System in Berlin: Are Illegalized Migrants Becoming Urban Citizens?," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(4), pages 100-107.
    14. Jenny Mbaye & Cecilia Dinardi, 2019. "Ins and outs of the cultural polis: Informality, culture and governance in the global South," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(3), pages 578-593, February.
    15. Christopher Weible & Tanya Heikkila & Peter deLeon & Paul Sabatier, 2012. "Understanding and influencing the policy process," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 45(1), pages 1-21, March.
    16. Nik Theodore, 2023. "Day-Labor Worker Centers: Advancing New Models of Equity and Inclusion in the Informal Economy," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 37(4), pages 363-374, November.
    17. Sébastien Jodoin, 2017. "The transnational policy process for REDD+ and domestic policy entrepreneurship in developing countries," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(8), pages 1418-1436, December.
    18. Hasan DanaeeFard & Tayebeh Abbasi, 2021. "Why and How Does Policy Change over Time: a Narrative Explanation from Iran," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 355-376, June.
    19. Wang Jinjun & Wang Qun, 2018. "Social Autonomy and Political Integration: Two Policy Approaches to the Government-Nonprofit Relationship since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China," Nonprofit Policy Forum, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-8, May.
    20. Hannah Murphy & Aynsley Kellow, 2013. "Forum Shopping in Global Governance: Understanding States, Business and NGOs in Multiple Arenas," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 4(2), pages 139-149, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:58:y:2021:i:14:p:2991-3008. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.