Van Ostaijen, M. and P. Scholten (2014). Policy populism: political populism and migrant integration...

Original Article

Policy populism? Political populism and migrantintegration policies in Rotterdam and Amsterdam

Mark van Ostaijena,* and Peter ScholtenbaDepartment of Public Administration, Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), PO Box 1738,Room T17-53, Rotterdam, DR 3000, The Netherlands.E-mail: [email protected] of Public Administration, Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), PO Box 1738,Room T17-16, Rotterdam, DR 3000, The Netherlands.E-mail: [email protected]

*Corresponding author.

Abstract The political presence of populist parties has increased in Western Europesince the early 1980s. But populism cannot be limited to a political phenomenon only.However, in scholarly research the political aspects of populism take precedence overthe policy aspects. The focus of this article is to what extent policy populism exists andif there is a relation between political populism on policy populism in the area of migrantintegration policies. A combination of a qualitative discourse analysis and a quantitativecontent analysis is used for the analysis of both political and policy documents in twoDutch local case studies, the cities of Rotterdam and Amsterdam. By focussing on popu-lism as relational concept and as discursive ordering, we show that the presence of policypopulism is not dependent on political populism. Rather, there seem to be some electiveaffinities. Next to this, this article shows shifting discourses towards more inclusive-civicingroups and exclusive-ethnic outgroups. This study shows the gradual sifts, presencesand potentials of populist discourse in local politics and especially policies and theemergence of ethnic specificity in regard to these distancing discourses.Comparative European Politics (2014) 12, 680–699. doi:10.1057/cep.2014.26;published online 23 June 2014

Keywords: populism; local politics; migrant integration policy; content analysis;discourse analysis

Introduction

The political presence of populist parties has increased in Western Europe since theearly 1980s. The number of populist parties in elections has grown, as well as thenumber of countries where these parties managed to pass the electoral threshold and

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entered parliament. The electoral success of these parties has grown exponentiallyand is unprecedented in West European post-war politics (de Lange, 2008). With therise of these parties a new way of agenda setting, coalition building and cooperationhas emerged (van Ostaaijen, 2010). Although the populist presence in politics grewrapidly, research on populism has grown as well. Within this scholarly debate,populism has been conceptualized as a fractured, difficult or slippery concept(Canovan, 1981; Taggart, 2000). Others see important opportunities for a new wayof politics (Mudde, 2004; Abts and Rummens, 2010).

But populism cannot be limited to a political phenomenon only. Because of itssuccess, several populist parties entered parliaments and took governmental respon-sibility. The emergence of populist parties implies growing influences in the designand development of politics and public policies. However, in scholarly research, thepolitical aspects of populism take precedence over the policy aspects (Taggart, 2000;Laclau, 2005; Mudde, 2007; de Lange, 2008; Abts and Rummens, 2010; Schinkel,2010). Little is known about the relation between the political emergence ofpopulism and the development of public policy.

The focus of this article is to what extent policy populism exists and if there isa relation between political populism on policy populism in the area of migrantintegration policies. In the context of studying whether political populism has led topolicy populism, migrant integration can be considered as ‘most likely case’(Flyvbjerg, 2006). Political populism has turned out to have a niche for, or focus onintegration and migration issues (Pauwels, 2011). Therefore, if policy populismexists and is influenced by political populism, this can be studied within migrantintegration issues.

Populism as a Distancing Discourse in Politics and Policies

In its international emergence, populism is analysed as a virus, syndrome or modernproblem (Taguieff, 1995; Urbinati, 1998; Taggart, 2000) and characterized as anti-democratic, anti-parliamentary or as plebiscite democracy (Canovan, 1999; Ményand Surel, 2002; Houtman and Achterberg, 2010). These analyses characterizescholarly interest in populism, but do not directly contribute to a refined and scientificclearance of this social-political phenomenon (Akkerman, 2003; Mudde, 2004;Schinkel, 2010). There is a lot of variety in the definition and study of populism,but three recurring concepts can be deduced to characterize populism.

First, the notion of ‘the people’ is a crucial characteristic (Canovan, 1981, 1999;Mouffe, 2000; Taggart, 2000; Mudde, 2004). This notion is conceptualized as a‘heartland’ positioning ‘the people’ as a central community. It construes a ‘pure’community with an unequivocally central position. Second, this heartland is predomi-nantly opposed to or antagonist towards ‘others’, among them ‘elites’ (Canovan,1981; Taguieff, 1995; Taggart, 2000; Mudde, 2004; Laclau, 2005; Schinkel, 2010).

Political populism and migrant integration policies in Rotterdam and Amsterdam

681© 2014 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1472-4790 Comparative European Politics Vol. 12, 6, 680–699

The concept of ‘the heartland’ justifies inward looking and the exclusion of thedemonized ‘others’. Thirdly, populism can be concerned as a discursive distancingstrategy. This distancing strategy maintains an antagonist relationship between ‘thepeople’, ‘the elite(s)’ or ‘the others’. Sometimes these ‘others’ are the elites, sometimesit is a distinctive ‘other’ category. But key is that each of these elements gains substanceby the antagonistic relationship with another element (Abts and Rummens, 2010; deLange and Rooduijn, 2011).

