From the Chicago School of Urban Sociology to Transnationalism

In the traditions of American sociology and interethnic relationships, the correlation between the city and immigration is theorized from the lenses of the production and effects of ethnicities (^{Glazer & Moynihan, 1963}). Thus, the analysis of the consequences of migrations into cities prevails, and not that of their causes. Sociologists from the Chicago School of Urban Sociology devised the immigrant city as a subject of sociological studies centered around the premises of the general theory of social change; they argued that the big city, because of its objective characteristics and the division of labor prevailing there, defines a new way of social and community existence and organization, based on ethnic awareness (^{Park & Burgess, 1921}). The Chicago School of Urban Sociology occupied itself from the onset in the different aspects that shape the culture of cities, from the prerogatives of the individualism typical of a liberal society.

The Chicago sociological tradition that addresses the migration-city relationship from the paradigms of assimilation and ethnicity has been questioned by those first theories of transnationalism emerging from 1992, acknowledging new immigrant profiles strongly linked to their countries of origin and immersed in networks, activities, lifestyles, and ideologies that transcend national borders. The pioneering works by ^{Schiller, Basch, and Blanc (1992)} had at the time already emphasized the intensity, frequency, and increasing relevance acquired by the material and symbolic human relationships connecting societies across national borders. Nonetheless, specifically in the transnationalism developed by ^{Schiller and Çağlar (2009)}, the local dimension (that of the city) in transnational migration becomes a central unit of analysis. Following this, these two authors try to construct a local theory to understand the transnational migration phenomenon by addressing what is local not as a matter of non-mobilization but as one of relative position within the spheres of urban, state, regional, and global powers. Their theorizations highlight the relevance of particular localities in the shaping of migratory processes. That is why they propose exploring the relationship between immigration and locality from the analysis of the type of relationships arising among those residing in a locality and the local, regional, national, and global institutions, paying special attention to how migrants contribute both to the development processes of localities and their reshaping, restructuring, and rescaling (^{Moraes Mena, 2004}).

And so, the theoretical body created by ^{Schiller and Çağlar (2011)} provides valuable tools that contribute to outlining the relationships between the size, relevance, or political organization of specific cities that receive migrants and the patterns of immigrant integration. In their later works, namely Locating Migration: Rescaling Cities and Migrants (^{Schiller & Çağlar, 2011}), they appeal to a mixed approach juxtaposing urban and migration studies to better understand and explain the role of immigrants as shapers and agents of dynamism of cities in the globalization age. This way, these two authors propose a new comparative vision that takes as a starting point the transnational practices of immigrants and the ways they integrate into cities.

Following this line of critique of the theories developed by the Chicago School of Urban Sociology about the city-immigration tandem, the valuable contributions by ^{Portes (2001)} should be mentioned. By establishing a symmetry between the urban history at the onset and the end of the second millennium regarding the historical preference of migrants for urban destinations, and the transformations of the social and cultural fabric of the city as a product of such migration flows, Portes proposes analytic approaches that position cities as traffic hubs of international mobility for people in the search for political freedom and economic opportunities; cities from which transnational communities of migrants organize, reflecting a new global order. It is from these premises that the theses by Portes link or set in parallel the process of ethnic identification and the integration into the institutions of the States that receive international migrations.

Portes’ critical view has been picked up by other authors who have set themselves to analyze the economic implication of ethnic identification. Certainly, the phenomenon of ethnic economies or immigration is interesting (either from an economic or academic perspective) due to the important labor, financial and social consequences that take place where these phenomena arise. Regarding this, the contributions by ^{Light (1972)}, ^{Light and Gold (2000)}, ^{Light, Sabagh, Bozorgmeht, and Der-Martirosian (1994)} stand out, as they systematize the conditions under which the business activities of Koreans, Taiwanese, Japanese, Cubans, and African Americans in the United States emerge and consolidate in the areas where these people settle. In his ethnocultural dissertations, ^{Light (1972)} emphasizes the mobilization practices of material (financing) and information (advise, counseling) ethnic resources, as well as experience (education) as factors that justify immigrant entrepreneurship.

