e u ro p e a n u n i v e r s i t y i n s t i t u t e
IAPASIS project Improving the Human Research Potential and the Socio-economic Knowledge Base EC Fifth Framework Programme
2001/IAPASIS-rep/I1 © Anna Triandafyllidou & Mariangela Veikou. All rights reserved.
Infor mal Administration Practices and Shifting Immigrant Strategies in four member -states
Anna Triandafyllidou Mariangela Veikou RSCAS, EUI
Immigration Policy Implementation in Italy Organisational Culture, Identity, Processes and Labour Market Control No part of this paper may be distributed, quoted or reproduced in any form without permission For authorized quotation(s), please acknowledge the RSCAS source For any query or information, please contact the author(s) or Catherine Divry at ✉
[email protected]
May 2001
ro b e r t s c h u m a n c e n t re f o r a d v a n c e d s t u d i e s
Does Implementation Matter?
IMMIGRATION POLICY IMPLEMENTATION IN ITALY Organisational Culture, Identity Processes and Labour Market Control Anna Triandafyllidou, Mariangela Veikou Robert Schuman Centre, European University Institute
Table of contents 1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………... 1.1 Italian administration in transition………………………………………………
3 5
2. The immigration policy framework………………………………………………….. 2.1 Entry and residence in Italy ……………………………………………………….. 2.2 Institutional actors………………………………………………………………… 2.3 Non-governmental actors………………………………………….………………. 2.4 Regulating immigrant labour: institutional actors and administrative procedures… 2.4.1 The process and related administrative agencies………………………. 2.4.2 Stay permit for dependent employment……………………..………… 2.4.3 Stay permit for self-employment……………………………………..…
8 9 11 12 12 12 12 13
3. The case study…………………………………………………………..………….. 3.1 The research design…………………………………………………………….. 3.1.1 The fieldwork……………………………………………………………. 3.1.2 The interview guide……………………………………………………… 3.2 Operationalisation and indexing………………………………………………..
15 15 15 17 18
4. The organisational culture of the Foreigners’ Office in Florence……….………. 4.1 Goals…………………………………………………………………………… 4.2 Values……………………………………………………………………….….. 4.3 Hierarchical or egalitarian character of relations………………………….…… 4.4 Clear division or overlapping of tasks……………………………….…………. 4.5 Personal or impersonal character of authority and relations within the office…. 4.6 Myths and symbols…………………..………………………………………….. 4.7 Language………………………………………………………………………… 4.8 Rituals…………………………………………………………………………… 4.9 Ideologies……………….…………………………………………………………
19 20 22 24 25 25 26 27 28 29
5. Assessing the impact of organisational culture on policy implementation……….…... 5.1 Discretionary practices: an overview……………….…………………………… 5.2 Decisions made by the FO managers…………………………………………… 5.3 Interpreting the law: formal and informal discretionary practices……………… 5.4 Daily work routines: informal discretion and favouritism……………………….
29 30 31 33 35
5.5 5.6
Sense of community: interactions and relationships between colleagues………… 40 Defining the immigrant as client………………………………………………….. 41
6. Identity processes…………………………………………………………………… 6.1 The immigrants’ position in the Italian society…………………………..……… 6.2 The main currents in Italian national identity……………………………………. 6.3 Findings from the interviews…………………………………………………… 6.3.1 National identity and definitions of the ‘foreigner’……………………….. 6.3.2 Personal qualities………………………………………………………….. 6.3.3 Professional identity………………………………………………………. 6.4 Concluding remarks regarding identity processes……………………………….
42 42 48 50 51 53 54 57
7. Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………
60
References………………………………………………………………………………… 63
Appendix I: List of interviews…………………………………………………………….. 65 Appendix II: Interview guide.……………………………………………………………. 67
Acknowledgements: A special thanks goes to Marco Gemignani, who collaborated with the authors in the fieldwork and transcribed a large part of the taped interviews.
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1. Introduction Increasing convergence and co-operation in immigration policy among EU member states in recent years has been undermined by varied degrees of efficiency in implementing such policies. This study looks at two factors that account for the greater or lesser capacity of individual states to implement specific policy measures and which can explain to a certain extent the different outcomes produced in its country: first, the impact of the organisational culture of those services in the public administration that are given the task to implement immigration policy on the actual process of implementation. Second, the identity processes activated during the implementation process. With regard to identity processes, we shall more specifically examine the role played by factors such as the perception of the host country as ‘country of immigration’, the presence of a large immigrant population and the access of immigrants to civil, political and social rights of citizenship. Implementation is defined as the administrative process through which policy decisions or legislation are actualised in society with the aim of addressing and rectifying or modifying a given social situation. Implementation here is not seen as separate from the policy-making environment, or from the target groups and/or other social and political actors involved in the transformation of policy objectives to outcomes. Studying implementation necessarily involves research on target groups and their responses as well as the role played by private or semi-public agencies and groups that take part in the implementation process. Also implementation is seen as embedded in a specific socio-economic, cultural and political environment in which public policies are supposed to operate. Furthermore, implementation1 is essentially a political activity just as policy making. The definition of public issues and the design of policies to address them are the product of conflict, negotiation and compromise. Implementation is pre-determined to a certain extent by the prior stage of policy formulation and is a continuation of the social and political environment in which policy decisions were taken. It involves however its own politics too, to the extent that it is not simply an activity for achieving policy goals but also serves other human needs: ‘Administrators, no less than legislators, seek power, esteem, and monetary rewards that invariably shape how (or which) goals are achieved’ (Palumbo and Calista, 1990: 7.) This study concentrates on the micro level of implementation. It looks at the words and actions of street-level bureaucrats (Lipsky, 1980) within a local organisation, who have the task of applying legal directives to a concrete social environment and by so doing adapt these directives to what they perceive as their clients and their clients’ needs. We shall refer to the macro-level of implementation, i.e. the wider organisational processes involved in the implementation of immigration policy, as the more general framework within which the micro-level is located. We shall thus map the links between the specific organisation studied and the other statutory agencies or private and semi-private institutions involved in the implementation process and, hence, position our subject of study within this wider framework. Our subjects of study, police agents and employees of the Italian public administration, share the main features of Lipsky’s definition of ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (Lipsky, 1980). They are public service workers who interact directly with citizens in the course of their jobs and have varying degrees of discretion in the execution of their tasks. Furthermore, in line with Lipsky’s analysis, the employees of the public agencies studied here make decisions about people that affect their life chances and have to cope with their 1
The definition and theoretical approach to the study of policy implementation adopted in this study are discussed in more detail in the introductory chapter. 3
clients’ personal reactions to these decisions (ibid.: 9). Discretion is inherent in the nature of their work because the individual situations of their immigrant clients are often too complicated to fit into the standard formats of policy provisions. Besides, immigrant clients, because of their structurally and culturally weak position in the host society, require for bureaucrats’ responses that address the human dimensions of their situations. Sensitive observation and judgement that cannot be reduced to policy programmes are thus intrinsic features of the work executed by the subjects of our study. These two features of policy implementation ‘at the street-level’, namely the complexity of the clients’ cases and their weakness as political subjects provide more scope for discretion: police agents and administration employees are able to determine the well being of their clients while increasing their self-regard and power. Our analysis of the micro-level of immigration policy implementation in Italy will address critically some of Lipsky’s findings concerning streetlevel bureaucrats in the U.S. This study will identify and analyse discretionary practices in the issue and renewal of stay permits for work purposes in Italy. Discretionary practices are deemed to make integral part of all public policy implementation processes, since policy objectives can never be carried out as ‘on the books’. Therefore, the focus of the study will be on what type of discretion is exercised in the implementation of immigration policy and for what purposes. We shall distinguish between formal and informal discretion. Formal discretionary practices are foreseen or at least allowed by the law, administrative provisions or internal service rules because of the incompleteness or flexible nature of policy design. These may include prioritisation of tasks, request for further resources, exemptions allowed or the reorganisation of a service’s daily work. Informal discretionary practices are developed through daily routines and may run against the formal, legal provisions. They may take the form of prioritisation of tasks, improvisation, innovation or even favouritism. In the concluding section, we shall discuss whether the discretion exercised is compatible with the principles of a liberal democratic society. The case study undertaken will highlight the links between, on the one hand, the specific practices of discretion and, on the other hand, the organisational culture of the agencies studied or the identity processes activated by public employees during their daily work. During the last decades, organisational culture has acquired an increasingly prominent role in the study of corporate organisations. Researchers in business administration and industrial sociology have paid attention to the role played by culture as a sense-making mechanism, as a set of symbols, myths and rituals or have studied organisations as cultures in themselves (Cini, 2000; Wright, 1994). Concerning public administration, in contrast, the study of organisational culture is, admittedly, less well established. The importance of shared norms, values or assumptions in understanding how public services function has been underestimated. In this work, the notion of culture rests upon the assumption that it is culture that gives meaning to human actions. From this standpoint, culture derives ‘from a system of ideas and signs and associations and ways of behaving and communicating’ (Gellner, 1987: 7). A view of culture as a kind of sense-making mechanism, one that enables participants to negotiate understanding and action, is emphasised. Culture as process is always situated in a particular social and historical context. Therefore, power relations between actors must be taken into account in any discussion of cultural meanings. A study of organisational culture demands investigation of belief systems, shared values, and institutional ideology, alongside an assessment of the myths, symbols and norms that pervade the organisation (Cini, 1996). It also involves the study of symbolic and practical boundaries constructed between different participants in organisational settings, boundaries 4
that consist, among other things, of clothing, physical layout, body language, discourse and practices. For the purposes of this work, we shall combine several theoretical approaches for the study of organisational culture: symbolism, the integration-fragmentation-differentiation perspective and the approach of culture as metaphor. The definition adopted here is organised in three parts. First, we see culture as a system of meanings. As Pettigrew (1969) argues, culture is the system of publicly and collectively accepted meanings operating for a given group at a given time. People interpret their situation to themselves, make sense of organisational life and react to organisational actions using this system of meanings. Culture is indispensable for individuals in order to make sense of the world that surrounds them and, in this particular case, of the organisation of which they are part. Second, culture is a symbolic tool-kit, it is a constellation of beliefs, values, norms, myths, routines, practices – it may even encompass an overall ‘ethics’ of the organisation – that are enacted by members in accomplishing their tasks and interacting with fellow members. This tool-kit is unique to each organisation and sets a pattern of corporate activities and actions (Tunstall, 1983). It is enacted in the implicit and emergent patterns of behaviour that form the organisational life and also characterises interaction both among members of the organisation and between members and outsiders (collaborators, clients or others). Third, organisational culture is seen as a dynamic system of cultural elements expressed through language, symbols, rituals, beliefs, myths or ideologies. It is not necessarily an organic and cohesive whole but may be internally differentiated and fragmented because of either external or internal factors. An important source of differentiation and fragmentation is a dynamic and constantly changing external environment, which challenges and often changes the pre-existing organisational culture. Culture is considered to be in a constant process of consolidating its content and form but also of renovating itself in response to internal and external challenges. This does not mean that it is essentially unstable. On the contrary, it is, at least partly, institutionalised and crystallised into beliefs, norms, patterns of action and behaviour, which, however, are subject to middleand long-term processes of adaptation and change. Internal factors that may lead to the fragmentation or differentiation of the culture of an organisation include changes in the organisational structure, leadership, tasks of the organisation or its position in relation to other organisations in the field (this may be particularly relevant for national administration departments). Furthermore, subcultures may develop as a result of different professional identities of the organisation’s members and different ethnic or national2 backgrounds (Laurent, 1991; McLaren, 1997; Triga, 2000: 23-9). The focus of this working definition is not on how culture emerges, develops and changes but rather on what culture is and the role it plays in an organisational setting. This focus may be deemed unilateral but serves best the objectives of this project, namely the study of organisational culture in national administration bodies and, more particularly, of its impact on policy implementation. Our study concentrates on the ‘here’ and ‘now’ of organisational life and in the evolution of the culture of a given organisation in the short term rather than in a long-term, historical perspective. This three-fold definition covers the role of culture as context, socio-cognitive system and resource for the organisation members. Furthermore, it highlights the interaction between culture and social reality, both within and outside the organisation. 2
Research in this field concerns mainly large international corporations or international bodies (including the EU institutions). However, it is useful to take this element into account in national settings too, given that European countries are increasingly multi-ethnic and multicultural. 5
This report is structured into seven sections. The first section will present the background of immigration policy implementation in Italy. Attention will be paid to general features of Italian public administration. The second section will look at the main provisions regulating immigrant labour and will present in detail the institutional actors and bureaucratic procedures involved in their implementation. The focus of the study will be on the issue and renewal of stay permits for work purposes for non-EU nationals. The different public offices involved and their competencies as well as the co-operation between them will be highlighted. Issues of research design and methodology will be discussed in the third section. A ‘thick’ description of the organisational culture of the public offices studied will be given in section four. Section five will highlight the ways in which specific organisational culture features influence the micro-level of policy implementation as regards the issue and renewal of stay permits for work purposes. In section six, we shall examine how public employees define and negotiate their personal, professional and national identities in their everyday discourse and work routines. The scope of this section will be twofold. First, we shall study the construction of boundaries between employees and immigrant users and, second, we shall analyse professional and national identity constructions against the background of Italian national identity and the structural position of immigrants in Italian society.
1.1 Italian administration in transition Italy is in a period of transition. The state has gone through changes in its political as much as in its institutional system. One field where very substantial transformations are underway is the administrative one. Italian national administration has undergone hardly any change in its essential traits for almost half a century, even though levels of performance have been far from satisfactory (Lewanski, 1999: 97). Its institutional capacity in the past, especially with regard to the performance of the public administration, has been considered in the Italian literature to be substantially lower than that of other Western democracies. In recent years attention has focused on reform of institutions, including the public administration and civil service management (Lewanski, ibid.). Central and local government reform processes and, as a consequence, the restructuring of bureaucratic structures, may be interpreted as responses to the Italian state’s need for legitimacy. The centralised administration that governed the relationship between the regions and the state – historically embodied in the Italian system of prefectoral control (Dente, 1985a) – was based, and to a certain extent still is, on the clientele system. The legitimacy of power relations in this system lied in its ability to exchange specific measures in favour of individuals with the political support of the recipients of these favours (Graziano, 1979). Under a clientelistic rule, particular segments of the political system have special relations with particular groups of the population. The latter will assure their consensus to the extent to which the former are able to satisfy their particularistic needs and demands (Dente, 1995: 175). This clientelistic regime was based on a tacit albeit clear agreement between political and administrative actors: the administration would abstain from playing an autonomous role in policy formation and accept the policy decisions made by politicians (Dente, 1995: 45; Pasquino, 1993:12). The division of tasks between politicians – responsible for the formulation of policies – and the civil service – in charge of their implementation – in fact did not result in transparency of tasks, although ‘it apparently corresponded to a Weberian conception of the role of bureaucracy’ (Cerase, 1978: 24).
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The inability and poor performance of both the polity and the administration have been documented widely in Italy the recent years. The national political and administrative system underwent two major legitimisation crises – the first during the 1960s and the 1970s and the second during the 1980s and the 1990s – which signalled the urgent need for modernisation of the state. In the following paragraphs, we shall highlight the main issues raised during the two crises and the reform processes enacted with the aim of highlighting the main features of the Italian administration in this transition period. Such features are important for understanding the Italian administration culture at large and the specific organisational cultures of the agencies studied here. The Republican Constitution of 1948 divided Italy in 17 ‘ordinary’ regions and endowed five of them (Sicily, Sardinia, Valle d’Aosta, Trentino-Alto Adige/Sud Tirol and Friuli Venezia Giulia) with a ‘special’ autonomy status. Despite this formally decentralised structure, the state was governed in a highly centralised manner (Dente, 1985: 142), leaving little room for the development and expression of local and regional realities. This did not only frustrate local and regional identities but also hampered the administrative efficiency of regional authorities. Not surprisingly, demands for reform in the 1960s and 1970s regarded the introduction of more democratic procedures in the political system in general and a greater capability to ‘deliver’ and ensure the protection of the workers’ rights. The second crisis of the post-war political and administrative system, which matured in the late 1980s and early 1990s, had disruptive consequences for the polity, with important implications for the public administration. The change in the balance between political parties that had existed in Italy up to 19933 was precipitated by the Tangentopoli4 scandals in 1992. It brought into the open the widespread corruption that affected both the political and administrative systems in Italy (Lewanski, 1999: 108). In that political context, the poor performance of the administration contributed to the de-legitimisation of the entire institutional system (Gilbert, 1995:90). The process of administrative reform was advanced under the governments headed by Giuliano Amato (1992-3), Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (1993-4) and Romano Prodi (1996-8). During the Prodi administration, three laws were set up to enforce a drastic reform. Laws 59/1997, 127/1997 and 191/1998 introduced provisions concerning the decentralisation of the civil service, reinforced the distinction between politics and administration and simplified bureaucratic procedures. The decentralisation of the public sector – labelled ‘administrative federalism’ – has allowed considerable powers to be transferred to regional authorities. Local agencies may now act in a separate capacity in front of the central administration. An important consequence of the process of decentralisation has been the change in the organisational structure of the public administration. Together with powers, the state transferred human and financial resources away from the centre (Dente, 1997: 185). In brief, the reform of the public administration tackled three main aspects of the organisational management. First, it introduced greater flexibility in public administration procedures: Contrary to previous practice according to which administrative jurisprudence was always kept separate in order to retain a supremacy over the private sector, working conditions and labour relations in the public sector are now regulated by law on the same level as private 3
Throughout the post-war period Italy was governed by the conservative party Democrazia Cristiana in various alliances with minor parties. 4 Tangentopoli literally means ‘bribe city’. The term initially referred to Milan and was coined to represent the entangled webs of corruption and bribery that were found to structure the relations between the city’s political and economic elites. As the investigations of the Milan Public Prosecutor Office (the Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) team) progressed in the early 1990s, it became obvious that corruption and favouritism were widespread in the Italian politics and public administration at the national level. Thus, the term Tangentopoli was eventually used in a broader sense to refer to the whole set of corruption scandals and investigations of that period. 7
entities – a process labelled ‘privatisation’.5 Another relevant innovation allows administrations to adopt measures concerning internal organisation and labour relations by means of internal regulations in the same manner as private employers (formerly such measures were decided by legal provisions). Transparency in the recruitment procedures has been increased by the introduction of public exams (concorsi). Additionally, new forms of work making better use of human resources have been pursued: part-time positions have been introduced in the civil service or home working by the use of the internet (Lewanski, 1999: 117). Second, the reform aimed at combating clientelistic relationships between political and bureaucratic personnel. Measures have been agreed and introduced to increase autonomous decision making and the professional prestige of employees in the administrative offices. Attempts have been made to draw a clear distinction between political and administrative personnel and to empower managers with a general competence over administrative affairs. Top managers to be hired on the basis of private law contracts were given responsibility for administrative management (Dente, 1997: 183). In sum, the new laws have attempted to deprive governments of their active management role in administrative affairs. Third, the reform has sought to improve the relationship between citizens and public administration. The concern has been to simplify administrative procedures in terms of costs, documents and time in order to tackle administrative inefficiency and achieve a better use of public financial resources. More specifically, the reform reduced red tape by simplifying the bureaucratic paperwork. It introduced a general discipline to administrative procedure aimed at guaranteeing that citizens’ requests are answered within a reasonable and specific period of time. It established that a specific civil servant must be designated as responsible for each individual act requested, so that citizens know to whom to refer, instead of having to turn from one office to another (Palidda, 1999). An example of the latter has been the creation in each administrative office of a single front desk – sportello unico – charged with coordinating the activities of the other offices involved in the same procedure. Another measure aimed at facilitating citizen access to the administration has required public offices to set up an office charged with public relations (Lewanski, 1999). The administrative reform enacted in Italy in the last few years has involved not only civil service management and personnel interests, but also – and most importantly for the present study – the procedure, control and ultimately the organisational culture of the civil service. In this way, the procedure ‘becomes the dependent variable, while performance and service to clients are the independent variables’ (Capano, 1992: 2).