These three elements construct the core antagonistic relationship of populism.Therefore populism is studied as a distancing discourse involving an antagonistrelationship in which ‘the elite(s) and/or ‘other(s)’ are opposed to a central notion of‘the people’. Because populism is defined as a distancing discourse, the discursiveordering of certain ‘problem issues’ has a central focus. In this manner, populism isa discourse of distancing (‘the others’) and of proximity (‘the people’). Therefore,populism is not defined as substantive (a resentment, conspiracy or victimizedrhetoric) but as a relational concept between ‘the people’ and ‘others’, mediated byspecific social problems (Uitermark et al, 2012). In other words, the conceptualiza-tion of populism as relational concept within this study is focussed on its discursiveordering of distancing an ingroup (heartland) of a ‘good’ or ‘normal’ social grouptowards an outgroup (others) of a ‘bad’ or ‘deviant’ social group mediated by socialproblems.

This distancing (and proximity) aspect is considered as a gradual phenomenon,with a degree of distancing. By this degree of distancing one is able to study itsgradual intensity. This degree of distancing is operationalized as follows. Firstly,a modest form is termed categorizing. This is a basic way when social groups arenon-antagonistically categorized as a matter of labelling. The second category isdistinction. This is a way to distinct social groups on the basis of minimal, implicitor latent present antagonisms. By distinction, social groups are minimally posi-tioned in opposing categories. The final category is distancing, as the most manifestway of relating social groups to each other on the basis of antagonisms. Bydistancing, social groups are positioned in manifest opposition of each other. For thesake of conceptual clarity, one can only observe manifest populism when the lattercategory of distancing takes place. Since politics and policy are largely based onaspects of categorizing (for the aims of intervention), this would bias our results.Emphasis is primarily put on the latter aspect of distancing and problematizingcertain groups in an antagonistic way, to unravel the populist potential in politicsand policy.

Populism, defined as a distancing discourse and as a relational concept, enables usto study populism as an articulatory practice of integration. This can be studiedwithin the fields of politics and policy as different genres of political discourse(Wodak, 2009). Because it is defined as a discursive ordering, it is not reserved topolitics only. Hypothetically, policy populism can occur without the existence ofpolitical populist parties.

van Ostaijen and Scholten

682 © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1472-4790 Comparative European Politics Vol. 12, 6, 680–699

Political discourses can play a key role in processes of political agenda setting,problem articulation, problem definition and policy formulation (Baumgartner andJones, 2002). Any political discourse will bring together perceived problems,political claims and proposed policy solutions in very specific ways (Schneider andIngram, 1997; Fischer, 2003). As a mode of political discourse, populist discoursegenerates specific connections between problems, politics and policies like it blames‘the other’, like the ‘established’, the ‘elite’ or the ‘migrants’ for causing problems toa heartland (the ‘people’). And problem solutions are proposed to support the‘people’ in favour of ‘the other’. This mode of discourse can occur as a nationalist,liberal or socialist rhetoric, but its political substance is not the starting point for thisstudy. Thus, by conceptualizing populism as a distancing discourse and as anarticulatory practice, we can expect that if populism emerges within the field ofpolitics, it could emerge in the field of policy as well.

Methods

This article adopts a case study approach to study the relation between political andpolicy populism, focusing on migrant integration policies in two Dutch cities. Migrantintegration issues are often central to populist agendas, especially when defined as adistancing discourse between ‘them’ and ‘us’, or ‘we’ and ‘the other’. The Netherlandswas selected because of the emergence of political populism in the national as well assome local arenas of politics (de Lange, 2008; van Ostaaijen, 2010; Scholten, 2011).Seen from a European perspective on populism, the Netherlands can thus be regarded asexemplary case study. Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the biggest cities of the Netherlands,were selected as case studies since they contain a comparable urban size (780 000in Amsterdam; 607 000 in Rotterdam) and relative large immigrant populations(49 per cent in Amsterdam and 46 per cent in Rotterdam (Crul and Heering, 2008)).

There are however important differences between these two cities over the pastdecade in terms of the political composition of the local executive coalitions (Tops, 2007;de Lange, 2008; van Ostaaijen, 2010; Scholten, 2013). Though both cities mostly hadbroad or middle-of-the-road coalitions, Rotterdam coalitions leaned more to the right inthe period 2002–2006 when Liveable Rotterdam (termed as a local ‘populist’ party) wasinvolved in the local coalition, whereas Amsterdam in this key period remained in thecentre and later (2006–2010) even formed a more Leftist coalition (Breeman et al,forthcoming). It is relevant to notice to what extent the political composition of coalitionsand council influences the discourses within politics and public policies.