After the theory of ethnic economies, ^{Portes and Jensen (1989)} posit and examine several hypotheses on the profile of ethnic enclaves, the determining factors of self-employment among ethnic minorities, as well as the effects of participating in an economy of ethnic enclave on businessmen and workers. The empirical data they explored point at two important conclusions on ethnic enclaves: the first is that the structures of ethnic enclaves are defined by the physical proximity of immigrant companies and not merely as residential conglomerates; the second is that ethnic enclaves avoid the costs of employment in the secondary labor market, just as they constitute themselves as a path of ascending social mobility for immigrants. These observations on ethnic enclaves are valuable in that they question the postulate of the Chicago School assimilationist theory, according to which a greater contact between immigrant and native populations in a territory, fostered by industrialization processes, would affect the dissolution of ascriptive or mechanical (ethnic) solidarity, in turn, substituted by a functional or organic one.

Now, despite the abundance of studies on ethnic economy, there is no consensus among authors as to the typification of explanatory factors for the emergence and consolidation of immigrant entrepreneurship. ^{Waldinger (1985)}, for an example, takes note of three major explanatory lines: the culturalist perspective one, the ecological one (by the School of Chicago authors), and the interactionist one. This author positions himself in the interactionist current, stressing the complex interaction of three dimensions: group characteristics (capacity of the group to mobilize informal resources, availability of family and community availability, etc.), opportunity structures (market conditions, types of governmental policies, license issuing conditions, etc.) and ethnic strategies (ways of mobilization of ethnic resources within the structures of specific opportunities).

Immigration, City, and Globalization

From the last decade of the 20th century, the academic literature on the immigration-city relationship has redirected its focus towards the position of cities in the global migration system and on its consequences impacting the shaping of the new global order of political, economic, and cultural power. The classic contributions by ^{Sassen (1991)} have been useful in shedding light on the processes and consequences of some cities becoming global cities, true centers of spatial reorganization of the world economy, characterized by their huge capacity for coordination and administration of control and management functions of the global capitalist economy. Sassen identifies the cities of New York, London, and Tokyo as such. These cities define themselves under double identities: at once they are political units subordinated to specific Nation-States as well as command and organization centers of a complex world economy on which the futures of those same Nation States depend to a great extent (^{Portes, 2001}). Other authors have followed on the steps of Sassen, aiming at an in-depth understanding of “midrange global cities,” being those that undertake order and control functions in the capitalist global economy at the regional level; Miami, Florida, is a paradigmatic city in these terms (^{Sassen & Portes, 1993}).

Late research by ^{Schiller and Çağlar (2011)} calls into question those perspectives essentially oriented towards the exploration of global restructuring processes of economic, political, and cultural power within the walls of “global cities,” “midrange global cities” or “gateway cities.” That is why the two authors developed an approach focused on the analysis of the relationship between the urban regeneration projects taking place in certain cities with political, economic, and cultural power to different extents on the one hand, and the everyday sociability and social civility practices of all people inhabiting cities on the other. These authors selected as case studies three cities that are similar and dissimilar to different extents in terms of political, economic, and cultural power: Manchester (New Hampshire, U.S.) Halle/Saale (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) and Mardin (Turkey). This approach explores the potential interdependencies between the processes of mobility, urban restructuring, and the integration of immigrants to those cities. In terms of the latter aspect, this approach assumes that the relationships between cities and their immigrants had already become an important part of urban regeneration projects.

The methodological approach of these two authors is that of multiscale analysis; it discards the dichotomy of analytical levels in which the macro-level of the world system (namely, globalization) is above and beyond the micro-level of everyday life. It also makes away with the hierarchically fixed escalation of delimited territorial units that go from neighborhoods to the State, passing through cities and provinces. From this critique, the methodology they proposed traces back the social processes and the different socio-spatial spheres, as well as their multiple interconnections, just as they dynamize in these cities.

Dual Cities and Migratory Places

In a different order of things, the research carried out in Europe from the 1980s stands out; it emphasized the two sides of immigration in the city: economic growth and innovation in the face of social exclusion, segregation, and conflict. This ambivalent face of immigration in the city justifies the title of “dual city” that ^{Lorenzo Cachón (2010)} profusely made use of about the spatial integration of immigration into Spanish cities. The inference of our author is that Spanish cities are being configured around two determining factors that interrelate each other: a multicultural reality characterized by the presence of people in the neighborhoods representing different cultural values and among whom there is no interrelation and communication, altogether with another, more physical reality with quite certain socio-spatial structures, heavily conditioned by processes of social inclusion, growth, and the generation of income from rents. This dual city, marked by multiculturalism and exclusion, evidences the emergence of segregated neighborhoods.

