The Dynamic Relationship between Immigrant Politics and Urban Policy Making: Protecting the Rights of Undocumented Immigrants in Boston and Amsterdam

Abstract

With the advancement of comparative studies within the field of immigration and sociopolitical movements, scholars have attempted to understand how politico-institutional contexts influence the mobilization strategies of immigrant rights organizations at the local level. In this article, I make use of a field approach to explain how these organizations face different group-and issue-specific conditions regarding their involvement in local policy-making processes. Empirically, I examine the advocacy work of immigrant rights organizations in their aim to protect the rights of undocumented immigrants in Boston (USA) and Amsterdam (the Netherlands). By approaching power and resistance as relational phenomena, the results indicate that the intersection of distinct institutional and organizational mechanisms has differently impacted the local fields of immigrant politics. Taking different routes, in both cities immigrant rights organizations have found ways to constitute an affirmative institutional and discursive counterpower that challenges the national exclusionary citizenship regimes from the ground.