2. The immigration policy framework The most recent legislation on immigration policy (Law 48/1998) gave an impetus to the debate about immigrant integration and the decision-making processes involved in its implementation.6 The law provides for both integration and control measures. National as well as regional actors are involved in deciding how implementation is carried out. The design of implementation varies in relation to the specific objectives of the law, within each 5
Employees of the public sector are subject to the same conditions, guarantees and obligations as those in the private sector; Jurisdiction is also transferred from the administrative courts to ordinary judges (Lewanski, 1999: 117). 6 Recent developments in Italian immigration policy were presented and discussed in our first project report (Veikou and Triandafyllidou, 2001). 8
level – national, regional or local – and within each organisation. The regulations and resources for regional activities are comprised within the more general framework of national legislation. Implementation is based on a neutral and competent civil service – despite the large margins of discretion and favouritism that conventional wisdom would suggest for the Italian civil service – and has efficiency as its guiding principle. This study examines the regulation of immigrants’ entry into the Italian labour market. The specific policy measure studied is the issue/renewal of stay permits for work purposes. In Italy, work permits do not exist separately from stay permits. Foreigners (nonEU nationals) are allowed entry to the country for specific reasons (see also table 1 below), one of which is employment. One of the main objectives of Italian immigration policy is thus to regulate foreign labour. This is achieved by setting and applying annual caps that are set at the national level and further specified regionally in collaboration with regional authorities. Within these caps, a number of permits are set aside for nationals from specific countries (e.g. Morocco, Albania) with which Italy has signed bilateral agreements. Although the need for foreign workers in some sectors (e.g. seasonal agricultural labour in southern Italy, industrial low-skill jobs in the north-east or domestic care workers throughout the country) more than others is recognised by both Italian authorities and researchers, annual caps do not include sector-specific quotas. The extent to which the current immigration policy in Italy has been successful in regulating migration and more particularly immigrant participation in the labour market is debatable. Earlier studies (Reyneri, 1998) have shown that work in the informal economy is widely spread among immigrants and thus prevents them for maintaining a regular status. However, the blame for such failures is linked to the overall economic structure of Italy with its large underground economy. In this study our aim is more modest; rather than accounting for the success or failure of Italian policy to regulate immigrant labour, we aim at achieving a better understanding of the institutional and cultural mechanisms that lie behind it. Labour market control is of high importance in immigration policy in Italy and generally in Europe. Labour opportunities form the main ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factor for population movements towards European Union countries. Immigrants although vociferously accused by the media and politicians for many of the evils of Italian society (see ter Wal, 1996; 1998; 2000; Triandafyllidou, 2001 among others), have been shown to make an important contribution to the national economy, albeit mainly in the informal sector (Reyneri, 1998; Reyneri et al., 1999). The interests and power relations involved in the employment of immigrants – including small and medium businesses’ need for immigrant labour, the interest of households for cheap childcare and elderly assistance, the demand for cheap, informal labour by artisan laboratories and the power of migration networks – form a tangled web of economic and social relations. Disentangling this web does not make part of this research project’s objectives. However, the power relations between immigrants, employers and institutional agencies will be taken into account in the analysis of the organisational culture and identity processes that influence the daily routines of our ‘street-level bureaucrats.’ The issue and renewal of stay permits for work purposes provides fruitful ground for research because, although regulated by a core set of legal directives and administrative procedures, offers room for loop holes where legal provisions are subject to ‘interpretation’ and decisions are based on realistic compromise or favouritism. Because the study covers the years 1999-2001, a period of change in the administration in Italy, it allows us to examine how the new standards of efficient and fair administration are developed, revised and negotiated in the daily practices of the institutions and individual employees charged with the regulation of immigrant labour.
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In the remaining part of this section we shall present the legal directives and administrative procedures concerning the issue/renewal of stay permits and the main actors, both institutional and non-governmental, involved.
2.1 Entry and residence in Italy All foreigners who want to regularise their position in Italy should appear at the Foreigners' Office (Ufficio Stranieri) of the provincial Police Headquarters (Questura) with the relevant documents to apply for a residence permit (D.P.C.M., 24.10.98). Residence permit (permesso di soggiorno) To get a residence permit a foreigner must apply to the Questura of the Italian province in which s/he wishes to reside, within eight working days of the date of entry into Italy,7 presenting a valid passport and financial documents.8 The Questura may ask for alternative documents to support the request of a residence permit. For example, for stateless persons or if there is no passport, another document equivalent to the passport can be accepted (a travel document, laissez passer or identity declaration by the Embassy or Consulate). The Questura may also ask for evidence stating the foreigner’s date of entry into Italy. When the Questura files the application, a receipt is given to the applicant, which is not to be considered a residence permit. The period of time allowed by the residence permit is the same as that stated by the foreigner’s entry visa. This period cannot be longer than three months for visit, business or tourism; longer than six months for temporary work visas;9 longer than a year for study visas;10 or longer than two years for freelance work, subordinate employment or family reunification. A residence permit or its renewal can be refused or cancelled when the conditions for entry or residence in Italy are no longer valid. The conditions for issuing or renewing a permit vary in relation to the activities it has been issued for. Table 1 presents a list of the main reasons for which an entry visa is issued, and which, if certain conditions are met, can support an application for the issue or renewal of a residence permit: Table 1 • • • • • • • • •
subordinate employment (including artistic work) freelance work registration in employment lists political asylum status as refugee emigration completion of paperwork for a job health family
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When a foreigner is already in Italy, s/he cannot apply for a visa, or the extension of a visa; s/he can only apply for an extension or renewal of her/his residence permit. 8 The financial documents have to clearly demonstrate that the foreigner has sufficient money to pay for her/his return to her/his home country. 9 Temporary work visas in some cases can be renewed to nine months . 10 Study permits can be renewed yearly for courses that last more than a year. 10
• • • • • • • • •
child adoption child custody visit to relatives. study judicial proceedings business worship special humanitarian reasons (with possibility of study and work permits) tourism
Conversion of residence permits A residence permit obtained for work or family reasons can allow the permit holder to carry out other activities (art. 6 of law 40/1998).11 A study permit, for instance, before its expiration, can be changed into a work permit, within the limits of the yearly immigration quotas. A permit to work as employee can be transformed into a permit to work freelance when a foreigner has the prescribed licence. A permit to work freelance enables foreigners to work as employees, after registration in an employment list or after the employer has notified the Provincial Employment Office. A family residence permit enables foreigners to work. Renewal of residence permit A residence permit can be renewed by request to the Questura,12 at least 30 days before expiration and after the conditions for extension have been checked as valid (article 5 of law 40/1998). In order to renew a foreigner’s permit, the foreigner’s income, deriving from lawful actions, has to be officially assessed as being sufficient to support the applicant and dependent relatives. Expulsion For reasons of public policy and/or national safety, the Prefecture (Prefettura) can order the expulsion of the foreigner that extends her/his stay in Italian territory after the eight days provided for by the law, without having initiated the procedure for the residence permit request (articles 18 and 19 of Law 40/1998).
2.2 Institutional actors The institutional agencies involved in the issue and renewal of stay permits are the following: •
The Foreigners’ Office (FO) of the Questura: The Questura is the provincial13 headquarters of the national police force. It deals with issues of public security and the
11
When a residence permit is renewed, it can be modified according to the activity actually carried out. The Questura must be that of the Italian province where the foreigner lives or resides. 13 Regions are divided into smaller administrative units, the provinces, which include a number of smaller or larger municipalities. 12
11
•
•
•
•
fight against crime. It belongs to the operational structure of the Ministry of Interior. The Foreigners’ Office of the Questura controls and regulates the stay and work of foreigners: it is responsible for the issue and renewal of the related permits. The FO of each Questura is divided into two sections. The ‘sojourn’ section (sezione soggiorni) that manages the stay and work of immigrants and the ‘expulsion’ section (sezione espulsioni), which deals with enforcement and expulsion orders (Quassoli and Chiodi, 2000) The Prefecture (Prefettura) forms part of the Ministry of the Interior but not of the Police. It is the administrative and policy branch of this Ministry concerning public security. The Prefecture is functionally superior to the Questura although this last holds the operational power. Ufficio Immigrati del Comune (Immigration Office of the Municipality): Many municipalities have an immigration office which functions as a reference centre providing information to employers (potential and actual) and occasionally to immigrants concerning work or accommodation. Ufficio Provinciale del Lavoro (Provincial Labour Office): This is the provincial branch of the Ministry of Labour in charge of (a) labour policy (Labour Policy Office) and (b) management of the labour market and more particularly labour inspections (Labour Inspection Office). The office inspecting the labour market is also responsible for issuing the employment booklet (libretto di lavoro) that any worker (Italian or foreigner) is obliged to have in order to be legally employed. This office also performs checks as to whether employers and employees, both Italian and foreigner, are conforming to the legal requirements with regard to work contracts. Ufficio di Collocamento/Centro per l’Impiego (Employment Office/Centre): These agencies are organised into local, neighbourhood offices responsible for (a) the registration of immigrants (and Italians alike) seeking work onto employment lists, and (b) the eventual allocation of the available jobs.
2.3 Non-governmental actors • •
Associazioni di volontariato (Voluntary Associations): These include NGOs, religious organisations and immigrant associations with immigrant and Italian members. They provide general assistance and information to immigrant workers and their families. Centri di accoglienza (Welcome Centres): These are shelters that provide housing and social assistance to immigrants. Although the number of such shelters available to immigrant men and women varies between cities or provinces, they generally can cater only for a limited number of immigrants for short periods of time.
2.4 Regulating immigrant labour: institutional actors and administrative procedures This sub-section presents the procedures to be followed and the statutory agencies involved in the issue and renewal of stay permits for work purposes. In outlining the various steps included in the official procedure, as specified by the law and/or administrative provisions, we shall provide for the background against which to test the impact of organisational culture features and identity processes in the daily process of implementing such procedures.
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2.4.1 The process and related administrative agencies A foreigner who applies for the issue or renewal of a stay permit for employed work has to produce the following documents issued by different offices in her/his country of origin and Italy (see table 2), and submit them to the Questura with her/his application: Table 2 Passport or equivalent document
Embassy or Consulate of immigrant’s home country Evidence of the date of entry Border Control (Controlli di Frontiera) Regularisation application receipt (original) (if applicable) Questura Original and copy of the stay permit (when applying for a Questura renewal) Certificate of registration (when applying for self-employment) Commerce Chamber (Camera di Commercio) Employment contract stamped by the Employment Office or Employment Office certified employer’s statement specifying the time period and pay for the job to be undertaken by the immigrant worker (when applying for dependent employment) Employment booklet (libretto di lavoro) (for renewal) Labour Inspection Office Tax code (codice fiscale) and related documents concerning Provincial Labour Office the income earned in Italy (for renewal) and Commerce Chamber Italian Identity Card proving her/his residence at the specific Municipality municipality (for renewal) Rent contract or other document certifying the availability of Private renting contract or suitable accommodation Municipality Statement issued by the employer specifying the Municipality accommodation to be provided to the foreign worker and certificate by the municipality attesting that the accommodation meets the minimum parameters as required by regional law (for new immigrants) There are two main categories of permits for work purposes: those issued for dependent employment and those allowing for self-employment. The procedure to be followed in each case differs slightly.
2.4.2 Stay permit for dependent employment Concerning dependent employment, the official procedure comprises of the following steps: The employer presents an official request to the Provincial Labour Office responsible for the locality where the job is located in order to acquire the job offer authorisation (autorizzazione al lavoro offerto). This authorisation is granted only if the specific job is within the regional immigration quota, as these are defined by the government in the beginning of each calendar year. The request has to specify the type and place of employment, the name of the employer and of the potential employee and the availability of suitable accommodation for the immigrant worker (with the relevant documents attached as specified in table 2, above). Once 13
the job offer authorisation is obtained, the employer presents it to the local Questura and applies for an entry authorisation (autorizzazione all’ingresso) for the immigrant. The Questura checks whether there are any particular motives for refusing entry to this immigrant (mainly if s/he has any penal precedents in Italy) and issues the nulla osta for the job authorisation. Then, the job offer authorisation is sent via the Italian Embassy or Consulate to the immigrant in her/his country of origin. The consular authorities are thus able to issue an entrance visa for the specific individual enabling her/him to undertake employment in Italy under the conditions specified in the offer. Within eight days of her/his entry to Italian soil, the foreign employee has to report personally to the Questura and apply for a stay permit for dependent employment (permesso di soggiorno per lavoro subordinato) submitting the relevant documents (see table 2, above). Within five days of the immigrant’s entry the employer has to declare the initiation of the contract s/he previously offered to the immigrant in the Provincial Labour Office and request by the Labour Inspection Office the employment booklet where welfare contributions paid in favour of the immigrant are registered. The employment booklet stays with the employer for the duration of the specific contract. If the contract is terminated the employment booklet is returned to the immigrant so that s/he may take up another position or register for unemployment benefits.
2.4.3 Stay permit for self-employment The procedure for self-employment differs from the one described above. The foreign worker who would like to come to Italy to search for employment has to register with the lists of potential immigrant workers in the Italian Embassy or Consulate at her/his country of origin. S/he has also to demonstrate through bank statement or other documents that s/he has sufficient economic means to support him/herself while searching for a job in Italy. Alternatively the potential immigrant worker has to contact personally the relevant administrative authority, usually the Commerce Chamber (or other trade or professional association), of the specific town or province where s/he aims to settle, to ask for permission to exercise her/his profession. The Commerce Chamber or other relevant professional authority sends a declaration which specifies that there are no objections to the Commerce Chamber’s issuing a certificate (attestazione) that the specific applicant may initiate the economic activity s/he wishes to undertake. The certificate attesting that the immigrant may undertake the specific profession or activity is submitted to the Questura. As in the case of dependent employment, the immigrant has to apply personally to the Questura of the locality where s/he will reside for a stay permit for self-employment.
2.4.4
The ‘sponsorship’ option
Law 48/1998 has introduced an alternative route for the entry of immigrants seeking employment in Italy who have neither a concrete job offer by a specific employer nor sufficient means to support themselves while seeking for a job. Such immigrants may obtain a one-year stay permit for work purposes if an Italian individual or family or a trade union or voluntary association accept to ‘sponsor’ them. The ‘sponsor’ has to prove that s/he possesses the necessary economic means to support the immigrant and will provide suitable accommodation for her/him during that year. Sponsors, be they individuals or organisations,
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have to provide for the necessary documents, namely bank statements and municipality certificates, as specified in table 2. The guarantee (an authenticated copy) issued by the sponsor is submitted to the Questura. In the case of associations ‘sponsoring’ more than one immigrant worker, – there is a maximum limit of two individuals sponsored by an individual and six by an organisation, provided that they satisfy the economic means requested by the law – a list of the names of foreigners for whom a guarantee is provided has to be submitted too. The Questura then issues the entry authorisation, which has to be sent to the immigrant through the Italian consular authorities in her/his country, within 60 days from when it was granted by the Questura. The consular authorities are able then to issue a visa for work purposes enabling the specific worker to enter Italy and search for employment. Unemployed immigrants have also to register with the Local Employment Office to be inserted in the job lists (liste di collocamento), which include Italians and foreigners alike. The employment policy followed by these offices includes a placement programme, which involves the listing of job openings with the aim of matching job seekers with job openings reported to the Employment Office by employers. Job listings may come from public or private employers locally, regionally or nationally. The task of identifying job seekers is restricted to waiting for people to walk into the Employment Office.