Now, given that migrations are global movements that are born and land in very concrete places, and that there are already settled societies where they land, oftentimes quite different and complex themselves (^{Serra, 2007}), studies on migration began proposing certain methodological tools and theoretical models for the analysis of the social integration of immigrants into cities. The Social Integration of Immigrants (ISI, for its acronym in Spanish) model proposed in Spain by ^{Izquierdo Escribano and Noya (1999)} is of undeniable heuristic value; this model develops a meso approach that considers the material and social environment wherein the social integration of immigrants take place. This proposal brings together as central variables “the specific contexts of immigration” (modes of residential zones, types of organizations, or spheres of work), on which a quantitative methodology of multilevel analysis is applied, as well as “the density of social networks” (social and relational capital), in turn, interpreted from the network analysis methodology.

The sphere of substantive analysis wherein the methodological approach of the social integration of immigrants (ISI) model proposed by Izquierdo Escribano and Noya can be applied empirically are migration places, defined by the authors as “specific spaces where migration waves of different kinds have taken hold: internal, return and international,” and so they are “spaces characterized by a high density and variety of migration flows” (^{Escribano & Noya, 1999, p. 34}). The analysis of the social structures and of the social and cultural links that emerge in “migration places” provides interesting hints helpful in interpreting the urban processes of reception, mobility, and marginalization that take place in some cities. Based on research carried out in other specific context in which there is great cultural diversity, such as the Bijlmermeer neighborhood in Amsterdam, ^{Izquierdo Escribano and Noya (1999)} set forth as starting hypothesis that the contextual variable of migration places (accumulation and qualitative variety of migration situations, and so of the social relationships in each area) influences the social climate, considerably rising the tolerance threshold and expediting cultural integration. Studies before the proposal of these two authors locate “migration places” in Spain in the cities of Galicia, Andalusia, and Catalonia.

South European Cities: Diversity, Ethnic Economy, and Spatial Segregation

The change in the migratory status of southern European states, as they became geographic spaces receiving immigration from the last decade of the past century, has brought about a new revision of the theoretical prerogatives and the hypothesis on the patterns of residential settlement of immigrants, and of the main forms of ethnic segregation in the United States and north European cities. That is why a different demographic and urban geography research agenda has flourished from the first decade of the 21st century. The different lines of this agenda display analytical concepts, methodological tools, and study approaches that particularly emphasize the processes of immigrant marginalization, vulnerability, and social exclusion in the cities, stemming from the dimensions of spatial integration (dispersion, concentration, or segregation in terms of housing) and of the struggle against discrimination (^{Echazarro de Gregorio, 2009}; ^{Pfirsch & Semi, 2016}).

Particularly the research by ^{Arbaci (2008)} and by ^{Malheiros (2002)} explores the overlap between the problems and the causes of residential segregation and ethnic and social differentiation processes in Mediterranean cities. The research they carried out infers that geographic deconcentration, understood as a settlement pattern of immigrants in southern European cities, is a negative symptom of ethnic insertion. The geographic dispersion of immigrant settlements throughout cities is a characteristic of residential marginalization. It is not a conjunctural effect but is rather part of the structural mechanisms derived from a broad process of labor market segmentation, and of a social segmentation of space and of the predominance of homeownership, same that is hardly available for labor immigrants.

Yet other studies on immigrant integration in southern European cities emphasize the role of ethnic entrepreneurship in urban restructuring, placing ethnic economy in the intersection between immigrant settlement tendencies and the processes of change taking place in the cities. Led by the research carried out by Hatziprokopiou and his team (^{Hatziprokopiou et al., 2016}), this approach selected as empirical case studies the cities of Athens, Milan, and Vienna. The authors criticized the classic views that solely emphasize the socioeconomic and ethnic aspects of ethnic entrepreneurship, making a point of the suitability of positioning ethnic entrepreneurship in the dynamics of social change and urban transformation.

City, Refuge, and Hospitality

With the refugee crisis of the European Union (exacerbated between 2014 and 2016), not only the political debate on the structural limits of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) has resurfaced, but also the academic interest in questioning the role of the city as a framework for the development of refugee reception and socialization policies.

The processes of refugee reception and integration in European cities have been extensively addressed through the research agenda of the Refugees in European localities: Reception, Perceptions, and Policies (RELOCAL) project, developed by the International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion (IMISCOE) network. The research conducted by this project delves into the academic debates and polemics around three axes that result from the city-refugees tandem.