A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used for the analysis ofpolitical and policy documents within both case studies. First, to contextualize thelocal focus on migrant integration, attention to migrant integration issues on the localpolitical and policy agendas is mapped. This reveals to what extent migrantintegration is indeed a concern in local politics and policies. For the political agenda,



local coalition agreements were hand-coded using a standardized topic codebook,which allows us to measure the relative attention to migrant integration topics incoalition agreements (Breeman et al, forthcoming). For the policy agenda, thisinvolves an analysis of the quantity of policy documents discussed in city councilsand dealing with migrant integration (1998–2010). These policy documents werealso coded in terms of their focus on either socio-economic, socio-cultural orpolitical-legal integration (Scholten, 2013).

Secondly, a quantitative content analysis was made of the coalition agreementsand key policy documents on integration issues of the periods 1998–2002, 2002–2006and 2006–2010. All migrant integration policy documents in Rotterdam and Amster-dam in the period 1998–2010 were coded (see references). These documents weretagged and counted in terms of populist appearance, operationalized by the three mainpopulist concepts: [people]; [other] and [problems]. This is operationalized by 23‘people’ categories,1 71 ‘other’ categories2 and 23 categories of social problems.3

Within this element of ‘problems’, antagonism can be studied between the other twoelements. This extensive amount (71) of ‘other’ categories was needed to cover thelarge variety of data. And all categories were deducted from the theoretical conceptua-lized approach on populism of ‘people’, ‘other’ and ‘problems’ and confronted with theempirical data. Therefore this contained a combination of deductive and inductive,back-and-forth operationalization (Berg, 2009). Since this has been executed for alldocuments in all periods (and by the same coder) this approach controls its internalvalidity. The extensive operationalization sensitizes to what extent populist discourseoccurs. The main goal of this quantitative content analysis is to describe if populistelements can be traced within politics or policy (Krippendorff, 2004).

Thirdly, within the qualitative discourse analysis, the discursive constructions andcombinations of [people]; [other] and [problems] are interpretatively analysed (Reisigland Wodak, 2001). This is an in-depth analysis of the degree of distancing withinmigrant integration issues. This implies an interpretative study on how populist conceptsare discursively positioned and related to each other and which argument gets importancethrough the order of discourse and its practices (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985; Bourdieu andWacquant, 1986; Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999). The main goal is to interpret howthis populist discourse can be characterized. This is not only about its appearance, but italso analyses the shifts in its discursive presence. And by interpreting these shifts, thisstudy tries to unravel the relationship between political and policy populism. Thisdiscourse analysis is based on the analysis of policy documents, study of policy records,secondary literature and six interviews with policymakers from both cities.

Populism and Migrant Integration Policies in Rotterdam

Rotterdam is a working-class city that has almost permanently, apart from the period2002–2006, been led by the labour party. However, the years 2002 and 2003 marked



a major turning point in Rotterdam’s local politics (Tops, 2007; Scholten, 2013). The2002 elections for the local city council were won by the ‘populist’ termed politicalparty ‘Liveable Rotterdam’, led by the charismatic Pim Fortuyn who later alsoparticipated in the national elections. The electoral success of Liveable Rotterdam in2002 (34.7 per cent) was unprecedented and they led the first local executivecoalition without the Social Democrat Party. Although the social democrats wouldagain win the local elections in 2006 and 2010, it did so by only a tiny margin andLiveable Rotterdam remained a powerful political party in the city council.

Political populism

The labour and working-class character of Rotterdam is clearly manifested inthe distribution of attention between topics in the local coalition agreements (seeTable 1). In 1998 no less than 40 per cent of total attention in the local coalitionagreement went to social topics like housing, labour, social security, education andculture. This decreased only slightly during 2002–2006 to increase again to almost50 per cent in subsequent coalition agreements in 2006 and 2010. Attention fortypically ‘populist’ topics like immigration, integration, justice and crime increasedfrom 7 per cent in 1998 to 17 per cent in 2002 (Breeman et al, forthcoming).

In terms of immigration and integration, Rotterdam’s local politics in 1998emphasizes diversity, participation and social engagement. In the description of specificsocial problems, neither specific individuals nor social groups are mentioned as thesource of these problems. In 2002, this changed strongly towards obligatory aspectsof ‘citizenship’. The major social problem is safety and all other social problemsand remedies are connected with this. The ‘other’ has a moral-legal position likecriminals, illegals and prostitutes concerning deviant and delinquent behaviour.