3. The case study The case study presented in this report concentrates on the Foreigners’ Office of the Florence Police Headquarters (Questura) in the region of Tuscany in central Italy. Florence presented a suitable city14 for our case-study because it is among Italy’s ten largest cities, with a 600,000 population approximately, a region’s capital, with a strong economy based on tourism, garment and leather factories, trade, services and agriculture. Tuscany and Florence as the region’s capital have attracted a large number of immigrants during the past decade. In 1999, Tuscany accounted for just below 90,000 stay permits of which over 50,000 were issued in Florence. In the same year, there were 1.2 million legal immigrants present in Italy (Caritas, 1999). To this number of legal or regularised (through amnesty programs) immigrants, an estimate of some 200,000 undocumented immigrants present nation wide should be added. Even if we leave aside Tuscany’s share to undocumented migration, the region attracted 8% of the country’s total legal immigrant population while one out of 11 inhabitants in Florence was an immigrant. In brief, Florence presents a suitable case study in that it is a large urban centre, capital of a region, with a sizeable immigrant population, without however representing an exceptional case in the way Rome or Milan do. Although local and regional contexts always influence implementation, it was feared that studying the issue/renewal of stay permits in Rome or Milan might present us with a picture that reflected more local particularities (e.g. an extremely high immigrant turnover) than give us insights to processes that hold true for a number of Italian urban centres. Having said this, attention was paid to local and regional elements that may influence the implementation of national laws. 3.1 The research design This study adopts an ethnographic approach combining, however, methods and data from a variety of sources. Data have been collected through participant observation and qualitative 14
Naturally Florence was our first choice because our research institute is based in that city. 15
interviews, from statistics, policy documents available in print and on the internet, grey literature (internal reports of agencies) and the daily press. These different types of data were integrated into an ethnographic, qualitative research design, which had a triple goal. First, to provide for a ‘thick’ description of the organisational culture of the Questura offices in Florence. Second, to analyse how the specific features of this organisational culture influence micro-level of implementation, namely the processing of applications for issue or renewal of stay permits for work purposes, and third to investigate the identity processes involved in the micro-implementation context of the daily activities of local offices.
3.1.1
The fieldwork
The work was organised into five research phases: the mapping of the research field; the conduction of the interviews and participant observation; the collection of additional material; the transcription of interviews and typing of participant observation notes; the indexing and analysis of the transcripts and other data. Policy documents and grey literature were initially collected and contacts taken with academics and NGO activists15 based locally and in other cities (Rome, Bologna and Trieste) so as to gain ‘insider’ knowledge of the wider field of immigration policy in Italy, the actors involved and particular issues arising from the enactment of law 48/1998. Following from this initial ‘mapping’ of the field of the research, we took contacts with the police headquarters (Questura), the Prefecture, the Provincial Labour Office and its various branches (labour policy, labour inspection and local employment offices) in the Florence metropolitan area. Access to these agencies was generally difficult. In the case of the Questura a written authorisation had to be obtained by the head of the police in Florence (Questore) prior to any contact with the Foreigners’ Office (FO). A written permission was issued quickly, formally authorising our access to the FO for the scopes of our research. Real access to the FO however proved to be altogether a different question. While this authorisation enabled us to enter the FO area, contact with the Head of the FO to make arrangements (as requested in the authorisation letter) proved impossible. Contacts and interviews with individual police officers serving at the FO were taken in the FO premises, during or just after the end of their working hours, on the basis of informal agreement rather than office policy. We would later realise (see discussion in sections 4 and 5 below) that this discrepancy between what employees or police officers say they do and what we actually observed or experienced they do are two different things. Nevertheless, the written authorisation obtained by the police headquarters served to gain access to most of the public offices contacted, even though they belonged to a different service or different ministry altogether. Access to the various labour office branches varied. Employees of the central branch of the Employment Office proved to be more suspicious than those at local branches. Access to Labour Inspection Offices was more difficult while the Labour Policy Office was pretty much accessible. It is our general conclusion that access varied a lot depending on the individual employee of higher or lower rank making the decision that day, allowing us to interview her/him and her/his colleagues and/or observe their work practice. The formality of the written authorisation by the Questura was generally seen positively as taking the responsibility of the decision off the individual employee or police officer, regardless of their 15
A full list of the interviews taken is given in the appendix. The names of the interviewees are withheld for confidentiality reasons. They are identified by the organisation they serve and a serial number assigned to each interview, e.g. FO1, FO2, etc. A full list of the interviews is given in appendix I. 16
actual willingness or reluctance to give an interview. In total, six interviews and three days of participant observation were conducted with Labour Office employees in various branches, one interview was conducted with a Prefecture employee and six interviews with FO agents. Participant observation in the FO took place in the summer and fall of 2000 in periods of two or three days each time. As regards the setting of the interviews, they were always conducted in the workplace of the interviewees, in their private offices (when some peace and quite could be assured) or when individual offices were not available, next to the counters where they conducted their daily work. In the case of the FO in particular, interviews were conducted in the waiting area of the service, which consisted of several adjacent rooms. This led to an unavoidable presence of colleagues nearby. This semi-public character of the interview setting, despite having a negative effect in terms of privacy and tranquillity, helped create an informal setting where the interview was framed as an informal talk. Interviewers stressed their interest in daily work practices and workloads in the effort to create a more relaxed climate. Our aim was to show that as interviewers we were there to listen and understand the interviewee’s work and concerns about it. Interviewers addressed the interviewees with the courtesy form in Italian (Lei) as a sign of respect of their professional role. Once consenting to an interview, interviewees did not object to the use of a tape recorder. Trade unions, non-governmental organisations and immigrant associations showed availability to be interviewed even though their representatives were often hard to pin down for an interview, requiring a considerable amount of time and effort to phone, fax and even visit their offices until an appointment was made. This lack of availability seemed to be a result of their loaded work schedules and absence of fixed work routines. It is worth noting that the offices and personnel of trade union immigrant offices and those of NGOs or immigrant associations largely coincided making it hard, and perhaps unnecessary, to distinguish strictly between the two. We conducted a total of 12 interviews with NGO and trade union representatives and also a group discussion with a group of immigrants hosted in a municipal shelter operated by an NGO in the periphery of Florence. Additionally, three lawyers whom we encountered during our participant observation in the FO (they were there representing their immigrant clients) were interviewed. Interviews with trade union and NGO activists were conducted in a variety of settings: the offices of voluntary associations or trade unions, a mosque on one occasion, a shelter on another occasion and even in a café. Usually the interviewer and the interviewee were left alone during the interview and the courtesy form of ‘Lei’ was generally adopted unless the interviewee suggested using the more informal ‘Tu’. Interviewees had no objection to the tape recording of the interviews. During the fieldwork, a number of policy documents – copies of laws or administrative circulars – and information material issued by various statutory agencies (more often than not the Municipality of Florence or the Region of Tuscany) and NGOs was collected. Also of great usefulness have been the web sites of the Tuscany region and the Florence municipality. These provided for legal and administrative documents online as well as detailed instructions aimed at immigrants who wished to apply for their stay permits or other matters including health, education or cultural activities. Last but not least, articles commenting on the implementation of the new immigration law were collected from two major national newspapers, Corriere della Sera and Il Sole 24 Ore in 1998 and 1999. Corriere della Sera is a wide sheet, based in Milan with a Rome edition too, of centre-right tendency and a very high circulation. Il Sole 24 Ore is a newspaper published in small format with mainly financial and business news and information. We chose these two newspapers because they were likely to report policy and implementation related matters avoiding too sensational a language, often typical of the 17
media. Our aim was to gain additional information from the newspaper articles on issues related to policy implementation rather than assessing their general coverage of immigration issues. Participant observation notes were taken by both authors for the FO and only by Veikou for the other agencies and were typed soon after the participant observation took place. Interviews were transcribed subsequently.
3.1.2 The interview guide Interviews were qualitative in nature, loosely structured around a set of themes (see table 3) that were to be discussed with each informant; the wording of the questions and their sequence followed the flow of the interview itself and not some pre-defined (by the interviewer) order. These general themes were developed also into a set of more specific questions (see appendix II) which were designed to help the interviewer start an interview or, when necessary, bring an interviewee back into focus.
Table 3: Interview guide: themes to be discussed during interviews
Task of the organisation with regard to immigration Individual tasks of the interviewee: which part of the above task you implement? A typical example of their work Co-operation with other agents (both form and content of co-operation) With which immigrants they mostly deal with Legal documents, which sort of other guidance for the job Where is discretion How is it exercised Effect for policy outcomes Why immigrants come to Italy (in their opinion) Describe the procedure followed at a typical case Which cases are the most difficult/easy ones Organisation: hierarchy Resources: staff, workload, number of cases Work pressure: long hours, shifts, stress; how do they cope with large workload and stress How they feel in cases of sending off clients without having been serving them due to lack of resources or not meeting criteria for service/permission
3.2 Operationalisation and indexing A combined inductive-deductive methodological strategy has been created for the operationalisation and analysis of organisational culture in the administration offices under examination. Organisational life is defined by both formal and informal aspects of organisational culture. Thus, following the Weberian approach to modern bureaucracy, on the one hand, and our definition of organisational culture as a system of meanings that is internally differentiated and potentially fragmented and which comprises a tool-kit of 18
symbols, beliefs, values, norms, myths or routines, on the other hand, we have operationalised the concept of organisational culture in terms of institutionalised and informal practice codes. Institutionalised organisation practices are formal in character in the sense that they are provided for by the internal, official and usually written regulations of an organisation. Such practice codes may be analysed along three dimensions, borrowed by Max Weber: the hierarchical or egalitarian character of relations within the organisation; the overlapping or clear distinction of duties within the office and between offices; and the personal or impersonal character of authority in the specific office and the wider agency. Informal practice codes are non-written codes, shared to a greater or lesser extent among fellow members, which contribute to community building within the organisation. These codes include myths, symbols, language (organisation-specific jargon/vocabulary), rituals and ideologies. The study of the above codes of practice followed a deductive approach to the extent that the categories were pre-defined on the basis of our theoretical framework and, hence, imposed on the data (and on our informants). In order to overcome the shortcomings of this approach, two inductive categories were included in the analysis. We sought to infer from our data (a) the goals of the specific organisation as defined by the interviewees (and also as described in legal texts, administrative documents or other reports), and (b) the values related to achieving these goals. Concerning identity issues, three levels were deemed to be pertinent to the scope of this study: national, professional and personal identity. The processing of immigrant stay and work permits involves readily not only aspects of the professional identities of the employees but also of their representation of their home country as a nation-state or as a country of immigration. Thus, perceptions and understandings of what it means to be an administration employee or a police agent and also of what it means to be Italian, in contrast to being a foreigner in Italy, were expected to form part of the interview talk to be analysed. Concerning personal identity, it was held that feelings of making part of a particular nation and of a particular service or profession would be structured also in relation to personal experiences or beliefs. Such experiences or views are distinguished from national or professional identity elements because they refer to the individual alone, to her/his particular views, feelings or actions. The approach adopted for the analysis of the interview texts follows that of structured qualitative discourse analysis. Interview transcripts were indexed in relation to the four sets of dimensions presented above and the specific features specified within them. Indexing took place after careful, repeated readings of the texts by both authors so as to identify all the passages where the interviewee referred to one of the elements specified above. Attention was paid, for instance, to the structure of authority and hierarchy (who reports to whom); the relationships among employees of similar or different rank; any ritual or conventional practices or language; the work-flow and work-loads; the supervisory ‘style’; the levels of trust between colleagues; the stress and anxieties; or the form of social interaction with colleagues, superiors and clients. A specific paragraph (or larger section) could be indexed under multiple headings if it was deemed to refer to more than one dimensions. Eventually, ten sets of indexed passages were produced under the following headings: egalitarian or hierarchical relations, personal or impersonal authority, clear division or overlapping of tasks, ideologies, myths, symbols, language, rituals, values, goals of the organisation, for the analysis of organisational culture and another three sets – national, professional and personal identity – for the study of identity processes.
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4. The organisational culture of the Foreigners’ Office in Florence By contrast to a basically individualistic concept, recent studies argue persuasively that organisations have to perform as total organisational units, and their ability to do so under changing conditions can be legitimately thought of as organisational culture without attributing any consciousness to the organisation per se. The study of organisational behaviour has witnessed a shift in the 1990s away from an entirely strategic choice perspective, toward the proposition that institutions are primary and exist as the context within which interests operate. Attention was paid to this concept in the 1990s as organisations both in the public and private sector discovered that they were not efficient enough given the levels of global competition and shrinking resources. Today organisations are more in a phase of constant adjustment than in the past, since the social environment is changing ever faster. Culture (and subcultures) plays a critical role in such processes of adaptation and renovation. One of the most important propositions in the emergent field of organisational culture research is that organisational action is underpinned by a symbolically defined sense of ‘cultural consciousness of kind’ that helps to sustain a shared identity (Larsen, 1997). As a corollary, an important question emerges: If such an organisational identity exists at all, how is it possible for complex and highly differentiated organisations (bureaucracies in this casestudy) to form a strong organisational culture to such an extent that one may speak of organisational identity? It might be less justified to take organisational identity for granted. But equally it has been one of the dominant observations in the field that members of organisations (public employees, for example), although they do not live the same type of life, nevertheless develop a strong sense of commitment and communal knowledge as members of an organisational ‘we-ness’ (Larsen, 1997: 369). Studying the organisational culture of the FO of the Florence police headquarters, we assumed that it could be defined as a set of public employees who had enough stability and common history to have allowed a culture to form. This starting assumption allowed us to concentrate on the synchronic aspects of what we set out to study, without, of course, underestimating the broad-based historical, social or other context against which this study was undertaken. We focused on the ways in which this culture guided the employees’ adaptation to changing external conditions and integration to internal challenges. We also investigated how this culture defined a ‘correct’ way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems. The organisational culture was seen to manifest itself at two levels: (i) in the physical environment and material artefacts, such as buildings, symbols or dress code; and (ii) in the cognitive and discursive frames of the employees as manifested in their talk, including their problem definitions, myths, values, beliefs or ideologies. Inconsistencies between the two levels or within each level were expected to appear. In our view, organisational culture is not necessarily a coherent, functional whole but also internally differentiated and fragmented. Indexing the manifestations of the organisational culture into the above mentioned dimensions offered two main advantages. Each dimension provided a clear point of data collection; an important practical consideration in such an extended stream of people and processes. Second, each dimension proposed a different perspective from which to ‘read’ the interviews and participant observation notes. In the sections that follow, a ‘thick’ description of the organisational culture of the FO is provided along the dimensions identified above.
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4.1 Goals Many studies view the goals of an organisation as a constant. Thus, official documents, work activity records or organisational output commonly provide the basis for the definition of the organisation’s goals. It is possible, however, to view the setting of objectives not as a static element but as a necessary and recurring problem faced by any organisation. In this study, goals are seen as a dynamic aspect of organisational activity. Goal setting may be determined by calculated and careful implementation of the policy objectives that appear in the legislative mandate of the governmental agency, or they may be determined by the relationship between the public office and its environment (clients and larger society). The FO, for example, may have unchanging abstract goals, but the clientele, the public and actual practice bring about a reinterpretation of those objectives. During the last decade, the FO in Florence has been faced with an exponential increase of its clientele requiring expansion of its activities. Goals were thus redefined at a first instance moving away from a repression and control objective, typical to police forces, to the management of amnesty programmes issued by the national government. The main objective of the FO in this respect was to ensure that the law was applied and respected: ‘Our task is to enact the law and have it respected. Their [the immigrants] task is, unfortunately, to accept the law. (..) [when] there is a new requirement, a change, it has to be implemented’16 (FO4) Second, goals were redefined in terms of workloads and outcomes. The main task undertaken by the FO, which was seen to act in relative autonomy, was the processing of stay permit applications and the issuing of work permits (FO2, FO3). The role of the FO was to manage flows, define who should get in and who should leave and, hence, maintain the public order. The FO’s goals did not directly relate to labour market control. This is not surprising since the FO as well as local Employment offices operate within the margins of the annual caps set by the government and regional authorities. The goal of the office was however also: ‘(..) to resolve all problems and resolve them within the office. Because, if somebody goes to the Head of the Service and complains (..) this comes back down on us and it is worse. Because we still have to resolve the problem and also lower our heads and receive the comments.’ (FO2) Furthermore, ‘we try to come close to the user, this is the final goal. Because this is a service for the public, only that we are police agents, this is a service for the public and as its final goal it must have to meet the user’s needs’ (FO5) ‘it is important to try to satisfy a little everybody and try, well, in the best way possible, to send everybody away satisfied’ (FO6)
16
All quotes have been translated from Italian by the authors. 21
As the visibility of immigration and hence of the FO among the police services grew, so did its needs for more resources. All the mid- or low-rank officers interviewed reported that the service was under-staffed. Nonetheless, periods of high workloads were dealt with ‘working on purpose, working as maniacs, so to speak’ (FO4) Personnel resources were also flexibly organised, ‘trying to leave two people to work there [at that counter] because otherwise it would not be possible to satisfy everyone’ (FO4) It was clear that the number of applications for stay permits processed and the speed with which they were processed became increasingly important as the main goals of the office. The interviewees mentioned the importance of ‘getting the work done’ and reported ‘working outside their normal working hours’ and ‘whole days without a pause’ to make sure that the workload was met. The focus was thus on the output of the FO rather than on the outcome of its work. The success of the FO in achieving its goals regarding the filing of applications and the checking and refusal or granting of permits was relatively easy to assess. Where its activity was oriented to less tangible purposes – which however should be included in its ‘public service’ character – such as maintaining good relations with clients, the indices of effective operation were less precise and vagaries appeared more numerous. Despite the useroriented culture advocated by the interviewees, our participant observation revealed that daily practice was generally unpredictable and often contrary to any sense of public service. The goal of the police agents at times was to get rid of the immigrant client in front of them rather than effectively satisfy her/his request. We witnessed several incidents where the client was faced with a polite but unhelpful answer. Little explanations were given to people with apparently complex cases of what was wrong with their paper or of how they would get hold of the papers that were missing from their applications. Often, when an applicant came on the date fixed by the police officers to receive her/his permit, the permit was not ready and s/he was asked to come back on the following week without further explanations. If the immigrant started complaining and/or shouting, s/he would get an explanation and excuse and s/he would be asked to come the following day to get her/his permit. On one occasion, we witnessed a scene where the agent at the counter retrieved from the applicant the receipt (proving that he had filed an application on a specific date) to go and check if the permit was ready. During the check, the receipt was lost, while the permit was not found in the files. The two police agents involved in the case were initially apologetic, however, when the immigrant started complaining angrily, they changed behaviour. They pointed to the fact that in the meantime the office working hours had ended, accused the applicant for losing his receipt and refused to talk to him any more. Eventually, he was asked to come back the following day. Incomplete applications were at times filed but not processed until the applicant brought the missing documents: ‘we sometimes have to accept them [the incomplete files] because if we do not, there will be a riot’ (FO2) In brief, there was a noticeable discrepancy between the public service discourse put forward by our interviewees and their actual work routines. The organisation’s main goal was 22
to process as many permits as possible in the shorter time possible. However, this objective was at times voided of its actual content. The goal became to send people away, even if no service was provided to them.
