In Italy, the phenomenon of migration has reached the dimension of an emergency in the internal public debate (Carta 2018) with the Decree-Law on Immigration and Security (Law 1.12.2018, n.132) representing a major downturn in the architecture of the Italian system of protection. This paper is a tentative to explore the Salvini Security-Immigration Decree-Law and its regional socio-economic effects. The Salvini’s reform has been decried by civil society organisations for lowering protection standards, infringing constitutional and human rights guarantees and exacerbating social tension on migration (AIDA 2018). Composed by forty articles, fifteen of which are dedicated to immigration, international protection and citizenship, the so called ‘Salvini Decree-Law’ is leading, and it will lead, some relevant effects on Italian regional and local contexts. Indeed, even if an important role is played by national government in defining comprehensive solutions to migration phenomenon, in Italy activities and measures for migrants are planned and implemented through coordinated actions at national, regional and local level. On the grounds of this complex context, a conceptual framework is introduced to analyse the Salvini Decree-Law’s effects on regional contexts and to generate hypothesis on the strategies that local and regional policy makers (but also non-state actors) should follow. In particular, this tool analyses challenges the implementation of the new Law is leading in the two specific domains of reception and integration of asylum seekers and refugees. The case study of Tuscany Region has been chosen due to its well-known welfare model and strong social capital structure. The study results are reported and systematised in an ex-post SWOT analysis.

Amid the surge of populism across the globe, migration is very often politicized, and migrants accused of causing the loss of jobs and the underperformance of welfare and health services. Right-wing populists exacerbate these claims and capitalize on thriving racism and xenophobia. So far, the scholarship’s emphasis on global populism has tended to overlook the importance of local experiences in filtering these dynamics and shaping voters’ perceptions. This article examines Southern Italy, arguing that migration plays a relevant role in fostering the appeal of populist platforms, but in relation to socioeconomic inequalities and the history of the local area.

Although migration is usually approached at the macro level as a geopolitical phenomenon and catalyser of social-economic changes (e.g. impact on poverty in home and host countries, impact on economic growth, impact on human capital), the capability approach (Sen, 1987; 1995) suggests that being able to decide where to live is also a key element of human freedom. Starting from 2000, Italy had the highest relative growth of its migrant population (Caritas Italiana, 2019) in the European Union (EU). The number of asylum seekers, holders of international protection, and refugees hosted and assisted by the reception system has significantly increased between 2011 and 2017 (UNHCR, 2020). Consequently, a major challenge emerged: how to structure a reception system able to support migrants by fostering their integration within hosting communities and by promoting their autonomy at the end of the asylum procedure. The aim of this paper is to describe the evolution of the multidimensional well-being and capabilities of migrants along their migration experience with a particular focus on the role played by the reception system. The paper investigates three case studies which have been observed between 2015 and 2019 in two Italian regions, Tuscany and Piedmont. The research adopts innovative participatory methods, including structured focus group discussion and participatory mapping, with the aim to directly engage asylum seekers and holders of international protection.

In the last two decades, European countries, while working for the establishment of a Common European Asylum System (CEAS) to harmonise the legal frameworks of the member states and establish common minimum standards, have rather pursued domestic goals at times, imposing restrictive policies on forced migrants to deter inflows and deflect refugees to fellow countries. Within migration policies, integration programmes in EU countries might affect the well-being and the quality of life, inducing migrants to move from one country to another. We thus investigate the effect of integration policies from 2006 to 2018 on secondary movements of asylum seekers. We argue that integration policies show significant correlations with secondary movements in European countries, while more general migration policies may rather affect first entry flows into EU.

The aim of the paper is to discuss the economic features of Italy’s neo-racism. It contends that neo-racism is a mass phenomenon that emerged over the past twenty years as a result of the degraded quality of life determined by neoliberalism. Neo-racism results from in-group/outgroup dynamics whereby people seek scapegoats that may account for their dismal economic and social conditions. Contrary to extant economic theories, the paper tries to explain the insurgence of discrimination rather than assuming that racism existed from the very beginning. The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 describes neo-racism in Italy and distinguishes it from past racism. The third section discusses existing theoretical outlooks and explains why their assumptions do not fit with the evidence about Italy. The fourth section discusses Italy’s shift to neoliberalism by describing both the change in the balance of power between business and unions and the policies that reinforced this change. The fifth section discusses how these institutional changes affected people’s categorical and relational identities. It stresses that neoliberalism reduces the opportunities both for individual and collective action, thereby increasing the scope for categorical identities at the expense of relational identities. The sixth section provides a few concluding remarks.

Does Europeanisation of borders and migration policies necessarily infringe national sovereignty? This paper proposes to question this commonplace by analysing the entanglement of three internal tactics of bordering promoted by national-populists in the wake of the 2015 “crisis” with the Dublin Regulation – namely, the EU legal framework governing the allocation of asylum seekers across EU Member States (MS). Not only does the biometric database related to Dublin Regulation (the EURODAC) enable national authorities to diminish the number of applicants for whom they are deemed responsible, but it may also be used in a variety of ways for setting administrative traps against other categories of third country nationals (TCN). Thus, against the widespread belief, this paper argues the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) might be, in some respect, highly needed for enacting national sovereignty in the Schengen context. Whereas the policies presented here were publicised in the name of “re-nationalising” the management of asylum flows against the EU leadership, they might have paradoxically relied on the wide usage of dataveillance instruments offered by the EU itself. Thus, this article will finally offer a better understanding of some ambivalences of Eurosceptical parties in their relation to the CEAS.

Responding to growing immigration concerns, European countries have increasingly resorted to restrictive entry policies in recent years. While migration literature tends to support this policy lever, reporting a significant association between restrictive legislation and immigration flows, findings are generally based on measures of regular migration only. This paper complements available evidence using innovative data on irregular flows between 2003 and 2016 on the Central Mediterranean Route (CMR) to provide a critical analysis of the use of restrictive regulations as a migration management tool. It finds that such restrictions, rather than deterring irregular migration, are likely to push more people into the asylum system. Reducing access to legal pathways has no significant effect on the volume of irregular migrants apprehended on the CMR, while it increases the number of those that seek regularization through asylum application.