Table 1: Political composition of city executives of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, 1998–2010

1998–2002 2002–2006 2006–2010 Since 2010

Amsterdam Broad coalition Centre coalition Left coalition Broad coalitionSocial Democrats,Liberals, GreenLeft, LiberalDemocrats

Social Democrats,Liberals, Christen-Democrats

Social Democrats,Green Left

Social Democrats,Liberals, Green Left

Rotterdam Broad coalition Centre-Right coalition Broad coalition Centre coalitionSocial Democrats,Liberals, ChristenDemocrats,Green Left

Liberals, Christen-Democrats,Liveable Rotterdam

Social Democrats,ChristenDemocrats, Liberalsand Green Left

Social Democrats,Liberal-Democrats,Liberals, Christen-Democrats



Most of the ‘others’ are not positioned towards certain kind of ‘people’ groups butthey are problematized in a socio-cultural, religious (‘Islam’) or security context.There are no explicit antagonisms between ‘foreigners’ (allochtons) and Dutchcitizens (autochtons), but sometimes this is implicitly reframed, for instance: ‘New-comers are not yet at home, the original population feels lesser and less at home’(2002a, p. 6). ‘People’ categories (like ‘the original population’) are implicitly orlatently present.

After the increase of attention to immigration and integration and justice and crimein 2002, attention to these issues decreased again to 16 per cent in 2006 and less than10 per cent in 2010 (see Table 1). In the period between 2006 and 2010 there was astrong inclusive focus on social cohesion, participation and bonding of citizens.Integration and migration seem to be completely absent or reformulated in terms ofsafety issues. However, the integration of one ethnic group gets special attention: theAntilleans. They are presented as the largest criminal and deviant social group.

Figure 1 shows that most populist concepts are used in the political coalitionperiod of 2002–2006. The relative amount of social problems increased, ‘people’categories grew and ‘other’ categories increased strongly with relatively 10 timesmore ‘other’ categories in 2002 (0.2265) than in 1998 (0.0204). This means that in2002 the most populist concepts were measured within coalition agreements, whichindicates the most probable possibility for populist discourse within this period.

Furthermore, the analysis reveals that 1998 politics is about objectified problems(sustainability, unemployment) and about the governmental efforts citizens canexpect. It divides certain groups, but this is never connected to any kind of distancingor distinction on the basis of social characteristics. Therefore, no antagonisms aretraceable in 1998 politics. In 2002, this tone changed strongly. Government wantedto target safety problems and present deviant individuals and groups as the source ofthese problems. The large amount of ‘others’ in 2002 is illustrative (mainly derivedupon a large amount of delinquent ‘other’ social groups. To illustrate this, 23 ‘other’categories are classified in 2002, which are mentioned 133 times. In comparison in2006, 12 ‘other’ categories are classified which are mentioned 33 times). But withinthis, political discourse is not explicitly distancing, but categorizing certain groups

Figure 1: Populist concepts in Rotterdam coalition agreements 1998–2002–2006.



and it draws distinctions on the basis of deviant and delinquent behaviour whileantagonisms are absent. Therefore, political populism is latent present in 2002, notmanifest. 2006 politics is very inclusive, with a focus on social cohesion, participa-tion and bonding of people. More ‘people’ categories are used because in 2006emphasis is put on more inclusive social groups, like ‘citizens’, ‘Rotterdammers’ and‘everybody’. However, Antilleans get explicit attention. They are presented as thebiggest criminal and deviant social group, which need special individual interven-tions. But the presentation of this (‘other’) ethnic group is not in antagonistic termsrelated with (‘people’) social in-groups. Thus, social out-groups are presented asdeviant but with an inclusive approach. Therefore, political discourse in 2006 is not adistancing discourse but merely divides certain social groups without distinctions orantagonisms with other social groups.

Populism and Rotterdam’s migrant integration policies

Rotterdam’s migrant integration policies have traditionally stressed in particular thesocio-economic dimension of integration. This approach remained fairly stablethroughout the 1980s and 1990s (Scholten, 2013). Only for a brief period, under thebroad coalition that was formed in 1998, Rotterdam adopted a Diversity Policy thatcelebrated cultural diversity to a greater extent (see the relative peak of attention tosocio-cultural integration after 1998 in Figure 2). This positive attitude towardsdiversity was almost dogmatic: ‘We do not want to problematize any longer […].The diversity in Rotterdam will be communicated positively’ (City of Rotterdam,1998a, p. 16).

In this period, problems of integration were framed in terms of migrants(‘allochtonen’ called ‘allochtons’) versus Dutch (‘autochtonen’ called ‘autochtons’).As a consequence, diversity became ‘ethnicisized’. In areas like education, labour

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Figure 2: Number of and thematic focus of documents on migrant integration on the agenda of the citycouncil of Rotterdam.



and housing, specific ‘other’ social groups are mentioned as core cause of theseproblems especially in comparison with Dutch citizens (City of Rotterdam, 1998b,p. 5). This distinction between allochtons (‘others’) and autochtons (‘people’) is arecurring relationship in this period. In fact, a variety of ‘people’ and ‘other’distinctions are included, like oldcomers versus newcomers, original populationversus immigrants, autochtons versus allochtons and migrants versus Rotterdamcitizens (2002b, pp. 5–9). There are ‘sending groups’ and ‘receiving groups’, ‘they’and ‘we’, ‘their’ and ‘our’ aspects of society: ‘The basis of naturalisation is the studyof our language’ (2002b, p. 13).