4.2 Values Direct contacts between officers (employees-insiders) and immigrants (clients-outsiders) are contextualised by the values operating in the office. Local sense-making and interpretation influence everyday organisational behaviour. There are a number of activities in which the influence of such values is more noticeable, for instance in the way clients are received, the accessibility to different sections of the office, and the predisposition to offer help beyond the limits of strict duty if needed. Police agents working at the FO appeared to share two main values: efficiency and a sense of public service. Thus, as discussed also in the previous section, they made all possible efforts to maximise the available resources and get the work done. Learning was also a value apparently cherished by the FO agents. The variety and complexity of the subject (i.e. working with immigrants from different countries, coming to Italy under varied conditions and for varied reasons) was seen as an opportunity for learning. Two interviewees (FO4, FO6) reported that not having travelled abroad, they appreciated the difficulties of contact with other cultures and were open to learn from their job. Another important value was the equality before the law and in the services received. Many interviewees repeated the sentence: ‘the law is the same for everybody’. Applicants were reportedly treated as individuals, regardless of nationality: ‘(..) we treat them, each person separately. Even if their presence is massive, the treatment is the same for all (..) there is no method of ours to treat people because they are all protected [by the law] in the same manner’ (FO4) The need to distinguish between individual cases and the problems that each applicant faces was framed in terms of compassion: ‘for the immigrant, the permit is life, it is everything’ (FO2) ‘we are all [clients and police agents at the counters] human beings and under some pressure (..) the problems faced by the foreigner are certainly numerous’ (FO4) Nonetheless, this equality of treatment and non-discrimination discourse would sometimes break apart. A humanitarian argument of the ‘we are all humans’ type would in these cases help the interviewee to make sense of their world and, at the same time, save face. The following passage is revealing of this interplay between a politically correct discourse and an underlying categorisation of immigrants in terms of nationality and related national character. ‘But, me, look, on this presupposition of Albanians, Italians or Somalis or whatever it may be [pause] unfortunately we are all human and under a specific pressure. (..) I start from the presupposition that the Italian, the American, the African, the Albanian or whatever one is, when they find themselves in a foreign country, they face problems (..) even for example to enter in the community for a service, one thing or 23
another, the problems are numerous. Certainly, the problems of a foreigner are numerous, so there may easily be a Chinese who, even if he cannot obtain the stay permit, as a temperament, he may not thank me three times or something like that, but still, he will thank anyway. While, there may be, for instance, an Albanian who, let’s say, when he is being said “no, this is not possible”, he will hit the counter window or something like that. This makes parts a little of the temperament of the person, because it may happen that I repeat to a foreigner the same thing ten times and I repeat it calmly and then, for instance, on the eleventh time, I explode. Because unfortunately, one is a human being and thus there may be some misunderstanding.’ (FO4)
4.3 Hierarchical or egalitarian character of relations This dimension refers both to the extent to which the locus of decision-making within the office is pre-structured and to the degree to which the behaviour of the employees is subject to internal organisational control. Everyday relations between FO agents of different ranks resulted more from a sense of following rules than a shared sense of the arrangement of duties and productive human activity. This type of hierarchical relations, reportedly part of the ‘military heritage’ of the police and the FO, influenced the organisation of everyday activities in the service. ‘There is a norm of the police that determines the tasks. There are the police agents, then there are those with an intermediate status, for example the superintendents (sovrintendenti), the inspectors (ispettori), then there are the high rank functionaries and the directors. Naturally, the duties are determined separately for each sector (..) Hierarchical (..) but it is like this in all police offices. Yes that unfortunately corresponds to the military pattern.’ (FO5) ‘the inspectors have basically the responsibility, the power to decide, something that agents (agenti) cannot have’ (FO5) If an agent was unsure about how to handle a case, s/he or asked for an inspector to come to the counter and deal with it. The aim of this intervention, we were told (FO2), was twofold. First, to clarify the specific case and, second, to take the specific applicant aside and thus unblock the processing of other clients. Higher rank officers were also called in some instances, if immigrants protested for disservice. This was in line with the ‘public service’ values and goals advocated by the interviewees. Work in the FO was hierarchically organised: when agents were unsure about a case, a higher rank officer was called to take up initiative and responsibility on the matter. This hierarchical structure did not encourage employees to think for themselves on any matter. Organisational goals and objectives, structures and roles created clearly-defined patterns of attention and responsibility, fragmenting knowledge and, most of all, interest in the office’s social role and in its impact on the implementation of policies. Police agents were encouraged to occupy and keep a predefined role so as not to challenge operating standards. The Head of the FO and his deputies communicated ideas about strategy through organisational rules. The importance of efficiency was thus made paramount, also because the FO had been under attack by NGOs (TU2, NGO8) and the press (La Nazione, 13 April 24
2000, front page of local news section) for high delays and corruption. Thus, the efficiency of the service and the degree of fulfilment of the office’s tasks were dictated by the leadership who controlled the doings of the low rank agents. Nevertheless, high-ranking officers do not have a monopoly on the ability to create shared meaning and control everyday work practices. Their position lends them a special advantage in developing the rules applied in the office but as far as routine behaviour is concerned, they do not have much influence. The agents at the counters and at the entrance desk who dealt with the individual cases on a daily basis were more powerful in this respect. They encouraged, disciplined and organised the human and social setting within the office. They were also able to influence how things were done during the course of social interaction beyond the strict application of job duties.
4.4 Clear division or overlapping of tasks The FO agents, regardless of their rank, asserted that their main goal was ‘to serve the clients better’. Work to achieve this goal was divided between individuals and between office sections. The office was divided into organic working groups and colleagues were grouped according to levels of hierarchy. At times of high workloads, complex cases and other nonroutine situations, the main goal was to find ways and means to satisfy organisational demands (while simultaneously meeting one’s own needs). Thus, FO agents co-ordinated their efforts in order to ‘get the job done.’ Tasks were accomplished through both individual and team efforts. ‘You know, there are certain days, that we had not calculated, we lend a hand to one another, among us, but it is a thing like that, on the spur of the moment’ (FO5) ‘Oviously the colleague that finishes first, doubtless s/he has to give a hand [to another colleague] to avoid that the foreigner is kept in the office for many hours, s/he has to give a hand to whose counter has the major bulk of work’ (FO4) Such flexible re-organisation of tasks did not contrast the hierarchy within the office: ‘if one prefers to work on student permits, however if the Head of the office (dirigente) prefers that it is him or her to work on student permits, this person will remain [at that counter]. But in general we are all able to deal with any permits.’ (FO5) The interviewees recognised that the office’s norms amounted to a valid internal structure, and their work was conducted in a spirit of organisational integration for the elimination of potential complexities. Officially prescribed roles and responsibilities were intertwined with shared perceptions of everybody’s professional role and responsibility (to help getting the work done).
4.5 Personal or impersonal character of authority and relations within the office This dimension refers to the extent to which authority within the organisation is identified with the specific individuals that cover high rank positions or the extent to which such 25
authority remains free from personalised connections. A high level of impersonality is commonly seen as a characteristic of public administration, an aspect of its ‘bureaucratic personality.’ However, our data revealed a great deal of informal, personalised relations intertwined with impersonal ones. Therefore, attention was paid not only to the style of authority but also, more broadly, to the relations between FO agents of different ranks. Relations among members within the office and with clients were characterised by the interviewees to be formal, and on occasions also informal, direct, open and respectful. Numerous manifestations of informal interactions and discussion were observed during the fieldwork, which occurred frequently and spontaneously. Examples of this were the knowledge and use of first names between colleagues and, occasionally, between FO agents and clients. At the same time, with regard to the clients, a strong detachment was observed at times in conduct and manners on the part of the FO agents, and was justified as a method of not inhibiting the effectiveness of the office. Such a detachment could be partially due to the fact that the officers at the counters must deal with a large client turnover. While the number of clients may contribute to impersonality, there was considerable influence of personal character in the relations between colleagues, and in their relations with their superiors. This was justified by one agent (FO6) as a component of professionalism, which contributed to the effectiveness of activity in the office. Employees were observed to successfully manipulate their own position in relation with their supervisors. This behaviour might be considered as ‘tainted’ and interfere with the typical workplace norm of solidarity with other workers ‘against’ the Direction. However, we did not observe any disapproval of such behaviour. There were no complaints made against co-workers. Neither was there any explicit comment about the supervisors treating lower rank employees differently. It remained unclear whether these different levels of (im)personality towards clients and towards one another were a result of standards imposed upon the personnel by the administration or whether they were generated through everyday work routines and social interaction.
4.6 Myths and symbols The only symbol identified during our fieldwork was the fact that FO agents wore their uniforms during office hours while they took them off when leaving the Questura premises. No objects, pictures or persons were mentioned in any symbolic sense. Nor were any symbols displayed in the waiting area of the FO or behind the counters. No FO distinctive myth was mentioned by the interviewees. An alternative, contrastive myth was referred to by one interviewee to point to the limited prestige of the FO: ‘You know [referring to the interviewer], the Foreigners’ Office is not like the Mobile Patrol’ (FO3) The Mobile Patrol (Squadra Mobile) is a special division of the Italian police dealing predominantly with organised crime and the mafia that has in recent years acquired media visibility and popularity among citizens. A myth appeared to have been formed through organisational interaction concerning not the FO but its clients. Many of the actions undertaken by the FO agents were justified in relation to the myth of the ‘needy immigrant’. Their compassionate attitude, their patience, 26
their good will, their spirit of public service were related to the conviction that immigrants are people in need, facing particular hardship most of all because they are in a foreign country. ‘(..) these people, these foreigners, are certainly in need. They come here and the first thing they ask to have is the stay permit’ (FO6) ‘We try to come closer to the immigrants and see what can be done, we do it together [FO agents and immigrants]. People in despair [immigrants who come to apply for a stay permit] do not need someone who looks down on them, they need someone to help them’ (FO6) ‘For the immigrant, the permit is life, it is everything’ (FO2) In line with this myth of the ‘needy immigrant’, FO agents were generally against immigrant representation by lawyers (FO2, FO3, FO4). They sustained that lawyers took advantage of their immigrant clients’ stress and despair, taking their money to simply refer to their clients what the FO agents had explained to them. Immigrants were thus believed to be better off addressing themselves directly to the FO. The role of myths or symbols in promoting a specific organisational office culture was found to be limited. This suggests that either the chosen methodology was deficient in tapping these aspects of culture or (more probably) that these were not salient aspects of the FO organisational culture. Indeed, the question raises, whether such aspects are generally salient aspects of organisational culture in public administration in Italy or elsewhere. The purposeful cultivation of an organisational myth or symbol is more a characteristic of corporate cultures.
4.7 Language Language acquires attributes of a subculture in the workplace. Similarly to the impact of the social and physical work environment on employee commitment and performance, language expresses and also influences organisational life. Language patterns are weaker, but equally recurrent, patterns of associations with commitment, corresponding to specific features of an organisation’s culture. Organisational culture is manifested through the verbal management of daily work. The FO agents attempted to meet their daily routines and problems within it with rhetoric or rationalisations that made the job meaningful and conveyed the impression that ‘they know what they are doing’. They also engaged in diversionary behaviour, consciously or unconsciously, so that when in certain circumstances they found it difficult to deal with a situation, they deflected blame towards the Direction (which appeared insensitive to problems on the ground, FO2) or to the clientele (who did not want to understand what was unpleasant to them, FO4). Attempts in practice to build consensus in the office may also take the form of language codes. Language expressions become a tool for the organisation and control of the work routine. Such language codes – typified expressions repeated frequently to deal with a variety of problems and circumstances – were few and simple. This kind of language was compelling for both insiders-agents and outsiders-immigrants. The use of these expressions had tangible effects on the management of the daily workloads.
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Table 4: Typified expressed used in daily routine in the FO • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
The officer that you are looking for is on leave of absence today I have just returned from a leave of absence myself and I did not have time to get informed about developments The office is very busy today; return tomorrow if you want I have not seen the director today; if you want call tomorrow and they will connect you For this kind of information you must refer to the switchboard I do not know; (or) I really do not know You should have read the instructions at the door Let me see your passport and then I will tell you If you need to contact the director, you can send him a fax at the number of the FO Say clearly what you would like to know; there are many other people waiting for their turn Do you have all the documents required to make the application Lo straniero (the foreigner) Be quiet, we are working for you Please sit down and wait your turn I do my work the best way I can Wait for me to come out [of the counter] and we will speak Madam/Sir, the director would like to speak to you inside, let me open the door for you S/he is very busy at the moment, if you wait I will notify you as soon as s/he becomes available I know, I understand perfectly but what can I do? It is not me who is responsible for such requests
The FO’s daily work activity was beset by ambiguity (complex cases, personal connections of some applicants), tension (high workloads), and contradiction (requests by the Direction, a constant flow of new circulars and decisions), which the employees had to manage in order to fulfil their tasks. Through language, they constructed common understandings, attributed labels, orientated themselves, legitimised their practices, impelled certain actions and facilitated others, and thereby communicated (and through this, re-negotiated) the organisational rules of the FO.
4.8 Rituals Rituals are repetitive sequences of activity, which through repetition acquire a specific meaning and social function. We shall describe here a range of ritual practices observed in the FO. These consisted of patterns of behaviour that employees repeated often without thinking. These were (a) listening to the clients and trying to understand their claims; (b) habits or mundane routines of daily work such as sending or passing on letters or faxes to the supervisor; (c) taking short breaks for coffee with colleagues; (d) occasionally coming out of the counter to discuss with an applicant; (e) standing up behind the counter (they would
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usually sit down) to listen to an applicant and talk with them; (f) greet a superior. These rituals were associated with the FO agent relations to the clients and/or to their superiors. Ritual activity helps organise social relations in an organisation making them conventionalised and prescribed. In this way ritual can provide a shared experience of belonging and express and reinforce accustomed practices. In so doing it offers explanations and therefore legitimacy for social practices, and it contains levels of meaning that deal simultaneously with what is socially - and psychologically - significant in any culture. They are seen here as reinforcing the solidarity, and especially the stability, of the FO’s internal structure while clarifying the boundaries between FO agents and clients.
4.9 Ideologies An ideology is a set of beliefs about the social world and how it operates containing statements about the rightness of certain social arrangements and what action should be undertaken in the light of those statements (Sackmann, 1992). Ideologies play a significant role in processes of organisational culture because they link attitude and action and prescribe the latter. Cultural beliefs may operate as ideologies with or against the openly expressed aims of the Foreigners’ Office. Culture-based assumptions about the immigrant clients being ‘in need’, about power and dependency relations between native FO agents and immigrants who are disadvantaged by the mere fact of ‘being in a foreign country’, or about the nature of the service they provide: a public service whose main aim is to ‘send everybody away satisfied’ took the role of ideologies in the interviewees’ talk. Our research showed also that different ideologies were mobilised at different levels. During interviews, lip service was paid to compassion, equal treatment for all, and the FO’s task as ‘serving the users’. Our participant observation revealed that both actual practices and the language used made power relations between FO agents and immigrant clients salient at all moments while the equal treatment and public service ideologies were applied selectively.
5. Assessing the impact of organisational culture on policy implementation The aim of this section is to show how the administrative structure (as presented in sections 1 and 2 of this chapter) and the organisational culture (as presented in section 4) bring about specific types of discretion, which account for the unintended outcomes observed. The analysis of daily practices in the processing of stay-work permit applications has to take into account certain largely inter-twined features of administrative action. These features, which relate to Italian institutional particularities and are relevant for organisational structure and culture, include: a) The distinction between national, regional and local level in policy-making and enforcement of immigration laws – with a large increase in the decision-making competence assigned to regional and provincial offices; b) The administrative system is in transition. There is a lack of structural and/or operational continuity in administration. In order to fight the inertia of old attitudes, a constant rearrangement of offices, employees and competencies has recently been institutionalised. For instance, employees are appointed to temporary posts before they are asked to
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migrate to another section of the Office and, in a few cases, to a different department altogether. c) There is a lack of continuity in immigration policy. Legal provisions are periodically attuned to changes in policy and society, however, this is done in a piecemeal fashion. The discrepancies and often contradictions or overlapping between laws, decrees or circulars contrast with the capacity to deal with immigration in a cohesive long-term perspective. Eventually, legislation piles up over time and keeping up with developments becomes an increasingly burdensome task for administration employees. d) The importance of local, often contra legem, practices motivated by a number of possible causes, such as exclusive regional competence, political party interests, economic interests or personal deviant conduct that is tolerated in the public service; In our account of discretionary practices and unintended outcomes in the FO, we shall consider these systemic, institutional features of Italian public administration and immigration policy and also the specific features of the organisational culture discussed in section 4. The analysis is based not only on the data collected at the FO about its activities but also on the data (interviews, participant observation, documents, newspaper articles) collected from additional sources (other statutory agencies, NGOs, immigrant associations, newspaper databases) that are involved in the issue and renewal of stay permits for work purposes. We shall speak of ‘unintended’ rather than ‘distorted’ outcomes of the policy. The notion of ‘distortion’ implies that there is a standard against which ‘distortion’ can be measured. However, the assumption that such a standard of pure, formal implementation of a policy measure, precisely as it is laid out in the law or in an administrative circular, is a fiction. It would thus risk disorienting and hence ‘distorting’ (sic) our analysis rather than contribute to its clarity. Even the concept of unintended outcomes needs some clarification. Establishing what constitutes an unintended outcome in the practice of the Foreigners’ Office is subject to peculiar difficulties of appraisal. Where the purpose and the abstract goals of the law call for an easily-identified, readily-measured assessment of goals in practice, the actual office activity signals a set of slightly divergent goals. As discussed earlier, the official goals of processing permit applications quickly and efficiently, ensuring equality of treatment to the clients and with a spirit of public service – ‘the user first’ discourse – were complemented by a number of secondary goals developed in organisational practice. These included ‘sending people away’ so that the work appears to be processed quickly while in reality little may actually be accomplished, or a compassionate attitude and humane treatment of the clients, which may go beyond the FO agents’ formal duty. Our assessment of unintended outcomes will treat these secondary, informal goals as discretionary practices and will check their links with specific features of the organisational culture of the FO and/or identity issues (see section 6).