First, the most appropriate theoretical approaches wherein to frame and analyze the processes of refugee reception and integration are identified, leaving out of the methodological design and approach of the research those categories that have been defined politically. Then, from the assumption that cities are the scenarios of immediate contact and interaction between the native population and the refugee inflows landing in urban areas, the need to analyze empirically not only the conditions under which local conflicts emerge but also the ways that those conflicts can be conceptualized and solved is raised. Lastly, it is of the essence to delve into the type of public discourse presented by local authorities in terms of the problems derived from the reception and integration of refugees in the city, as well as the citizen response of the locals and the self-organization capacities of asylum-seekers and refugees. Refugee Migration and Local Demarcations: New Insight into European Localities, a work published by ^{Doomernik and Glorius (2016)}, provides interesting empirical evidence on the local problems around the reception and integration of refugees from different cities in five Nation States: Germany, the United Kingdom, Norway, Italy, Turkey, and Bulgaria.

It should also be stressed that from the second decade of the 21st century another category emerged of abundant academic literature on cities and refugees, developed in two directions. The first one goes deep into the dilemmas and debates on refugee spaces. The interesting article by ^{Romola Sanyal (2012)} titled Refugees and the City: An Urban Discussion stands out; it accurately summarizes the problems inherent to the politics of “urbanization of refugee camps,” as well as the implications of managing the humanitarian care of refugees settled throughout slums and in the periphery of big cities. The second revolves around the city-asylum-hospitality triad, highlighting the solidarity dimension of several “villes-refuges,” “ciudad de asilo,” “sanctuary city,” which proliferate in some Nation-States in Europe and North America. The works by ^{Amin Filomeno (2018)}, ^{Furri (2017)}, ^{Delgado (2018)}, ^{Aparna and Schapendonk (2018)}, and lastly by ^{Darling (2017)}, portray the political tensions resulting from the resistance of the cities to the requirements of the framework of eligibility and granting of the right to asylum, the transformations of refuge/asylum cities, and the negotiations between the different urban actors in the creation of imaginaries and the narrative of hospitality.

Immigration, City, and State: Towards a Local Turn in Migration Policies

The decline of the hegemony of methodological nationalism and the ethnic paradigm in migration studies coincides with the progressive adoption of the “territory” or “locality” perspective and of local actors, displacing social and geographical (or physical) borders from research, in favor of local and regional demarcations. Also, the position of “locality” is of interest in mobility spaces and transnational material and symbolic exchange. This new academic impulse towards the territorialization processes of immigration infers the importance of the local context as the framework in which the real dimension of immigrant settlement is inscribed, and so, as the basic institutional framework in which migration policies are established (^{Fauser, 2008}). This new direction also deepens on the changes produced in the local governance of immigration from the restructuring dynamics of the “subsystem of actors” who “make and shape” the territory.

Likewise, the “territory” perspective assigns a significant role to the position and action of the immigrant community itself in the institutional circuits and the political decision-making processes by examining the multiple interrelations established by the actors, how they perceive each other, oppose each other, make alliances, impose criteria, and organize territories, lastly (^{Moine, 2006}). The analysis of the “situated” action of local actors has the advantage of providing a systematic vision of the interactions between the different structures and agents involved in the local responses to the challenges presented by immigration and diversity.

Now, we should anticipate that when we address the local sphere, we refer to the basic unit of local administration: the municipality. But in addition to it, there may also be second-degree levels grouping together several municipalities, even infra-municipal entities (^{Baena del Alcázar, 2000}). The local turn implies acknowledging that certain aspects linked to migration management are by their very nature beyond the control of central governments, leading to the idea of cooperation and coordination with other actors, namely local authorities and civil society. This means that the development and the consequences of the local policies on immigration cannot be understood if approached isolated from their context. Intergovernmental relations, economic globalization, and international institutions are all crucial variables and conditioning factors that significantly limit local autonomy in the management of migration (^{Schoten, 2019}).

To delve deeper into the institutional position of local administrations towards migration policies, some research has focused on the level of local autonomy before the integration of immigrants and the local dimensions of said integration. It should be stated at this point, that even if in the Anglo-Saxon system municipalities and other local entities are understood as “local governments” and are so autonomous in terms of the particular coinage of this term in that system (self-government), in the continental European system local entities are not governments but administrations, and as such partake of the general structure of the administration of each State (^{Baena del Alcázar, 2000}).