In the period 2002–2006 these distinctions continue, but in different shapes. Thelarge amount of ‘others’ in 2002–2006 policy (see Figure 3) indicates the continuedimportance of outgroups (City of Rotterdam, 2005). And a strong issue connection ismade between integration, public safety and criminality:

Social integration provides an important contribution to the social cohesion,which is a premise for informal social control and for subjective and objectivesafety. Working on safety and social integration needs to go hand in hand.(City of Rotterdam, 2003, p. 7)

This marks a turning point in the Rotterdam integration policy approach. Integrationof migrants was once considered in terms of diversity, changing in this periodtowards a safety issue. Despite the inclusive civic focus on social problems, severalpolicies in 2006–2010 are explicitly and exclusively focussed on ethnic minorities,like Moroccans and Antilleans. ‘They’ are explicitly positioned as ‘other’ socialgroup with deviant social-cultural and social-economic features ‘[…] becauseMoroccan and Antillean youngsters have a negative image because of nuisance andcriminal behaviour’ (2010, p. 4) which needs to be attacked. Other policies withinthis period focus on ‘ethnic’ problems by opposing average ‘people’ categoriesversus average ‘other’ categories:

A small part of the Antilleans has in the Netherlands no better future than onthe Antilles. They are, more than other, guilty in terms of criminality and

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Figure 3: Populist concepts in Rotterdam policy documents 1998–2002–2006.



nuisance. In comparison with the native population, this group gets five timesmore in touch with the police. The violent character of their actions is veryobvious. […] More than a quarter of the Antilleans in Rotterdam above18 years (27.5%) has a state payment. This is more than three times than theaverage Rotterdam (8.8%) citizen of the same age. (2008, p. 2)

The above citations show that there is a major social problem, ‘safety’, and anexplicit social outgroup which has the responsibility for this problem: ‘Antilleans orMoroccans’. This outgroup is in opposition related to a specific social ingroup (theaverage Dutch or Rotterdam citizen). In this way, a major social problem like safetyhas become ethnisized.

In terms of policy populism, in the period 1998–2002, an explicit distinction ismade between the ‘people’ (autochtonen) and the ‘other’ (allochtonen). In thisconstruction ‘the other’ is the major source of social problems, which can be remediedby attacking its specific features. This is a policy approach constructing ‘the averagepopulation’ versus ‘arrears of foreigners’. Therefore, within 1998 policies categorizingand distinction takes place. But this problematization stays without antagonisms.Within the policy documents of 2002–2006 a large variety of opposing ‘people’ and‘other’ categories are present (2002b, pp. 5–9). Social problems like safety, housingand labour seem to be ‘too big to ignore’. Therefore they need to adapt to us and ourgeneral norms and values with Rotterdam as their home. This approach positionsoutgroups and ingroups in opposition towards each other. This can be illustrated bytwo citations below:

The situation arose, where ‘new’ newcomers do still not feel welcome in thecity, ‘old’ newcomers are still not integrated and Rotterdam citizens do not feelat home anymore in their city. (2002b, p. 5)

Allochtons have profited the last years of high conjuncture. But their positionon the labour market is still worrying. Especially for Turks and Moroccans.(2002b, p. 9)

In 2002–2006 policies there is an explicit discursive ordering and positioningof certain groups as exploiting or profiting groups that cause social problemsfor ingroups. One can observe that in 2002–2006 policy populism is present.Not only categorizing takes place, it is connected with certain distinctions,fuelled by distancing and problematizing a specific outgroup towards an ingroup.By this antagonist relationship of ‘others’ and ‘people’, distancing has a manifestrole.

Policies of 2006–2010, especially concerning ‘the Antillean approach’, show clearcategorizing lines and distinctions to relate Antilleans with ‘the average Rotterdamcitizen’ (2006, p. 2). However, in contrast to 2002 policies, these distinctions are notconnected to manifest antagonisms. This can be explained by the fact that in 2006these social groups are presented as isolated categories, not in opposition towards



certain ingroups. This ‘isolated’ approach is not manifestly connected with antag-onistic aspects related to threatened or renounced ‘people’. Therefore, in 2006policies specific categorizing lines and distinctions are presented, but had veryminimal and limited antagonisms and policy populism can be observed as a latentphenomenon.

Political populism and policy populism in Rotterdam

To conclude, the Rotterdam case study reveals that populism has been a more constantpresence in local migrant integration policies than it has been in local politics. Only the2002 executive coalition agreement, formed by the ‘populist’ termed party LiveableRotterdam, was characterized by political populism in the form of clear distinctionsbetween ‘the people’ and ‘the other’. At the same time, policy populism seemed to belatently or manifestly present in Rotterdam’s migrant integration policies over the full-examined period, even before the rise of Liveable Rotterdam in 2002. Much more thanin politics, policies juxtapose ‘the people’ against ‘the other’.