5.1 Discretionary practices: an overview The setting of goals in an office such as the FO, is essentially a problem of defining the desired relationship between the organisation and its environment. Even if the most abstract statement of goals remains constant, application of rules requires redefinition or interpretation as actual changes occur in day-to-day practice in the office, its environment or both. In similar situations questions about the type of discretion assumed by employees, are 30
commonly raised. For example, indicators of formal discretion may be a series of subjective decisions made on the nature of a particular, complex case, before any specific rule is applied. In such cases, employees invoke a rule as a means of making a particular decision sensible and meaningful to the applicant of the claim. In effect, this process often involves negotiation, for example, between the applicant-immigrant, the FO agent, and the lawyer of the applicant, all of whom present their competing definitions of the situation as they consider it. The ability to apply a rule calls for more than mere knowledge of the rule itself, as rules are invariably incomplete. The ability to apply a rule depends on the extent to which the employees of the office in question are held responsible in some respects for their performance, and hence, they have the incentive to employ agency into their actions. The point is that the norms operating in different situations are invoked in the light of the specific context (for example at the FO counter). It became clear to us that FO agents made decisions based on taken-for-granted assumptions concerning their clients, themselves and the relationship between them. Many of these decisions were made quite unconsciously and spontaneously as a result of previous socialisation and knowledge taken for granted. And in most circumstances, there was no process of justification for action, unless the outcome or the behaviour during the procedure was challenged. Such events were interpreted as informal discretionary practices. The major way – from what could be observed – in which FO agents dealt with the ambiguities, tensions, and contradictions of their work was through coping strategies (Lipsky, 1980). These strategies were methods of managing circumstances, which were problematic. For example, they developed unofficial methods and categories for classifying clients as well as for determining which clients ‘deserved’ more, or less, attention and services. Generally, such practices were not perceived as discretion or mis-implementation of the law. The FO agents perceived their activity as response to daily crises, workload or simply routine in ways that they were accustomed to do. In other words, discretion aimed at helping the specific agent to cope with her/his work requirements to process cases quickly and efficiently. A general and pervasive feature of the daily practices in the FO was the discrepancy between what the agents said they did and what they were observed to do or what other social actors reported them to do. There was an important gap between lip service to values such as public service and efficiency and the way tasks were organised and accomplished. Similarly, there was inconsistency between how agents reported to apply the law, namely without prejudice or preference for any individual or group and following strictly the letter and spirit of the law, and how they were observed and reported to apply it, namely through personal contacts, informal practices and discriminatory behaviour. These discriminatory practices and their links with specific features of the organisational culture and structure of the FO are discussed in the following sub-sections.
5.2 Decisions made by the FO managers Discrepancy between words and deeds was common among both high and low rank FO agents. Interviewees and the organisation as a whole did not follow the rules and practices they set in their discourse. This became obvious during our participant observation and was confirmed by other interviewees, trade unionists, NGO representatives and lawyers who served immigrant clients. A case in point concerns the office’s high rank officers: the funzionari direttivi. They are ultimately responsible for the work of the FO and they have the power to organise work 31
and set priorities. In their discourse, emphasis was put on the formal aspects of the work accomplished in the FO and the strict enforcement of the law: ‘This is a sector [stay permits] that is exposed to a heterogeneous public of a varied nature, which every time presents new cases. Regulating [this sector] is possible, if general and particular competencies are taken into account, however, what will eventually be taken into account mostly is the law on foreigners [law 48/1998], that we can subject to our certain interpretation to a certain extent.’ (FO1) A certain, albeit limited, margin of discretion in interpreting the law was considered a necessary part of the job but certainty was generally sought after: ‘Naturally, we act within the channels, more or less detailed, that the law provides and, every time, we are led to interpretations that can be at times more open, but which generally are quite constrained (..) of course we try to act in favour of the foreigner (..) in a situation of total doubt, but we must always try to avoid such situations of total doubt and to resolve [problems] always. In the end, we always manage to provide answers. We cannot hold situations in the air, undecided, not analysed in depth.’ (FO1) Lower rank officers however suggested that decisions of the leadership were guided by efficiency concerns and realistic appraisals of the situation. ‘At the management level they know, but they can do nothing immediately. Once they know about it, they try to deal with the problem (..) one firstly has to give a hand in order to avoid that the foreigner is kept in the office for many hours’ (FO6) ‘it was an idea of the new Head of the office, well, he thought it was good to create this new position [an entrance desk, where she works daily] precisely because.. so as... well, there would be a first instance intervention towards these people, towards these foreigners who are certainly in need’ (FO6) Concerning the leadership style and its impact on the daily work, it is worth noting that access to the FO rank and file was determined by a concern with the likelihood of receiving negative publicity rather than accountability and efficiency. For our research team, contact with the FO managers was very difficult. There was no or very little justification of this inaccessibility. We were simply told to try harder and diverted to make a fax, if we had tried to contact them by phone, make an appointment on the phone, if we went there to take one or to call again, if we called. After repeated efforts, it took several weeks before the Head of the office returned our call to say that the authorisation we had was no longer valid and that we needed to take one from the Ministry in Rome. Naturally, the Ministry never replied to our letter requesting permission. Eventually, the justification offered by the Head of the FO was that he was not allowed to speak to us without an authorisation from the Ministry – which suggested that hierarchical relations characterised not only the interior of the FO but the Ministry of Interior altogether. However, the message conveyed by FO agents until then was that their superiors were too busy with very important issues to be able to give interviews to researchers. Contact with the FO managers was however much easier for lawyers, defending immigrant clients and trade union or NGO representatives. Two lawyers (LAW1, LAW2) 32
reported that they asked to speak with inspectors and higher rank employees when they could not get their client’s issue resolved by the low-rank agents at the counters. They also addressed their claims to superiors in written form. These are strategies they used to put pressure on the FO by exposing lower rank agents to superiors and the whole FO potentially to public attention. These testimonies confirm that FO agents were concerned to avoid that requests were addressed to their superiors and that the office received negative publicity. They were not however actually concerned about transparency, or accountability. Communication between the higher and lower rank agents was hierarchically structured. Contrary to what was observed and asserted by lawyers, both low and high rank FO agents paid much lip service to the importance of being open to the public. In conformity with this double strategy, the Head of the Office, whom we eventually did not get permission to interview, emphasised his willingness to meet us and tell us ‘everything’ (sic) about their work.
5.3 Interpreting the law: formal and informal discretionary practices The practices adopted by the FO agents during the permit determination process – that is checking the legal basis for a specific type of permit, the completion of the requirements as proven by relevant documents and the procedural norms followed during this process – involved both formal and informal discretion. There was reliance upon the internal office hierarchy to define ‘how things work’ and employees had to apply any decision made by their supervisors. As discussed in the previous section, such decisions governing the behaviour of FO agents involved an important degree of formal discretion. There were certain acts commonly accepted and applied throughout the office, which were not fully in conformity with the law. Even though amongst the most common remarks of the FO agents working at the counters was that in handling a case they were determined to apply the law exactly as the law provides for, they also stated that part of their job was to appreciate the difficult circumstances of the applicants and avoid them unnecessary hardship. For instance, in order for the FO to issue a work permit, the Employment contract or employer’s letter stating the details of the job offer – validated by the local Employment Office – are necessary documents. However, the actual practice was different from the rule set out by law. Interviewees referred to the fact that they were instructed to accept the Employment card (libretto di lavoro) instead, whereas the letter of the employer offering the employment (attestazione al lavoro) was considered a document of secondary importance, one that could be brought in later. As informants in the Labour Office explained, the details of the law concerning the different types of employment allowed by a given stay permit were applied in a flexible way: ‘He [a Brazilian immigrant] is authorised to stay in Italy only to work as an artisan. He may do nothing else, if he does not change his stay permit to one for dependent employment, after which he comes to us. (..) because the Questura cannot make it: it would require again five or six months to issue a stay permit, for this reason there are the technical adjustments: in this way, [the immigrant] may register [in the job list] also with this stay permit. The norms would be clear, but at the level of explicating them, they become a case-by-case issue’ (LAB4) Immigrants who are in the process of renewing their stay permits, are allowed to register to the job lists and if they find employment, to take it, by showing the receipt issued 33
to them by the FO. This receipt proves that the immigrant has filed an application with the FO but it does not guarantee the outcome of the application. Nonetheless, it has been adopted as common practice that this receipt (tagliandino) should be accepted by the Employment Office and the FO as a provisional ‘permit’: ‘Interviewer: The Immigrants who come here already have their stay permit? Informant: Yes, or they have the receipt for renewing the stay permit. This receipt is when they go to the Questura and ask for the renewal, then they issue them this receipt for one or two months. Because there too they have problems… well, they do not renew the stay permit in the same day, the stay permit, they make them wait for some months before the renewal. So they register and are hired with this receipt.’ (LAB4) Similarly, the administrative requirements for issuing a stay permit for family reunion included that the legal immigrant who applied for her/his family to join her/him, should have 33 square metres of space in her/his accommodation for each additional family member. However, this rule was judged by the FO employees and other social actors as exaggerated and was applied selectively: ‘Interviewer: These criteria [concerning the accommodation and income of the applicant for family reunion] are they clearly defined by the law? Who decides whether a house is sufficiently big? Informant: It is not the law, this depends a bit from the Employment Office. For instance, until very recently, in Florence they required something like 33 square metres per person in a house, which, as you realise, are a lot. Not all Italians, we do not have 33 square metres. Now, clearly that was not so formal: that was the indication, then if the foreigner proved that he has an additional room (..) a bit of flexibility [was shown]’ (LAW2) In other cases, the limits between respect and violation of the law were blurred in practice. Thus, concerning immigrants applying for new stay permits for work purposes, although the law foresees that the applicant should be outside Italy at the moment of the application, in practice this provision was often overlooked. This practice was eventually consolidated through an administrative circular to the FOs, which stated that the foreigner could apply while in Italy if her/his presence was legal, namely if s/he had entered the country with a tourist or study visa. This circular was seen as a half way solution between the initial provision and the reality that many immigrants ‘usually had a job, a house in Italy and wanted to start the procedure’ (LAW2). According to a recent study (Quassoli and Chiodi, 2000) conducted in the region of Emilia Romagna, this flexibility in the interpretation of the law is welcome by many local officers and employees because they feel that otherwise it would be impossible to get on with their work. Our findings confirm partly this view. FO agents some times used the margins of interpretation accorded to them informally, through daily practice, to resolve situations that were not foreseen by the law. In other instances though, these margins were used to favour one applicant over another. Although no informant stated outright that this was linked to corruption and bribery, the press coverage on a recent scandal in the Florence FO (La Nazione, 13 April 2000, title: Stay permits and bribes in the Questura. A search opened by the judicial authorities on the Foreigners’ Office) and the implicit statements of lawyers and trade union representatives led clearly to this allegation. 34
A certain degree of discretion and personal judgement is inherent in the work of street-level bureaucrats like the police agents employed at the Florence FO. Immigration policy directives in Italy, just like any other public policy in any country, could not provide for the complex individual cases that FO agents and Employment Office employees had to resolve. Thus, a certain level of formal discretion was applied in the effort to facilitate the implementation of the law and process the permits expeditiously. This type of discretion was usually exercised to satisfy the clients’ requests within a situation of constrained FO resources and uncertainty of the policy directives. On one occasion, feedback from the microlevel of implementation led to the amendment of the formal framework, allowing for immigrants that were legally present in Italy to apply for stay permits. The freedom in interpreting the law observed in the Florence provincial administration may be related to the local or provincial autonomy of the FOs and the various branches of Provincial Employment Offices across Italy. Such innovation or improvisation to overcome the incogruence between the law – which states that the permit must be issued within 30 days – and the actual practice of the Florence FO – which was reported to be anything between two (according to FO agents) and four (according to lawyers, immigrant associations and trade unions) months – might not have been possible if the administration was more centralised. All informants confirmed though that the average length of wait in Florence was reduced, during late spring and summer 2000, to 45 days. The quick improvement in the service after months or years of long delays and mismanagement of the procedure is striking. The question naturally comes to mind: if it took so little time to process delayed applications, why did the FO let such long delays build up in the first place? The unjustifiably long delays of the FO in the issuing of the stay permits indirectly confirm the testimonies of lawyers and trade union or NGO representatives, who assert that there is widespread favouritism, which is discussed in the section that follows.
5.4 Daily work routines: informal discretion and favouritism Discretionary practices can more readily be located in the daily work routine of the FO. First and foremost, despite the ‘public mission’ talk of the interviewees, the FO had ‘gatekeepers’. There were three levels of control before accessing the counters. First, security guards at the entrance of the Questura headquarters required identification documents. Second, there was an entrance desk where one had to state what particular office one wanted to visit. And third, a FO agent who operated an entrance desk within the FO premises, in the waiting lounge ‘screened’ clients further. Thus, there were multiple controls of the comings and goings of immigrants or other strangers. One could not just walk in the FO to make a question or talk to an agent. The role of this entrance desk, or public relations office was revealing of the practice prevalent in the FO. The agent serving there stated that her role was ‘(..) well, when the foreigner arrives, who perhaps does not know what he should do, does not know where he should go, well, he finds me and I indicate to him, well, I raise his morale, for instance there are people who come here worried, tense, stressed out, one does not know what to do so for this I am here to help him, to send him where he should go’ (FO6) In contrast, what we observed, was that this entrance desk had several functions. It managed the flow of applicants to the counters by filtering the applicants and inviting them to return on another day if they did not have, at first glance, the necessary documents, and 35
checking the type of stay permit they sought and providing them with the relevant forms and instructions. The agent who was mainly in charge of this entrance desk usually engaged in informal talk with many of the applicants and/or any immigrant association representatives that might be present there. She also mediated contacts with middle and high rank agents who were working in the offices (not at the counters). She often disappeared behind a closed door to talk with an applicant in private, to call a colleague or to check for some request an applicant made. Although apparently, there may be nothing wrong in trying to serve people, it was clear to us that this involved unavoidably a great deal of favouritism for some applicants and discrimination for others. While some applicants were invited to wait their turn quietly, others were put into contact with high rank officers or were given advice behind closed doors. This activity of ‘selecting’ clients served the additional purpose of limiting access to the service (see also Lipsky, 1980: 105-16) To fully understand workplace behaviour we need to take into consideration the practical autonomy that low rank agents have in conducting their everyday tasks. Individual agents, despite hierarchy and division of tasks, sustained their autonomous effort with the goal to ‘accomplish tasks’. ‘Take initiative and see that everything gets done’ was mentioned by many respondents in one way or another. Task accomplishment served as a guideline for work behaviour. The analysis of workers’ practical autonomy, its varieties, and its antecedents and consequences addresses basic questions about the organisation’s discretionary practice, exemplified by such comments as: ‘We need to lend a hand to colleagues because we can only cope if there is good will, with appropriate conduct of the limited resources that we have available. It would be negative for the scope of the office if, because say one morning I am not there, there is none able to take my place. You know, there are certain days that we have not calculated, we lend a hand to each other, but it is a thing like that, on the spur of the moment. For instance, I finish dealing with [the applicants from] Africa, and if I see that my colleague dealing with Asia over there has not yet finished, I go to Asia and continue with Asia’ (FO5) This flexibility in the organisation of tasks which, according to our FO informants, aimed at efficiency, was experienced and interpreted in different terms by the users. As the lawyers that we interviewed reported, everything depended from ‘who [which agent] is there in that moment’ (LAW1). ‘This is, I think, a little bit as everywhere. There are people who are more willing to accommodate and people who are less willing [to accommodate].’ (LAW1) Personal contacts in this context were of uppermost importance: ‘We try always to accompany our clients to the Questura. Sometimes I know a policeman a little better, so I go to see him in particular, even though I have to respect the queue.’ ‘Now [as opposed to earlier, before a scandal on corruption in the FO made it to the headlines of the local newspaper La Nazione], even if you know people [in the FO] you have to go through the normal channels. There are no other channels, which means you go there, to the counter and they take your application.’ (LAW2)
36
Although lawyers attested to the highly variable and personalised behaviour of the FO agents, they also conceded that they were in general ‘quite willing to accommodate’ (LAW2). Thus, the concession or refusal of a permit became a matter of negotiation between the client or her/his lawyer and the FO agent: ‘It is not that they want to create obstacles. Because they have legal provisions that are precise (..) so they say “I cannot give [to your client] the stay permit without having his ID document”. So he [the FO agent] asks me “See if you can obtain it”. If then I go back and tell him “I cannot obtain it”, then he will do it for me [issue the permit], but logically he asks me first “see if you can obtain it”. At least from my experience they do not create obstacles for nothing, I have talked to my two friends [she mentioned earlier that she has two friends who are FO agents] and they try always to help, even if they treat you impolitely (..) it is a bit of an explosion, of taking it out on someone’ (LAW2) Trade union representatives and NGO activists confirmed and emphasised the unpredictable behaviour of the FO agents and their lack of respect towards their clients: ‘This [the interpretation and application of the law] varies from one employee to the other and depends on the specific Questura (..) There are big differences even from one day to the next. On Monday, in Florence they behave in one way and on Wednesday in a different way. Unfortunately, the discretion in the Questure concerning the application of Law 40/1998 is total!’ (TU3) ‘We [the trade union] go to the Questore [head of the Questura] and we tell him that the [agents at the FO] counters do not apply the law, they apply it in a restrictive manner (..) people are treated badly. We present to him questions that concern the functioning of the FO, the issue and renewal of the stay permits and so on. One of the things that happen most frequently is that people bring [to the FO counter] a whole batch of papers to obtain the stay permit and, when they come back, they tell them they have lost the file. This means that if you have produced a whole series of documents, which have been lost, you have to reproduce them all, once more. With all the stress that this entails and with the deadlines pressing.’ (TU3) ‘Let me describe what is that they typically do: they receive the immigrant’s application and they always find that there are papers missing. Then, they put the application away until the immigrant goes back with renewed documents and, is s/he has the possibility, with a person, lawyer, friend or other, who speaks the language and knows the procedure, one of us for instance, to help pursue her/his case.’ (NGO8) Since some of the employees perceived their duties to include providing social service for the whole community, they showed an attitude of ‘organised philanthropy’ towards the immigrants. Informal discretion was observed here too. The following account is typical of this type of behaviour: ‘(..) from my own experience of eight years in the FO, I have always tried, obviously within the terms provided for by the law, I have tried to help the person because if a foreigner arrives who, for instance, has an emergency that is documented, it is normal, well, an effort is made to meet her/his needs and, thus, what can be done, is done 37
together. Desperate people need not somebody who looks down on them, they need help’ (FO6) The ‘organised philanthropy’ attitude had important implications for the routine daily practice. According to the law, the stay permit for work purposes must be issued within 30 days from when the application is filed. In practice this rule was not respected in the Florence FO because of excessive workloads, according to our interviewees. However, priority was often given to urgent cases. This practice was reported and widely accepted as ‘good’ and ‘reasonable’ by trade union representatives (TU1, TU2), who also explained that they occasionally interfered to achieve such preferential treatment for some applicants. The judgement of the emergency was negotiated between the trade union or lawyer of the immigrant and the FO agent, and eventually was left to the individual agent to decide: ‘They [immigrants] get angry because (..) they have perhaps organised their holiday [the interview was taken in July] so that they can leave (..) but obviously if I at the counter, a person tells me that she has a risk of spontaneous abortion, and risks to lose her baby and needs [the permit], I prefer, as a person and as a police agent to give precedence effectively to this person that is in need, rather than to a person that has to leave for holidays.’ (FO4) Logical though the conclusion of the agent above may be, the fact of the matter is that this practice leaves ample room for preferential treatment. We observed many ‘priority’ cases, either out of ‘humanitarian’ concern of the police agent, such as the example cited above, or because the applicant or somebody accompanying her/him was personally acquainted with one or more of the FO agents. This practice is also likely to obstruct coordination with the other agencies involved in the issuing or renewal of work permits, as was seen in the accounts provided by the Employment office employees. Daily routines led to conformity of behaviour, and therefore the modification of these working habits according to the case-specificity took place reluctantly. Extensive routinisation appeared most likely to occur where the work was particularly stressful because of a large number of applicants waiting their turn and a further limitation of the personnel on the particular day. Routine practices for dealing with such stressful situations while maintaining apparent efficiency (‘sending people away’) may be classified under three general headings: (a) (b) (c) (d)
ignoring problems, or putting problems under consideration or on hold; invoking slow procedures to stifle possible conflict, or looking for satisfactory solutions; appeal to bureaucratic rules of the office as a source of confrontation resolution; giving way or being accommodating as an on the spot problem-solving strategy.