In any case, and despite the local shift in migration policies, it is quite difficult to conceptualize a local political field circumscribed in migration as theorized by ^{Bourdieu (2012)}, since in the management of this matter the principles of coordination and cooperation prevail among all actors. Moreover, the local sphere (cities and municipalities will generally not hold any exclusive jurisdiction in terms of immigrant integration. Certain jurisdictions are transversally developed from the local sphere, for better integration in terms of urban planning, social cohesion (minimizing social and urban inequalities, as well as exclusion phenomena), education or health, from the prisms of jurisdictions pertaining to residents registered in the city, always observing the principles of normalization and equal treatment.

The detailed analysis of the jurisdictional sphere in cities as pertaining immigrant integration has led to two different approaches in the European political science literature: on the one hand, the theoretical formulations focused on “multi-level” vertical relationships between the different political actors and their implications in the development of integration policies, and on the other, the formulations examining and theorizing on the local responses to international migrations from the point of view of public administration. These two approaches overlap in many respects and complement each other.

City and State: Scenarios and Dilemmas of the "Multilevel" Governance of Immigration

In the first academic treatment profile of the multilevel government of immigration, the core problem in research is to properly identify how and why the different configurations of the relationship between the central and local governments affect the government style of immigrant integration policies. The works by Peter Scholten and his team (^{Caponio et al., 2019}; ^{Scholten, 2016}; ^{Scholten & Penninx, 2016}) and by ^{Henrik Emilsson (2015)} stand out in this line of research, as they study this matter to detail from a comparative approach.

^{Scholten (2011}, ²⁰¹³, ²⁰¹⁶⁾ addresses the conflicts and different scenarios (alignment or asymmetry) of multilevel governance of immigration by comparing the two divergent structural patterns of governance and political models of immigrant integration in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Two cities from each country known for their divergent approaches were selected for his purposes: London (Tower Hamlets and Enfield districts) and Glasgow in the UK, and Rotterdam and Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The study of these empirical cases led him to the conclusion that there are no coordination mechanisms typical of a top-down that can ensure a symmetrical framework of guidelines that requires formatting a national model of immigrant integration. In the United Kingdom, a framework of guidelines and common criteria pertaining to certain specific initiatives is emphasized, allowing local governments to establish their integration definitions and approaches by means of legal and political resources, optimizing the instruments of self-governance in some instances, and forcing an asymmetrical positioning. Conversely, there is no centralized vertical system of multilevel government in the Netherlands. This implies a scenario of diverging and asymmetrical frameworks, at times even of a conflictive and contradictory political nature.

The works by ^{Henrik Emilsson (2015)}, which compare the multilevel governance dynamics of the integration policies of Sweden and Denmark, are quite representative of the cooperation and coordination problems of the multilevel governance of immigration. In the view of this author, although local governments have become important actors in the policies of integration, the latest trends in migration policy in Denmark and Sweden have taken a national turn (“a national turn of local integration policy”) as the central governments of both countries have managed to increase their control and influence at the local level, consequently weakening the capacity of local governments to formulate their integration policies. Emphasizing the new direction in migration policy, Emilsson confirms that despite their different approaches both Nation States have changed political paradigms, increasing their control and authority on local governments, re-centralizing the instruments of governance (soft) and control (government).

Along the same direction that the two previous authors, those research works firmly grounded in a theoretical framework able to explain the divergent paths of the different levels of immigration governance (State-city) should be highlighted. Regarding this, ^{Martin Bak Jørgensen (2012)} compared the migration policy approaches applied in four Danish municipalities (Aalborg, Arhus, Copenhague, & Thisted) and concluded that the concepts of “institutional logic” and “political rationales” can be combined with the notions of political opportunity structures (POS). From this theoretical framework, the author argues that the divergent paths of the central and city government levels may be explained not only as resulting from an unsatisfactory transposition of national policies to the local sphere but also the divergence of alternative political frameworks competing, from political rationale and institutional logic.

Immigration and Local Autonomy: The Asymmetrical Governance of Immigration

The State or central government will hold the role of political direction in the interplay of the actor-network, by enunciating the goals of the public strategies for the integration of migrants and by legally and administratively regulating the basic instruments for the financing and deployment of integration policy. The lack of free agency power, as well as the lack of a “reservoir” of a substantial jurisdictional scope not subject to limitation by the national legislator pertaining to the reception and integration of migration profiles, makes it impossible to develop mandatory instruments that may serve as platforms for “local public policies” that can be circumscribed as a specific object of study.

The truth is that local bodies lack autonomous regulatory institutions pertaining to migration matters, as they also lack a public philosophy of integration that may inspire their actions, even if they may have the economic and political, and administrative institutional resources able to set in motion the actions of local administrations. On the other hand, local administrations also lack autonomous and sufficient material and financial resources to properly respond to the challenges raised by integration into the local sphere. Two important fields of research derive from these prerogatives, delving deep into the institutional position of local administrations towards migration policy.