Two important relational aspects stand out from the Rotterdam case. Firstly,the ingroup ‘people’ category is often used as an explicit or implicit ingroupcategory. It is sometimes implicitly interwoven within ‘the standard’ or ‘theaverage’ (citizen), or other explicitly referred as ‘the authentic Rotterdam citizen’or autochtons. Secondly, the conceptual definition of ‘the others’ and ‘the people’has shifted. Although the definition of the ‘people’ became more subtle inclusive-civic (‘we are all Rotterdam citizens’), the definition of ‘the others’ became moreexclusive-ethnic (Antilleans and Moroccans).

In sum, the Rotterdam case shows that policy populism exists and how thediscursive ordering changes throughout time. Policy populism exists after as well asbefore the presence of political populism. This shows that the presence of politicalpopulism is not a premise for the existence of policy populism. Political populismseems not to be a premise for policy populism, but if present, it does affect each other.

Populism and Migrant Integration Policies in Amsterdam

Political populism in Amsterdam

As we have seen in Table 1, Amsterdam has traditionally been led by broad orcentre coalitions, and in 2006–2010 even by a leftist coalition with the socialdemocrats and the Green Party. Migrant integration received only 3 and 2 per centof all attention in the executive agreements of 1998 and 2002 respectively (seeFigure 4). Indicative, attention to migrant integration remained low in Amsterdameven in 2002, at a time when migrant integration became a centre stage theme in



national politics and in Rotterdam (Scholten, 2013). Within these coalitions theattention for migrant integration peaked only in 2006–2010 to 17 per cent. This canprimarily be explained by the killing of the filmmaker Van Gogh by a citizen ofimmigrant background in 2004.

In the 1998 political coalition agreement, emphasis is put on the social-economicarrears that Amsterdam citizens have. Sometimes this is connected with migrantorigin, but remedies focus on aspects of diversity and ‘positive discrimination’:organizations need to have a diverse representation in their pool of employees.Political speech is about social-economic problems, coupled with inclusive cate-gories of ‘people’ and the ‘other’ (like ‘Amsterdam citizens’ and ‘new Amsterdamcitizens’). Different ‘other’ categories are based on age or social-economic position,but their presence is marginal. This corresponds with the data illustrated by Figure 5.

The 2002 political coalition agreement is a very brief presentation on tangibleresults and its accountability. Safety, criminality and criminals are mentioned asimportant focus areas as well as sporting, culture and physical accessibility. It putsemphasis on inclusive people categories, like ‘Amsterdam citizens’ and ‘everybody’,related to income, nuisance and criminality (City of Amsterdam, 2002). Theimportance of safety is connected with youngsters, children and parents.

The political coalition agreement of 2006 changed its tone. It emphasizes safetypolicies and crime prevention. Social problems are focussed on safety, labour,education and healthcare. But ‘everybody’ needs to emancipate, develop and letAmsterdam citizens participate full-fledged into society (City of Amsterdam, 2006c).Not once, political speech is about ethnicity, nationality or migrant arrears on theorigin of ethnicity. It is about youngsters, citizens, addicts and prostitutes who causeproblems in terms of deviant behaviour and therefore need special attention andinsertion. These ‘others’ are not connected to explicit ‘people’ categories.

In none of these Amsterdam political documents the discursive ordering, relating‘people’ with ‘others’, is problematizing or antagonistic. Political speech is about

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Figure 4: Distribution of attention between topics in Amsterdam political coalition agreements.



categorizing certain groups, but this is not about distinction or distancing. Forexample:

A lot of Amsterdam citizens still did not find suitable jobs […]. Especially newAmsterdam citizens do not have it easy. By arrears in language or notcompleted educations and too much by discrimination they need to stand backin the line for the jobs they like. This needs a different approach, for them andthe city. (1998, p. 3)

Therefore, within Amsterdam politics no latent political populism is present.In relative comparable proportions, all elements develop stable between 1998 and2006 (see Figure 5). There is only a growth of specific elements (like the emphasis on‘people’ in 2006). This can be explained by an emphasis after the killing of VanGogh on inclusive people categories, to bridge, bond and connect Amsterdamcitizens with each other. This growth is proportional with the other elements but itnevertheless sensitizes for the probability of a populist discourse especially in 2006.