In this light, this finding suggests, that routine practices led to relative carelessness, uneven application of the law and, thus, unintended outcomes. Nonetheless, unintended outcomes were rationalised as unavoidable, inherent in the law itself and as an opportunity to learn from one’s mistakes: ‘Besides, the situation in our office is made of human beings, so, as we can make a mistake in issuing a stay permit that we ought not to have issued or delaying the issuing of a permit, for instance. But these are mistakes that should lead us to learn and improve [our service]. For example, regarding immigrants from outside the EU, 38
since the directives of the law have built up over time, we are in a ‘cloud’, before [it was worse] we encountered often many problems. The fact that certain cases need some clarification or, in any case, particular attention does open the way to discretion that might prejudice the immigrant. In practice, the law says ‘such and such’ but in actual practice what the law says and how it is implemented becomes much less clear. Even the letter of the law is unclear.’ (FO4) Last but not least, FO agents considered changes in society (toward a social integration of immigrants in Italian society) as a call for new forms of social ethics. Thus, subjective judgements on ‘how things are’ and ‘how they should be’, guided ‘prescriptions’ for corrections of policy and of the doings of the FO: ‘I, as a citizen, not as a police agent who only applies the law, would give the advice to go towards a greater opening of the borders to those people who come to Italy to work and to insert themselves positively in the socio-economic tissue [of this country]. While I would be even more restrictive towards those people who, for instance, come to Italy for their trafficking rather than to integrate themselves legally [in this society]’ (FO1) Such personal statements were made not only by FO agents but also by the employees working at the Employment Offices. Definitions of what were the issues of immigration policy – e.g. excessive immigration, criminality among immigrants or mismanagement of the issue by the state and/or local authorities – and recommendations for remedies were proposed. In conclusion, the main feature of the daily routine practices in the FO has been the large discrepancy between what is said and what is done. The discourse of the FO agents differed from their actions in many observable ways. What was reported to be an equal, standardised, lawful and understanding interaction with the clients with the aim of processing their requests fairly but also efficiently so as to avoid them unnecessary hardship, was in reality a highly personalised, unequal, at times random and partly unlawful application of the law where consideration of the applicants’ requests and hardship varied significantly, depending mostly on the personal informal relationship between FO agent(s) and client than on any standard procedures and rules. The provisions of the law guided ultimately the issuing of the permits, however, their application was at best selective, at worst discriminatory. To put it bluntly, the main routine that characterised implementation at this level was personal and informal contacts between service-providers and users. It is worth noting that both formal and informal discretion practices were sometimes adopted to help immigrants obtain their papers. The findings reported in this and the previous sections suggest that the combination of a hierarchical and rigid organisation of the service with informal relations and flexible collaboration between agents of similar rank leave significant room for practical autonomy in the accomplishment of daily tasks. Furthermore, while efficiency is defined as the FO’s first and foremost goal, its meaning remains ambivalent. The contrasted tendencies arising from, on the one hand, a traditional bureaucratic culture of public security, red tape and mistrust towards (immigrant) clients and, on the other hand, a newly introduced culture of management, flexibility and accountability led to a fake efficiency; many clients were simply ‘sent away’ without having had their requests answered while some received a favourable treatment through informal channels. These contrasted tendencies are exemplified in the
39
typified language expressions and ‘ritualised’ behaviours described in section 4.7 and 4.8 above. Lipsky (1980) argues that routinisation in the work of street-level bureaucrats rations services and thus serves the interest of the agencies for reducing the size of their clientele. Routinisation was also seen to provide a legitimate excuse for not dealing flexibly with the client’s situation, or considering its human dimension. Partly in contrast to Lipsky’s arguments, the FO routine practices ranged from a situation of absolute bureaucratic unresponsiveness to full human flexibility. Excessive routinisation in one instance was replaced by a full appreciation of the individual case of another client and an incentive to apply agency for resolving the problem. In our view, this situation is typical of the internal conflict of Italian administration: the newly introduced value of efficiency has emphasised the agency’s objective that clients be processed expeditiously. On the other hand, FO agents partly continued to follow the ‘old’ practices of interpersonal relations and clientelism. These practices provided for more autonomy and offered higher rewards (emotive, monetary and also in terms of power). The practices observed reflected this underlying conflict between different values and goals, inherent in the FO’s fragmented organisational culture. These practices ultimately undermined both efficiency and responsiveness to clients because they introduced a system of inequality and unpredictability in the public administration.
5.5 Sense of community: interactions and relationships between colleagues Aside from the interpretation of the law and the daily accomplishment of the work routine, important elements in the processing of the stay permits were the organisation of interaction with insiders-fellow agents and outsiders-clients. FO agents created a sense of community and office identity with one another. The respect and complicity they showed towards their co-workers was an important feature of the workplace. FO agents did not simply pay lip service to the idea but appeared to feel loyal to a great extent to their office and incorporated this sentiment into their ‘mission’ (or duty) statements. They expressed and showed commitment to both the duties of the office and to fellow workers. The data also hints at the view that in everyday work, the office-specific sense of community was more relevant as a way of defining themselves than their wider identification as police agents. Despite differences at rank and also at personal style (as observed in attire, communication style or gender), expressions of a fellow feeling were noticeable: ‘We are always there, let’s say we have always come close to one another. On the part of colleagues there have always been maximum collaboration, I would say. It’s normal. As I was telling you before, this really is teamwork, you know? Work that needs to be done, you need to be there, to stand united, you know?’ (FO6) Yet it was more difficult to get them to explain why they considered their working relationships in these terms. After some probing, one interviewee explained that when so much time has been spent together in one place, one gets to know each other quite well. On the other hand, the common experience to be answerable for your professional action before the public and the clients strengthened social and professional bonds among the workers. In addition, the nature of the work itself fostered a sense of community. Routinised tasks, for instance, seemed to synchronise workers’ practice and promote an atmosphere of cooperation. 40
This strong sense of identity appeared to occasionally prejudice behaviour towards clients. We witnessed a scene where an immigrant client and a FO agent engaged into an argument. It appeared that the receipt (proving he had filed an application for a stay permit) of the applicant got lost on the way to checking his file to see if his permit was ready. Another two agents got involved in the incident, taking the side of their colleague, and eventually pointing to the protesting immigrant that their working time had ended so he had to come back the following day (a ritualised practice, indeed). This complicity between colleagues, although understandable, contributed to the lack of transparency and accountability. Researchers but also the media or lawyers were treated as outsiders to this community. An effort was made that ‘problems’ would not go ‘outside’, beyond the premises of the FO (FO2).
5.6 Defining the immigrant as ‘client’ Amongst the most common remarks of the police agents working at the counters was that since work schedule was tight and intense, in practice it was difficult for them to recognise and understand the diversity and range of experiences that immigrants brought with them, including different social and cultural norms. Moreover, the operational organisation of the FO work did not allow for special provisions to facilitate interaction with immigrants. For instance, while language assistance was provided through an interpreter hired on purpose for the FO, instructions were posted or distributed in Italian even though the clients were, at least in part, newly arrived immigrants. Trade union and NGO representatives mentioned the language barrier as an important issue, which rendered the immigrants’ interaction with the FO more difficult. Informants noticed the impossibility or unwillingness of FO agents to communicate in languages other than Italian. FO agents, in contrast, stated that themselves or their colleagues all spoke some English and that an interpreter was hired on purpose by the agency to serve the clients’ needs. Truly, the interpreter was there daily but served the student and artistic work counters rather than the standard counters for stay permits, located at a different part of the room. It was argued above that daily work was partly guided by taken for granted assumptions that FO agents brought with them or developed during their interactions with colleagues and clients. By and large our interviewees claimed that they felt they knew the needs of their clients well and had an above-average knowledge of how immigrants perceived their office. Stereotypically they referred to what we have called the myth of the ‘needy immigrant’ and would expect that immigrants would be angry at them because of long waiting hours. They emphasised that in their job they must understand the clients’ needs and find ways to satisfy these, within the framework of the law naturally. A discrepancy appeared however between the agents’ definition of specific situations and the reality of confronting individual immigrants with different characteristics and responses. For example, some FO agents expected that immigrants would be angry at them and treated them at least initially in a defensive manner. They also considered anger a ‘normal’ emotion for ‘people like them who have suffered’. In our observations and as reported by trade union and NGO activists, immigrants were at times angry but also stressed, confused, frightened, tired or depressed. Some of them appeared also confident and demanding in pursuing their claims. Such a priori assumptions and classifications of immigrant behaviour led to uneven treatment and, hence, to a certain degree of discretion. The presumed anger of clients was deemed to be part of a vicious circle in implementation where limited resources led to poor quality services and long waiting hours. 41
Clients thus got angry at FO agents who however were unable to break this vicious circle because of the lack of resources. FO agents neglected to consider the practical details of the setting in which the clients waited and the way they were treated at the counter. The setting of the FO office required that immigrants whose turn was approaching, waited standing, to avoid missing the agent calling their number. Furthermore, they were occasionally asked to sit down if they waited standing near the counters and to be quiet if they talked loudly. The tone of the FO agents in making these observations indicated clearly that they held the power to define appropriate behaviour and require compliance. These practices made part of what Lipsky (1980: 59) identifies as the process of transforming unique individuals into clients, assigned to categories for treatment by bureaucrats. Our interviewees (FO2, FO3, FO4, FO6) stated that it was their duty to explain ‘the law of this country’ to the foreigners. At the same time, it was assumed that when immigrants argued that they did not understand, this was generally out of bad faith, because ‘they did not want to understand’ a negative reply. According to our observation, this was often not the case. When applicants insisted and got angry at the FO agent, this last adopted more often than not a polite albeit totally unhelpful behaviour. They kept repeating their last sentence, the one that was not understood by the immigrant or that, always according to the immigrant, did not reply to her/his query excusing themselves and eventually asking the applicant to step aside so that the next person at the queue could be served. Disparities often also occurred between employee assumptions about their clients and the clients’ definition of the situation. The accuracy of these assumptions varied among employees and from client to client, which determined the effectiveness of the client-worker relationship. For instance, as reported, the agents at the counters at times accepted applications for the issuing or renewal of stay permits even if these were incomplete. However, they neglected to explain to the applicant that the processing of their application was frozen until they brought the documents missing. As one interviewee put it: ‘(..) the permit is the foreigner’s business. It is him who has to engage in collecting the necessary documents and bring them here. We do not set any specific time limit for this delay but of course it could not be, say, a month’ (FO2)
6. Identity processes It has been hypothesised that identity processes activated in the interaction between administration employees and their immigrant clients will affect daily practice in the agencies and, hence, the implementation of the relevant law provisions. More specifically, it was held that the employees’ perception of their home country as an ‘immigration’ country or as a national state would affect their behaviour and the way they dealt with their daily tasks. Moreover, the immigrants’ structural socio-economic position in the country and their inclusion or exclusion from citizenship rights were expected to affect the views of the employees and their interaction with their (immigrant) clients. In the section that follows, we shall briefly discuss the socio-economic position of immigrants in Italy, with particular reference to citizenship rights and acceptance of cultural diversity. Second, we shall provide for a historical overview of Italian national identity, pointing to the fact that regional cultural diversity and localist sentiments are intrinsic historical features that characterised nation formation in Italy. Furthermore, the openness of Italians towards European integration and the prevailing view that there is no incompatibility 42
between feeling Italian and feeling European will be discussed. The third sub-section will present our analysis of the interviews with the police agents of the Florence Foreigners’ Office. Our findings on their perception of their national identity in relation to their ‘foreigner’, ‘immigrant’ clients, their conceptualisation of their professional identity and their views on personal aspects that pertain to their work will be presented and discussed in this last section.