The first field focuses on analyzing the degree of political and administrative autonomy of local administrations to develop immigrant integration policy. The efforts of some authors in establishing a typology of local approaches to integration policies stand out (^{Alexander, 2003}; ^{Pennix, & Martiniello, 2006}). Particularly ^{Michael Alexander (2003)}, inspired by the triple classification of migration policy formulated by ^{Castles (1995)} (differential exclusion, assimilationist, and pluralist), proposes four types or stages of attitudes or positioning of municipal authorities to migrants and their otherness, which materialize in specific policies for the migrant population in the local sphere. The attitudes of the authorities fall into two categories, the modernist and postmodernist ones.

From the modernist point of view, the presence of the immigrant in the municipality is assumed as transitory or temporary, and two different positions are assumed, which are nonetheless integrated into one single public philosophy of marginalization or segregation: in the first position, a nonpolitical attitude is assumed. The second position pertains to the concept of the guest worker and is characterized by an attitude of (non-enthusiastic) tolerance. The two modernists’ positions both ignore the presence of immigrants and fail to consider their otherness. On the other hand, the postmodernist position assumes the presence of the immigrant as permanent. In this latter case, the political reaction can be assimilationist, aiming at minimizing or eventually nullifying otherness (segregation included), or pluralist, that is, tolerant and possibly even supporting otherness, including some tolerance to segregation. Thus, we can see that the four possible types of attitudes translate into possible municipal policies: transitory (nonpolitical), guest worker, assimilationist, and pluralist. Each of these attitudes is a stage in local policy, which being dynamic, can evolve. ^{Alexander (2003)} also identifies three important variables that condition the development of local policy on immigration: the municipal/urban policy development paths, the prevailing or prioritization of a political sphere above another (for example, French cities focus on the Politique de la Ville, whereas British cities focus on race relations), and the type of city-Nation-State relationships.

To complete the analysis of the institutional position of local administrations in immigrant integration processes, it is necessary to note the empirical works on local policy undertaken within the framework of the Knowledge for integration governance (KING) project (^{Gilardoni, D’Odorico, & Carrillo, 2015}) and the study by ^{Rinus Penninx (2009)}, member advisor of the KING project, which highlight three spheres or dimensions of immigrant integration in the local sphere: 1) socio-economic, 2) cultural and social cohesion, and 3) legal and political.

The institutional perspectives developed by ^{Penninx and Martiniello (2006)} along the same line of research stand out. These two authors provide an account of the academic debates and controversies around two types of institutions that are particularly relevant for the immigrant integration processes in the local sphere: those of a universal nature and those existing “by and for” immigrant groups. Universal institutions serve all citizens equally: the education system, the institutional arrangements in the labor market, the public health system, or the political system itself, for example. The two authors argue that integration policies should take into account all of the dimensions or spheres they are meant to cover, meaning that not only should they reflect the concerns of the native majority but also be sensitive to the specific needs of immigrant groups, and adapt to the local conditions. On their part, those specialized care devices created “by and for” migrant groups are also framed in the context of democratic quality and local governance, as they emphasize the role of actors (both political and stakeholders) in the double sphere of the decision-making process and the administrative implementation of political decisions.

The second field of research focused on the dynamics between immigration and local autonomy mainly addresses the tensions of the multilevel governance of immigration, aiming at theorizing the local responses to international migrations from the perspective of public administration. In Spain, the contributions by ^{Zapata-Barrera (2012)} are of great theoretical interest: matter of fact, this author analyzes in-depth the local autonomy aspects in the face of new local challenges in migration matters, arguing that according to the principle of proximity and subsidiarity, local administrations began activating since 2011 their legal (ordinances), administrative (registration management) and political (reception, management of religious pluralism and public space, management of discourses and social conflicts) resources to shape their most immediate perspectives. All of this without taking into account a global vision nor the policy coherence, or the effects that it may have on the very dynamics of migration. This author categorizes a triple role that local administrations can activate, relevant to different degrees: the autonomous active role as manager of those policies related to diversity and technical-administrative aspects (registration), the role as managing entity (managing the decisions made by other higher governments and collaborating in the policies of other government levels) and the territorial role (the city territorializes and decides on its policies, and establishes “local borders” directly affecting the mobility of migrants).