Populism and Amsterdam’s migrant integration policies

Amsterdam has become known worldwide for its multiculturalist approach on issuesof migrant integration. However, already in the mid-1990s, Amsterdam experienceda shift towards a more pragmatic, problem-oriented approach. The peak in the citycouncil agenda in the 1990s (see Figure 6) marks a moment when the Amsterdamapproach was debated (Scholten, 2013) This resulted in a new Diversity Policy,involving a reframing from ‘group-specific policies’ towards ‘problem-orientedpolicies.’ The objective of this Diversity Policy was not to focus on target groups,but on arrears. This approach contains a very inclusive focus on ‘everybody’ as ‘weare all Amsterdam citizens’ and focuses on better emancipation, participation andrepresentation of all Amsterdam citizens. It aims to solve conflicts, stimulatemeetings and attack discrimination. Not once, the policy focus is on criminality,

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Figure 5: Populist elements in Amsterdam politics.



safety or nuisance. The discourse is mainly about how to overcome differences,without neutralizing the essential features of differences. A linkage is constructedbetween civic inclusion and ethnic specificity. In spite of its inclusive aims, the1998–2002 policy period can be characterized as a categorizing discourse. Bycategorizing citizens on the basis of their ethnicity, intervention can take place toinclude them. This categorizing aspect stays without any antagonisms and staystherefore without latent or manifest presences of populism.

Whereas Rotterdam abandoned its Diversity Policy following the events in 2001and 2002, Amsterdam continued its Diversity Policy in this following period.It continued to be inclusive (2003b), primarily by developing general policy targetsfor an increasingly diversifying population. But there is a main difference in the2002–2006 policy discourse:

The position of allochtons on the labour market stays weak in comparison withautochton Dutch. […] The biggest arrear exists for Turks and Moroccans. Thelabour participation in these groups is 51 and 41 per cent against an urbanaverage of 70 per cent. (2003a, p. 20)

The discursive ordering has a logic of four phases: ‘there is a social problem’, ‘thisproblem is a group specific problem’, ‘this group is ethnic’ and thus ‘the problem weface is ethnic’. Social problems are specified by ethnicity. This discursive orderingdiverges strongly with the former period when ethnic specificity was a cause forinclusion, while now ethnic specificity became a cause for problematization. This isnot fuelled by antagonisms since the ‘people’ categories are implicitly present andare not so much visibly connected with the problematized ‘other’ categories.However, within this period, the ‘other’ is compared with a certain ‘normal’ group(urban, national or Dutch average) and therefore needs attention.

Although political documents had minimal attention for ‘others’, policy pro-grammes in 2002–2006 are explicit focussing on target groups specified by ethnicity

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Other

Political-legalintegration Socio-culturalintegration

Figure 6: Number of and thematic focus of documents on migrant integration on the agenda of the citycouncil of Amsterdam.



and nationality. While political discourse had a strong focus on ‘people’ (0.2251per cent) instead of ‘others’ (0.0495 per cent), the policy discourse is merelyfocussing on the ‘other’ (0.257 per cent) instead of the ‘people’ (0.232 per cent).This can be explained by the emphasis on ethnic and national specificity with anexplicit focus on Moroccans and Islam. Thus, within 2002–2006 policies, there is anexplicit relationship between ‘others’ and ‘people’. However, this constructioncontains no antagonistic aspects related to threatened or renounced ‘people’. Overall,2002–2006 Amsterdam policies produced specific categorizing lines and distinc-tions, but with very minimal and limited antagonistic aspects.

Within the period after 2002–2006, almost no social policies are producedconcerning integration and migrants. After 2004 (assassination of Van Gogh) andduring 2006, the coalition developed several policies stimulating inclusiveness andsocial cohesion (2006a, b), which were executed the period after 2006 without newinitiatives whatsoever. In the beginning of 2010, the Amsterdam Advisory Councilfor Diversity and Integration presented their report, which contained heavy critiqueon current integration aims. The title was illustrative for its thesis to abandon theformer integration practices radically (‘The Waterloo of integration’). It characterizesan ambiguous policy period after 2006 on integration and migrants.

Political populism and policy populism in Amsterdam

The Amsterdam case study shows a different policy discourse than in Rotterdam.In the beginning (1999) policy discourse was mainly focussed on diversity almostwithout any categorizing aspects. Ethnic specificity was connected with inclu-sionary aims. After this period, ethnic specificity was maintained but became asource of problematization and arrears, legitimizing policy interventions. Andthis resembles with the Rotterdam case study. Also in Amsterdam the definitionof the ‘people’ became more subtle inclusive-civic (‘we Amsterdammers’) andthe definition of ‘the others’ became more exclusive-ethnic (allochtons andmuslimwomen).

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

1998-2002 2002-2006

Other

People

Problems

Figure 7: Populist elements in Amsterdam policy 1998–2006.



Figure 6 on agenda attention reveals that integration issues get more attention ofthe city council after 2002. The policy documents show a relative increase of populistelements (Figure 7) but no steep changes. However, the policy discourse shows someinteresting discrepancies with the political discourse in Amsterdam. The relativeemergence of populist elements in policy discourse illustrates aspects of categorizingand distinction, whereas the political discourse only contained categorizing elements.Although clear manifest aspects of populism stay out of sight, it shows someinteresting discrepancies between the discourses of policy and politics. This revealsthat there is no need to have a certain degree of political populism to observe policypopulism. Intriguing, since in the case of Amsterdam, without so-called manifestpopulist political parties, policy populism is present.