6.1 The immigrants’ position in the Italian society Italy is a ‘new’ immigration country, having experienced migration as a host only in the past fifteen years. At the beginning of 1999, there were 1,250,214 legal immigrants in the country, who account for approximately 2% of the total 57,269,000 resident population (as of 1995). If estimates of undocumented migrants are included in the immigrant population, this adds up to a total of 1.5 million people, just over 2.5% of the total population. This percentage is lower than that of most ‘old’ immigration countries in Europe, like France, Britain or Germany. Nonetheless, media attention paid to immigration ever since the beginning of the 1990s and the arrival of the first wave of Albanian migrants in the Italian south-eastern coasts have constructed the immigrant presence as an important public issue. Terms like ‘invasion’ or ‘tidal wave’ and imagery of immigrants arriving on rafts from Albania, or standing in lines at soup kitchens or at police stations raised Italians’ awareness and uneasiness of the phenomenon. The public opinion, which had initially shown an attitude of ‘social tolerance’ towards immigrants (Ferrarotti 1984), became hostile and xenophobic. Racist incidents were registered already in 1990-1 (Bonifazi 1992; Woods 1992: 189). Moreover, Italians seemed to perceive that the state was doing too much for immigrants (Campani 1993: 525). Xenophobic and racist attitudes or behaviour have been documented in social psychological (Sniderman et al. 2001), anthropological (Cole 1996; 1997), media and political discourse studies (ter Wal 1996; 1998; 2000; Triandafyllidou 2001). Immigrants, especially those arriving and remaining in the country without proper documentation, have been related to criminality in the public debate and in police and judicial practices (Palidda 1999; Quassoli 1999). Already in the mid-1990s, Veugelers (1994) registered a decrease in the attention paid to immigration as a social issue. It appeared as if the perception of crisis had faded away. Other scholars (Campani 1993) argued that immigration was treated as a ‘constant social emergency’ both in the policy decisions and the political debate. In our view, the public and administration’s attention to immigration has remained relatively high as recent studies show (Quassoli and Chiodi 2000; Sniderman et al. ibid.; ter Wal 2000, among others). At the same time, however, a process of normalisation has got under way through, on the one hand, the regularisation of large numbers of undocumented migrants and, on the other hand, the emphasis put by recent policies on immigrant integration. The planning document annexed to Law 48/1998 included a mission statement, a description of integration priorities, and demographic projections for 2017 in which immigrants were expected to be about 9% of the working age population. The law includes a set of measures to be implemented by local and regional authorities, aiming at the social integration of immigrants. The policy concept of ‘intercultura’ – introduced already in the mid-1990s (Melchionda 1996) – has become part of education policies even though still much has to be done to provide equal education opportunities for migrant children (Chaloff 1999). In policy debates, ‘free use is made of terms such as multicultural, multiethnic, and multiracial, without much attention to the 43
meaning of these terms’ (Chaloff ibid.). A number of social and cultural activities, ranging from the funding of municipal ‘shelters’ and information centres catering for immigrants to the organisation of cultural activities with the aim of promoting cultural exchange, have been undertaken at the local and regional level as part of the integration provisions of law 48/1998. Despite the policy efforts for regularisation and social integration of immigrants, recent studies (Reyneri 1998; Reyneri et al. 1999) have shown that they remain economically marginalised since they are employed predominantly in informal sectors of the national economy. Even legal immigrants were employed without proper contracts that would protect their workers’ rights and entitle them to welfare benefits (Mingione and Quassoli 2000). Many immigrant workers were suspected to have regularised their stay on the basis of false work declarations17 or as unemployed because of their impossibility to obtain and prove employment in the regular economy. Despite their weak economic position, immigrant networking has flourished during the past decade giving birth to informal networks (see, for instance, Knights 1996) and a number of immigrant associations.18 Furthermore, representatives from immigrant communities were incorporated into the major Italian trade unions like CGIL and CISL. The integration of the newcomers into trade unions was seen by the latter’s leadership as the best way to protect the rights of both domestic and foreign workers and preserve their bargaining power towards employers and the policy authorities. Religious (Catholic) non-profit organisations, the Caritas in particular, have played an active role in immigrant integration, regardless of the immigrants’ religious faith. Its activities have benefited from its extended network of local associations and voluntary work networks that exist nation-wide. The Italian state has promoted and to a certain extent funded these activities, which often substitute for public services. The ‘sponsorship’ provision of law 48/1998 (see also section 2.4.3, above) has given new impetus to the work and power of non-governmental organisations and trade unions active in the area of immigration.19 The possibility for such entities to act as ‘sponsors’ guaranteeing for foreign workers to enter Italy legally in search for a job opportunity has opened a new legal migration path for immigrants who might otherwise attempt to enter the country illegally. Furthermore, it gave such organisations and associations a more active role in the process of policy implementation since they are now able to guarantee for the financial assistance and accommodation of the prospective immigrant workers they sponsor. Italian civil society is actively involved in immigration policy implementation, especially as regards the labour market and social integration. Although independent immigrant institutions like national associations, political parties, minority media, educational bodies or religious hierarchies have not yet been formed, immigrants are partly integrated into Italian structures of representation. Their political participation, however, remains in the sphere of denizenship. Although legal immigrants enjoy, at least in theory, equal access to 17
Reyneri (1998) reports that a suspiciously high number of Moroccan men declared that they were employed as domestic care workers in the metropolitan area of Milan during the last regularisation programme. It is believed that a large part of them were employed illegally in other sectors of the economy. Unable to provide evidence of their actual employment, they took advantage of the provisions for domestic care workers. 18 Immigrant associations have been organised on the basis of nationality (e.g. the Filipino or the Somali association); religion (mainly Muslim associations providing, for instance, for a cultural centre for immigrants from various Arab countries); or region of origin (some associations include people from the same continent, e.g. Latin America). The emergence of these associations depended not only on the size of the community but also on their length of stay in Italy, pre-existing migration networks and cultural features (value attributed to community ties or individualistic tendencies and mistrust towards fellow nationals). For a more detailed picture of the immigrant associations in Italy, see (Collicelli, 1997; Zanfrini, 1997). 19 Our informants (NGO6, NGO7) confirmed this observation. 44
work, public housing, education and health services as citizens do, they have neither passive nor active political rights. Immigrant naturalisation has hardly been an issue of concern in Italy. In a symbolic move the Social Affairs Ministry declared 1999 to be the ‘Year of the New Citizens’. Nonetheless, 1999 was not really the year of the new citizens, since the naturalisation process remained arduous and a majority of the thousand annual applicants were rejected. The citizenship law dates to 1992, and is separate from the immigration law. According to the SOPEMI report issued in January 2000 (SOPEMI 2000: 34), ‘[t]he “citizenship” promised by the government is one in which the immigrant can hope to receive a permanent residence card after five years, eliminating the need to meet the criteria for biannual renewal.’ Italian citizenship20 and the possibilities for naturalisation for foreigners are defined by law 91/1992 implemented by Presidential Decree no. 572/1993. The law21 is based on a combination of the ius sanguinis and ius soli principles. A child can become a citizen through descendance (parental citizenship) or by birth within the Italian territory if certain conditions are satisfied. Italian citizenship may be requested (and conceded by the state) through three main channels. First, it is automatically granted to children of at least one Italian parent, regardless of place of birth; to children born in Italy to unknown or stateless parents, or parents from countries which do not recognise citizenship of children born abroad; to minors recognised by their Italian parent at a later date, as long as child support is provided; to minors whose parents become Italian citizens, although this may be renounced upon turning 18 in favour of an alternative citizenship; and to foreign children adopted by Italian citizens. Second, acquisition of citizenship is guaranteed if requested for any foreigner, minor or not, under certain conditions. There is an accelerated procedure for those born in Italy and continuously resident in Italy until 18 years of age. Upon turning 18, the foreign citizen has one year to request citizenship. Also the law provides that foreign citizens able to demonstrate that at least one parent or grandparent was born with Italian citizenship have the right to citizenship.22 The 1992 citizenship law allowed also those who had ‘lost’ their citizenship under the previous law to regain it. When the re-acquisition period ended in 1997, 163,756 former Italian citizens had regained their citizenship, 75% of them emigrants to the Americas, and almost all the rest emigrants in Europe. The third channel concerns concessions of citizenship by the state following the request of an individual. In this case, requests may, and indeed often are, rejected. Marriage to an Italian citizen is the most common type of naturalisation requests under this category (see tables 5 and 6 below). About 90% of the naturalisations in Italy are due to marriage. The couple must be married for three years if they reside abroad or at least six months if they live in Italy in order for the foreign spouse to apply for naturalisation. In any case, only about 1% of this type of applications are rejected.23 20
It is worth noting that there are separate laws defining the status of Italy’s ethnic minorities such as for instance law 1241/1939 concerning the German-speaking South Tyroleans or law 1249/1947 regarding the Free Territory of Trieste. 21 Law 91/1992 replaced the previous law of 1913 and aimed mainly at the ‘recovery’ of Italian emigrants who had lost their citizenship while living abroad. The new law also attuned the content of Italian citizenship to contemporary understandings of gender equality, defining equal rights for women. This law was not in its inception aimed to provide for a framework for the naturalisation of recent immigrants that settled in Italy. 22 In this case, certain conditions have to be satisfied: male applicants must do military service in Italy; the applicant must work for the Italian state, either in Italy or abroad, and request citizenship; or the applicant is an 18-year old, resident at least two years in Italy, and applies for citizenship before turning 19. 23 The request must be documented and the Ministry may reject the application because of a serious criminal history or for ‘state security’ purposes. If rejected, the applicant has to wait five years before reapplying. If more than two years pass from the moment the request is made without receiving a response, the applicant may appeal to a judge for a declaration of citizenship. 45
Regarding minors who wish to naturalise, they may apply through the ‘ordinary procedure’ (via ordinaria) which is highly discretionary. There are residence requirements which vary depending on the country of origin and refer to uninterrupted legal residence that involves not only a residence permit but enrolment to the municipal registry. For children born in Italy or those with Italian parents or grandparents, the minimum period is 3 years; for EU citizens, 4 years; for adopted foreigners who are no longer minors, or for refugees and the stateless, 5 years; and for non-EU citizens, 10 years. The process for applying is burdensome requiring a long list of documents24 and lengthy.25 In addition, the applicant must renounce her/his original citizenship, while foreigners applying under the former two categories (marriage and by right) need not do so. The bureaucratic character of the procedure has helped guarantee that the number of applications is quite low. Only 1,639 requests were made in 1996 under this category, and 1,224 were reviewed. Of those, only 899 foreigners received citizenship: a rejection rate of 36% (in 1997 the rejection rate dropped slightly to 31%). Overall, the percentage of foreigners residing in Italy who were granted citizenship dropped from 0.9% in 1994 to 0.6% in 1997. It is clear that concession of citizenship is unlikely to affect the majority of immigrants unless major changes are made in the law and procedures. An additional matter of concern is that the system is unable to process even the few applications filed each year. In sum, Italian citizenship is predominantly ethnic in character because related to kinship by blood or through marriage. The law allows for foreign permanent residents to apply for naturalisation and does not require cultural assimilation (knowledge of the Italian language, for instance, is not required). However, the bureaucratic procedure established for the naturalisation is so complex, time and effort-consuming that it effectively acts as a deterrent to potential applicants. Thus, while the law adheres to a conception of the nation as a civic community and not only an ethno-cultural one, it does so only in form but not in substance.
Table 5: Acquisition of Italian citizenship, by continent of origin, means of acquisition and sex, 1998 Country
Europe EU C. / E. Europe Africa N. Africa Asia
Number
3,937 294 2,983 1,675 1,060 1,156
%
43.6 3.3 33.1 18.6 11.8 12.8
% by marriage
90.6 89.8 89.3 85.1 88.5 71.3
% women
77.8 69.4 83.4 44.0 31.7 54.0
24
The application must include: a full birth certificate; a certificate of civil status; a certificate of criminal history from the country of origin; certificate of criminal record and pending trials in Italy; similar documents regarding dependents issued by the Italian court system; authenticated copies of the foreign passport and residence permit; tax returns for all years of residence in Italy, demonstrating a current income of at least 8780 Euro; and a declaration that the applicant renounces the protection of Italy until the citizenship has been definitively issued. 25 The time and effort involved are almost forbidding. The application is reviewed by the Court, which receives the request. It then passes to the Police, which checks the legal status of the applicant. It then passes to the Ministry of Interior that examines the file and decides whether or not to grant citizenship. The Italian President then issues a decree naming those who are to receive citizenship. Finally, the applicant goes before an official and swears an oath of loyalty to the Italian Republic. 46
E. Asia N. America South and Central America Oceania Stateless Total
565 161 2,062 8 22
6.3 1.8 22.9 0.1 0.2
74.9 93.9 96.7 75.0 22.7
80.7 60.1 85.0 75.0 36.4
9,021 100.0
88.4
69.7
Source: Censis analysis of ISTAT data covering part of 1998, cit.in SOPEMI, 2000, table 12.
Table 6: Acquisition of Italian citizenship, by area of residence, 1998
Area
North Centre* South Islands Total
by marriage
5,254 2,240 878 380 8,752
by naturalisation
716 304 52 19 1,091
total
% in area
5,970 2,544 930 399
60.7 25.8 9.4 4.1
9,843
100.0
Source: Censis, Ministero dell’Interno, 1999, cit.in SOPEMI, 2000, table 13. * includes Tuscany.
Even though much lip service has been paid to multiculturalism and the social integration of immigrants, the content of such terms remains highly vague and acceptance of cultural and religious diversity is a contested matter. A controversy concerning the right to religious practice of Muslim immigrants in northern Italy has recently revived this debate in the national press. The issue was raised after the mayor of Alessandria, a small city near Turin, closed down a mosque that operated in an apartment at a residential neighbourhood. The reasons for the mayor’s decision related to the lack of parking space in the area and the resulting disturbance of local residents during prayer on Fridays. The issue was further exploited politically by the local North League branch, which organised a public rally against Muslim immigrants in the region. Local authorities from nearby cities intervened offering the necessary space to host the mosque. The issue was followed closely by the national media for a short period and triggered a larger debate concerning the rights of legal immigrants in Italy and also Italian culture and identity and their compatibility with religious and cultural diversity. Issues of cultural and ethnic ‘purity’ were thus contrasted to notions of ‘freedom’, ‘human rights’ and their protection by the Italian Constitution. This issue is but one example of the tensions arising from the slow integration of the immigrant population in the country. Although the Constitution and law 40/1998 protect immigrant rights, their acceptance in practice is much less straightforward. In some policy areas, efforts have been noticeable. The increasing number of children in Italian schools has prompted to attempts to change the school curriculum to make it more inclusive, although an overall policy for educational integration has not emerged yet. The definition of who or what is ‘Italian’ in school texts has remained unaltered. Nevertheless, a large number of 47
‘intercultural’ initiatives have been launched, aimed at promoting a better understanding of foreigners and their cultures (see table 7, below and Melchionda, 1996). The situation in education policy mirrors the overall approach of the Italian administration to immigration. As of law 48/1998, the long-term character of immigration has been recognised and immigrant integration has been established as a policy goal. However, this integration is limited in character and does not include a fuller political participation, or the integration of foreign cultures and traditions into the national identity. Immigrants’ rights are guaranteed by law but their acceptance in society remains ambivalent. As our interviewees pointed out: ‘they have to realise that they are in Italy and they are foreigners’. In sum, the socioeconomic and political position of immigrants in Italy is weak because they are marginalised and disenfranchised. This weakness and limited membership to the host society is expected to be reflected in the identity processes involved in the public serviceimmigrant clients interaction.
Table 7: Italian schools launching intercultural initiatives in 1998/1999 (%) and the percentage of foreign students in schools, according to level and region Area
Elementary Middle Proportion of Proportion of Proportion of Proportion of foreigners schools with foreigners schools with inter-cultural among students among inter-cultural programs students programs
Superior Proportion of Proportion of foreigners schools with inter-cultural among students programs
North West North East Centre South
59.2 46.5 45.1 24.5
2.5 2.6 2.2 0.3
54.0 39.8 30.7 20.2
2.0 2.2 1.8 0.2
25.8 22.3 14.4 8.1
0.6 0.9 0.6 0.1
Italy
40.9
1.5
32.8
1.2
15.5
0.4
Source: Censis, 1999, and Education Ministry cit.in SOPEMI 2000, table 62.
6.2 The main currents in Italian national identity In Italy just as elsewhere, there are competing discourses and conceptions of the nation. Our aim in this section is to present the main elements involved in the formation of contemporary Italian identity. These provide for the historical background against which our interviewees’ conceptualisations of ‘who is Italian’, ‘what it means to be Italian’ or ‘foreigner’ in Italy and how is the relationship between the two groups is organised, will be analysed. Ever since the creation of the independent Italian state in 1860, the nation has been conceptualised as a community of people living in a territory and sharing a common set of political and cultural traditions. The national community has been primarily defined with reference to a specific territory and a particular political culture (Rusconi 1993). The idea of its historical continuity has been formulated through the integration of the Roman tradition, the Risorgimento and the fascist legacy into a common national past. The blending of these traditions and historical memories has, however, been characterised by internal contradictions 48
that played an important role in impeding the consolidation of a national identity (Brierley and Giacometti 1996: 172-6). The formation of the Italian nation was compromised not only by the cosmopolitan heritage of the Roman empire and the Catholic church but also by the failure of the emerging Italian bourgeoisie to incorporate within it the intellectual and literary elites (Gramsci 1985). These last remained idealist and cosmopolitan in their attitudes preventing, thus, the development of a strong national bourgeois class and the spreading of a secular and scientific ideology, as happened in the rest of western Europe. Moreover, the division between the producing class and the intellectuals perpetuated the existence of two cultures, a high culture of the literary strata and a variety of low, popular cultures and their respective dialects among the peasants. This duality impeded the spreading of a common Italian vernacular, which would allow for the linguistic and cultural homogenisation of the rural population. Gramsci (1979: 16) points to the gap between the literary and the popular strata and the absence of a romantic nationalist movement in Italy in the nineteenth century. Eventually, Italianness remained a legal, idealist concept that failed to penetrate the popular culture and identity. The intellectual movement of the Risorgimento sought to integrate ‘from above’, as part of the nation, the artisan and peasant populations. The high, humanist culture created through the exaltation of the rural ethic in the works of Alessandro Manzoni, the reconstruction of the history of the Italian Republics and the denial of the imperial tradition were made into core element of Italian national identity. In reality, the idealisation of life in the countryside – the myth of the Italian peasant developed by Vincenzo Cuoco and his praise of the system of ‘patriarchal cultivation’ – was a strategy for opposing the advent of industrialism (Bollati 1983: 101; Duggan 1994). Thus, instead of promoting the socio-economic development of the country, the Italian nationalist movement fostered a vision of modernity that was strongly attached to tradition. The myth of a presumed Italian ‘national character’, i.e. a specific constellation of personality features that characterises people belonging to the same nation, was built on the basis of the rural ethic. This myth, which is still evoked nowadays, depicts Italians as inherently ‘kind people’ (brava gente) and emphasises the cult of virtue and beauty and the Catholic tradition of solidarity as the essential elements of the national culture. Religion and language, although often identified as fundamental features of a national community, in the case of Italy have played a contradictory role. The universalistic dogma of the Catholic church, which is by definition in contrast with any nationalist ideology has tended to weaken rather than reinforce the unity of the nation. Concerning language, however, the nation formation was successful since standard Italian is by now the main means of communication throughout the country (Barberi Squarotti, 1993). Although local dialects have never been completely overridden and continue to be used in everyday communication, they certainly do not present a threat to the national linguistic unity. Italy is constituted by a plurality of territorial units with their own separate histories. The division between North and South is not a mere matter of geography that can be attributed to environmental differences or to supposed ethno-biological features, which distinguish northern from southern Italians. The origins of this division lie in the past, in the different economic, social and political experiences that each region has had (Putnam 1993). The importance of regionalism in Italian society and politics is obvious if one considers that more than a century after the unification of the country, regional identities and socio-economic realities continue to challenge the national unity, as the electoral success of Lega Nord has demonstrated. The key to understand this problem lies, first, in the relatively late formation of the Italian nation-state and, second, in the fact that the unification was imposed by a small elite rather than the masses (Bollati 1983; Duggan 1994). The unification process was experienced by a large part of the population, mainly the southern peasants, as a civil war, or as a war for the 49
conquest of the central and southern parts of Italy by the Piedmont region. It was certainly not a fight for national liberation (Duggan ibid.: 133). Moreover, the policies of the new state were not successful in inculcating a feeling of belonging to the nation to the rural populations of either the North or the South. The opposite interests of the northern bourgeoisie and the southern landowners prevented the new state from tackling effectively its main social problems – such as low level of literacy, poor transport and communications and land reform – and creating a national consciousness among the masses (Brierley and Giacometti 1996: 174). A strong nationalist identification was generated only during the fascist era, though again for a short time and eventually with disastrous consequences for the nation. The failure of integrating regional diversity into the nation-state may also be attributed to the fact that territorial identities were until recently neglected by the centralised national administration. The creation of a centralised state left little room for local or regional politics. On the other hand, the state administration and institutions introduced after the unification succumbed to the pre-existing traditions and socio-economic realities, instead of fostering the homogenisation of regional politics (Putnam 1993: 145). Thus, campanilismo and clientelistic politics prevailed instead of a modern bureaucracy that would have supported national integration. Galli della Loggia argues (1998: 66) that both localism and centralism have remained incomplete as socio-political realities. Localism was sacrificed for the sake of national unity. At the same time, centralism, based on a very weak if at all existent socio-political base failed to provide for a strong national core. National integration took place in an abortive manner, through the fascist experience. Although the fascist political and cultural legacy have been rejected by post-war Italy, they continue to influence many sectors of the public life by means of the anti-fascist ideology (Veneziani 1994: 259-60). The re-construction of the national identity after the collapse of Mussolini’s regime was based on the common sorrow and the desire to forget the fascist experience. The foundation myth of the new Italian Republic has been based on the movement of Resistance against the fascists and the German occupation (1943-5). Nonetheless, the symbolic value of the Resistance as a national liberation struggle has been contested by many. In reality, the movement was divided into minority groupings which fought not only for liberation but also, and perhaps mainly, with the scope of imposing their own socio-economic model for the reconstruction of the new Italian state (Rusconi 1993). Thus, the Resistance was from its very beginning intertwined with party politics and failed to provide for the symbol of a civic morality (Sciolla, 1997: 87) that would give new impetus to national unity. Post-war Italy bears with it the signs of its national past. On the one hand, national identity has been consolidated through democratic politics, the granting of autonomy to the regions and the integration through national politics, the media and consumerism of local or regional identities as sub-cultures within a common national culture (Brierley and Giacometti ibid., Sciolla 1997: 68-93). On the other hand, however, it still has not come to terms with regional diversity and autonomy nor has it succeeded in creating a common national myth. Given the diversity of culture, customs and historical experience that characterise the Italian peninsula, a civic culture appears as the only possible foundational myth for a strong national identity. However, as Galli della Loggia argues (1998: 139-66), the incomplete Italian transition to modernity characterised by a weak state, the absence of nationalist elites, the prevalence of particularistic and clientelistic politics, the exceptionally strong Catholic church and weak academic and administrative institutions could not provide for the raw materials for the emergence of a unifying civic culture based on participatory politics and a sense of both responsibility and affinity towards a political community. Thus, inevitably, Italian national identity has remained overall weak.