Conclusions

Let us first consider the primary element of the research question, if populism can betraced within the fields of politics and policy. Overall, the discourse of populism as adistancing discourse is sometimes present within the fields of politics and policy inRotterdam and Amsterdam, but its intensity varies. And generally it seems to be onlylatently present, in categorizing and distinguishing social groups. Specifically, thediscourse within the field of politics in Amsterdam and Rotterdam is mostlycategorizing or distinctive while the discourse in policy making is categorizing,distinctive and distancing. Therefore, within policy discourse a more manifestpresence of populist discourse was found.

Populist discourse was most clearly present within Rotterdam policies of2002–2006. Within the field of politics it was mostly about distinctions. But withinthe field of policy, distancing took place as well, opposing and problematizingcertain groups towards each other. In Amsterdam, especially in the 2002–2006period, the most populist elements were present in the field of policy with elements ofdistinction. With these specificities in mind, what can we state about these largepresences of populist discourse within the field of policy?

Populist discourse seems to be more present in the field of policy instead ofpolitics in the last decade in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. This can be explained bythe specific policy need to problematize certain societal features, to legitimizepolicy interventions. It is quite intriguing that almost every single policy documenton integration starts to mention that ‘it is important not to divide society into“they” and “we” ’. But after this statement, in all policy documents, the categoriz-ing takes place. This points at the inherent ambiguity of policy making: in order tounite people by solutions, one needs to divide them in target groups for policyintervention. In order to do so, a significant amount of new social groups wereintroduced. For example, in the 2002–2006 Rotterdam policies, 33 new socialgroups were invented like: ‘Muslim-women’, ‘Muslim-youth’, ‘mosque-youth’,



‘Muslim-youngsters’, ‘migrant-elderly’, ‘Muslim-men’ and ‘migrant-entrepreneurs’.It shows the need of ‘othering’, the search for target groups. But this specificpolicy need for target groups or categorizing does not explain why in certainperiods this changes from categorizing into distinctions or even to distancing.Categorizing can be an immanent need for policy making, but problematizing ordistancing certain groups towards each other is not. Therefore, this study showssome interesting gradual differences within the need for a populist discoursethroughout time.

In order to answer the second element in the research question, how can theappearance of populism can be characterized? Especially in the field of policy, thematter of distancing and proximity both changed. This study showed that the useof ingroup categories (‘people’) and outgroup categories (‘others’) changed.Especially, while ‘others’ became exclusive-ethnic, ‘people’ became inclusive-civic. To exemplify this ingroup inclusive-civic denomination, a strong emphasiswas put on synonyms for ‘the average’, like ‘everybody’ or ‘the average Dutch orRotterdam/Amsterdam citizen’. Sometimes this was opposed with an outgroup(other) contesting this average synonym and the norm, like ‘criminals’, ‘Antil-leans’ or ‘Moroccans’. And complementary, social problems became subjectifiedwhich shifted social problems to social groups, which then became ethnic oforigin. The ‘Antillean problem’ (City of Rotterdam, 2008, p. 2) exemplifies thisshift. As a result, the demarcation between who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ issharpened on the basis of ethnicity. Like Uitermark (2008) we argue that whereasAmsterdam’s diversity policy is post-multiculturalist in terms of negating ethnicdifferences, paradoxically the ethnic factor continues to play a central role in localpolitical discourse. This study demonstrates how this emergence of ethnicspecificity is connected with issues of a distancing discourse in local politics andpolicy discourses.

This study shows the omnipresent and even multipurpose potential of populistdiscourse in politics and especially policies. Even in the city with a slightly marginalpolitical presence of populism (Amsterdam), this study shows that this does not meanthat populist discourse can be absent. Therefore, the comparison of Rotterdam andAmsterdam showed that the presence of populist discourse in public policies issometimes larger than politically admitted or represented.

There seems to be a relationship, or ‘elective affinities’, between politicalpopulism and policy populism, but since populism occurs in periods whenpolitical populism is marginal, the specific character of this relation or influenceneeds further attention and research. However, this study reveals that the presenceof policy populism is not dependent of political populism. It shows that policypopulism has a more stable presence, without the need for its political equiva-lence. Manifest or latent populism in the field of policies seems effectiveand sustainable, which may reveal a broader populist Zeitgeist (Mudde, 2004;de Lange and Rooduijn, 2011).



About the Authors

Mark van Ostaijen is a PhD student and academic lecturer affiliated to theDepartment of Public Administration of the Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Peter Scholten is Associate Professor, Public Policy & Politics, and Director ofIMISCOE Research network affiliated to the Department of Public Administration ofthe Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Notes

1 Consisted of seven categories of neutral categories; four ethnic categories; eight professional categories;four age groups.

2 Consisted of 16 delinquent categories; 11 age categories; 23 ethnic categories; 9 sex categories;2 professional categories and 10 national categories.

3 Consisted of categories like: safety, criminality, health, culture, religion and so on.

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