50
This brief analysis has shown that civic and territorial elements are prevalent in the conception of the Italian nation. Moreover, the plurality of cultural/linguistic traditions and political practices that exist within the Italian state and the internal contradictions of the national identity not only make people aware of diversity but also may be seen as proof that different peoples can live together. However, Italian identity draws also upon the idea of a community of people shaped by its unique historical experiences and closed to outsiders. In recent times, integration into the European Union has fulfilled a double function with regard to Italian national identity. On the one hand, it has been perceived as the model of civic community that is absent from the national politics. Thus, a European identity somewhat paradoxically has reinforced national identity. Identifying with European civilisation creates the common civic basis that may unite Italians and consolidate the nation formation. On the other hand, the economic welfare and political power (perceived to be) involved in the European integration project provide a means for achieving a positive identity within the international community. Italy’s all too common political crises during the post-war period, the until the 1970s relative poverty (by western European standards) of the country and the more recent monetary and public finance crises provide for a weak basis for achieving a positive national identity in the increasingly competitive international scene. Integration into the European Union is seen as a powerful remedy to such past illnesses. Unfortunately, the openness of Italian national identity towards European elements does not necessarily imply that non-EU immigrants and their diverse cultures are welcome.
6.3 Findings from the interviews Our analysis of identity processes involved in the daily practices of the FO agents is organised at three levels: national, professional and personal identity. Professional identity was obviously the most relevant identity dimension, since the study concentrates on the agents’ work routines and daily accomplishment of tasks. National identity was also expected to be relevant and salient since social and political membership to a national community are issues intrinsic to the question of immigration. The personal identity dimension was included to account for those features and views that may pertain to a specific individual and may not be related to her/his social identity.
6.3.1
National identity and definitions of the ‘foreigner’
The FO agents interviewed touched upon national identity issues in relation to three main themes. First, their definition of Italy as a ‘new immigration country’, second, their definition and perception of ‘foreigners’ or ‘immigrants’ and, third, concerning the relationship between immigrants and the Italian society. The fact that Italy has experienced immigration as a host only in recent times was mentioned only by a higher rank FO agent, in relation to his account of the difficulties encountered in implementing immigration policy in Italy: ‘(..) we are a young country with regard to this phenomenon [of immigration] and, thus, naturally, we have committed all those mistakes of inexperience, of lack of knowledge of the phenomenon, which other countries in Europe or in the world have also committed when they were faced with the phenomenon of immigration for the first time. (..) There will naturally be a greater opening of the state towards those 51
foreigners who want to come to Italy to work and contribute. The phenomenon of immigration brings many advantages to Italy (..) there is an enormous contribution to the national economy. It is an enormous resource.’ (FO1, my emphasis) The whole phenomenon was framed in terms of a ‘natural’ and hence inescapable path towards larger flows. Also ‘natural’ were considered the problems and deficiencies that a ‘young immigration country’ faces, although the informant had previously acknowledged that immigration ‘is no longer a completely new phenomenon in Italy’ (FO1). Low rank agents were very careful to avoid expressing any personal opinions concerning the issue of immigration in general. According to one agent though, ‘foreigners in Italy are more than privileged in the last years’ (FO5) because, as the informant asserted, more resources were readily given to the FO to deal with immigrants. On the whole, however, the immigrants’ position was seen as particularly difficult for the mere fact that they were foreigners in a country that was not ‘their country.’ Thus, although there were very few explicit references to Italian national identity or to the nationality of the FO’s clientele, awareness that they are not Italians, they do not belong to this community, was constantly implicit: ‘The foreigner has problems, without doubt, certainly he has problems in whatever territory he finds himself’ (FO4) ‘[my work is that of] a first aid, a first aid towards these people, towards these foreigners who certainly are in need’ (FO6) FO agents and the employees of the local and provincial employment offices noted that most of their clients did not speak Italian. This was seen as an aggravating factor that added difficulty to their working conditions, which were already tense because of the large number of clients. The relationship between the FO and its clientele was characterised by ‘their foreignness.’ Thus when problems emerged due to the clients’ different culture, the argument was ‘[it is our task] to make these people, with sensitiveness obviously, to make them understand that we are in Italy, so if they have to be identified they have to show their face’ (FO6) ‘There are people who realise that they are not in their country and that even though this is their tradition, their religion, I agree, but it cannot be followed to the level of contrasting [the Italian law]. There are others of course that raise this problem.’ (FO5) Thus, ‘teaching the client role’ (Lipsky, 1980: 61) in this case involved prescribing ‘proper’ behaviour for foreigners who are in Italy. In this way, clients and their specific situations were de-individualised and labelled under the general category ‘foreigners in Italy’. Categorisation in terms of nationality and links between specific nationalities and patterns of behaviour was ‘common sense knowledge’ shared among FO agents and other public administration employees. Thus, Chinese or Filipinos were categorised as extremely polite while Albanians were seen as troublemakers and violent (FO3, FO4). Nonetheless, the informants strictly and repeatedly denied that any form of discrimination on the basis of the immigrants’ nationality took place. They perceived different behaviours as dependent upon
52
individual personalities both on the part of the clients as on the part of the FO agents themselves: ‘We are all human beings, we have our character, every now and then it may happen that we get upset with the foreigner but fortunately everything is eventually resolved’ (FO4) However, even in these personalised accounts, the fact that their client was a ‘foreigner’ a ‘non-Italian’ remained salient. Contrary to the FO statements, trade union representatives reported that discrimination was generalised in the FO. Immigrant clients were reportedly looked down on because of their poor Italian or different cultural background: ‘The situation is quite difficult, there is also a cultural question involved. There are bureaucratic difficulties: there are countries in which there is no first and last name. There is therefore a rejection on the part of the people in the administration. Egypt or Morocco do not have the last name system. Here they adopt a system in which the father’s first name and that of the grandfather become the last name. (..) [immigrants] are generalised as if they were people who are not at the level of normal people (..) as if they were criminals, ignorant or idiots: if one does not speak Italian, it does not mean that this person is an idiot. Therefore, it is a cultural question.’ (TU2) NGO activists and Albanian immigrants themselves reported that there was prejudice against immigrants in general but also particularly against Albanians in Florence (NGO3, NGO5). By contrast an NGO activist in the periphery of Florence reported that Albanians arrived with their families and soon created local networks and got integrated (TU4). Thus, on the whole, evidence regarding prejudice against specific nationalities was inconclusive. The main national dimensions organising the discourse and behaviour of the FO agents towards immigrants was the very fact that they were foreigners. Although cultural diversity was said to be accepted and awareness of differences between cultures or peoples was high, it was sustained that foreigners had to abide by the laws and customs of Italy. Italian culture had priority over foreign mores. Little attention was paid to national identity as such or to the country’s character as a new host or as a national state. This finding does not help assess whether Italian national identity is too secure to be discussed or too weak to matter (see also Diamante, 1999). National ‘purity’ did not appear to be an issue for the informants to the extent that it was made clear that immigrants had to integrate into the dominant cultural framework. These findings were in line with the structural position of immigrants in Italy as subjects that are protected by the law but are not part of the ingroup. Even though their rights are legally defined and to a certain extent also respected in practice, they remain powerless.
6.3.2
Personal qualities
The personality features required to do the job were often discussed by the interviewees both within and outside the FO. Some FO agents constructed their own, particular personalprofessional identity which involved a number of personal qualities such as ‘patience’, ‘willingness to help and to accommodate people’s needs’, ‘to love one’s job’ and ‘sensitiveness towards other people’ (FO4, FO6). FO agents were thus represented as humane 53
and compassionate people who might have their weaknesses or their ‘bad moments’ but who loved their work. Their behaviour during the daily routine, their occasional ‘explosions’ towards clients or, in contrast, their patience were seen as features of all of ‘us, as human beings’. They were not perceived as characteristics to be acquired through job training and/or pre-requisites for the specific job. Special emphasis was put to the fact that ‘[one] has to like the job, because otherwise one cannot do it’ (FO4) ‘The contact with the public, I repeat, is something that one has to like, because otherwise, one cannot be there, one has to like it, one has to do it willingly because otherwise it is not possible [to do this job]’ (FO6) The importance of specific personality features was pointed out by a trade union activist who, however, argued that FO agents and other administration employees needed to be trained to acquire these features: ‘In the institutions, there should be people who respect other people. There are often people who are rigid: work is necessary to make these people more flexible so that they recognise the other human being as a human being.’ (TU2) There is a discrepancy here between how the trade union representative perceived administration employees including those at the FO and on how the FO agents constructed their identity not simply as policemen and policewomen but also, and perhaps mainly, as human beings with special features that made them unique and also suitable for this job. This is an implicit social comparison strategy. FO agents reject the unfavourable for them comparison with other more prestigious or powerful services within the police force and construct a positive professional identity through their description of a specific psychological profile that one must have in order to work in the FO. Thus, by introducing alternative dimensions on which to be evaluated, they achieve a positive personal-professional identity. Moreover, the definition of their professional profile in terms of personality features contributed to an exclusive sense of community building: those who did not possess these characteristics could not make part of the FO team.
6.3.3
Professional identity
It was suggested by many of our interviewees among lawyers and trade unionists that being assigned to the FO was considered an undesirable transfer. The post was deemed to be of low prestige among the police force ‘The FO is not like the mobile patrol team’ (FO2), and involved a high volume of work. The allegation of NGOs and trade union representatives that many FO agents might resent or feel frustrated about their job there, was indirectly confirmed by one of our FO informants who spontaneously stated ‘This [to get stressed about work] is a personal problem but I do not have it (..) I was agreed to come here’ (FO5), as if other colleagues of his were not. Nonetheless, or perhaps because of the implicitly negative FO representation, the FO agents that we interviewed constructed a positive professional identity through their discourse and observed behaviour. Key features in this identity discourse were
54
work ethics, professional26 ethics, the military origins of the police, distancing from clients, and a set of personality features, which were discussed in the previous section. Informants often referred to their identity as ‘police agents’, both individually and with reference to the ‘team’ that themselves and their colleagues formed. The use of ‘we’ or ‘our office’ was frequent, the FO was represented as a team and as a specific office, distinct from the other offices within the Questura as well as other services dealing with immigration such as the Prefecture or the judicial authorities. This community building discourse had also an ethical dimension. Those who belonged to the ingroup stood by a set of ethical principles: solidarity with one another, pride in their work, honesty and trust. These qualities characterised the professional ethics of the FO. ‘If I realised that an agent of mine [from my team] adopted this [discriminatory] behaviour (..) it would be my task, my absolute duty to sanction this behaviour, to correct it immediately’ (FO1, my emphasis) ‘(..) for what concerns us (..) concerning somebody belonging to our office, I have never encountered [this behaviour]’ (FO1, my emphasis) ‘(..) we have permits that have been blocked, not of our own will, but because of the judicial authorities’ (FO4) ‘I, as a person and as a police agent’ (FO4) ‘I am one of the first policewomen here in Florence, 14 years have gone by, I have been here for a long time, eight years in the Foreigners’ Office’ (FO6) ‘We are always there, let’s say we have always come close to one another. On the part of colleagues there have always been maximum collaboration, I would say. It’s normal. As I was telling you before, this really is teamwork, you know? Work that needs to be done, you need to be there, to stand united, you know?’ (FO6) Although the fact that the FO makes part of the police forces was rarely stressed explicitly, it was emphasised in many indirect ways, not least by the fact that all FO employees wore police uniforms during office hours. Also informants distinguished between police agents and the interpreter who worked with them as a civil employee. Although daily collegial rituals of behaviour (coffee breaks, informal language, references to ‘we’ including her) included the interpreter, her different career path was pointed out when we asked about foreign language assistance in the office (FO2, FO3, FO4). The military heritage in the police forces was mentioned when discussing the hierarchy within the office: ‘Yes, that [the hierarchy] unfortunately corresponds to the military pattern (..) Even if we are not militaries any more, we come from there’ (FO5)
26
We distinguish here between work ethics and professional ethics. The latter refer to a sense of ethics of the FO or of the police as a distinct profession while the former refers to the principles that should guide the accomplishment of the daily work. The distinction is subtle albeit useful, in our opinion, because it the professional ethics characterises the service generally while the work ethics refers particularly to providing service to immigrant clients. 55
The professional identity of the FO agents was emphasised also through their distancing from their colleagues at the Prefecture. The Prefecture like the Questura makes part of the Ministry of Interior, nonetheless their role is different and the respective employees perceive themselves as two separate professions. ‘[deciding on] the expulsion [of an immigrant] is a competence of the Prefect, in the sense that is the Prefect that signs the expulsion order, which however is prepared by our offices. (..) I do not know if we can talk about hierarchy but about a functional supremacy [that the Prefecture has over the Questura in this case]. The Prefect and the Questore are two organs defined by Law 121 of 1981 (..) The Prefect represents the government in the province and is also the provincial authority for public security with duties of a political nature, while the Questore who is a provincial authority for public security too, has tasks of a technical-operational nature (..) If the Prefecture rejects our suggestion for expulsion, it will be because they have an objective reason for it. They have considered the law, and there may have been a mistake on our part concerning the theoretical argument, which is noted and hence we cancel the act.’ (FO1) The Prefecture employee that we interviewed described the work relationship between their offices and the FO in similar terms. She emphasised though their different career paths and professional identities: ‘we both depend from the Ministry of Interior, me like my colleagues who are police inspectors or functionaries and work at the FO, but we come from two different careers, we have been trained in different ways. Thus, the possibility of contrast and friction between these two types of careers is to be taken into account (..) I am an employee of the public security department of the Ministry of Interior and thus I have also tasks that concern public security and the public order. Nonetheless, I have to ask the data [from the Italian public security database CED] from the Questura’ (PREF1) The police professional identity of the FO agents was perceived more strongly by their colleague at the Prefecture than by themselves. Naturally every social identity is constituted in interaction and thus both the self identification with a group and the external categorisation by others of a person as a member of that group are equally important aspects of identity formation. The FO agents distinguished themselves sharply from lawyers. These last were deemed to exploit the immigrants while the FO agents were there to provide service and help immigrants. Lawyers were resented also because they were perceived as potential source of trouble because if dissatisfied, they would raise their case with the FO managers and/or the media. Such public exposure was perceived to fall always back on the FO agents’ shoulders, often unjustly (FO1, FO2, FO4). Interestingly, interaction between FO agents and lawyers involved two competing identity patterns. The lawyers often tried to build a fellow feeling of ‘we, Italians’ as opposed to ‘them, immigrants’. They expressed their solidarity and understanding towards the FO agents and their difficult job. But FO agents reacted with expressions such as ‘I understand the necessity of each person (..)’, ‘we understand’, ‘we try to resolve (..) to accommodate but it is not possible (..)’ emphasising thus their professional identity as well as their work ethics.
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A specific ethics that referred to the ‘way things are done’ in the FO emerged from the interviews: it included a hard working attitude, humane treatment of clients, nondiscrimination, commitment to one’s job and flexibility. ‘(..) we for the sheer volume of our work, we do not succeed to satisfy everybody because, unfortunately, we are 20 and we work for 20, we are 100 and we work for 100. But the fact remains that the relationship between police agent and foreigner is always uneven, because they are always more than what we can handle’ (FO 4) ‘We face this [the excessive volume of work] with good will’ (FO5) ‘We put ourselves for a moment in their position and try to help them understand.’ (FO4) Our own observation and the testimonies of trade unions and NGO representatives who work with the FO showed that this professional and work ethics was only partly put into action in the daily implementation routines. As already noted in section five, the flexibility, humane treatment and non-discriminatory attitude were only part of the story. According to our observations and to the testimonies of trade unions, NGOs and lawyers, flexibility and humane treatment were largely dependent on the individual agent’s mood and/or their personal relations with the specific client. The volume of the work was indeed quite high and as our FO informants stated, the diversity of cases and the constant flow of clients to the counters put significant pressure on them. Emotional reactions to clients when agents felt they ‘could not take it any more,’ although perceived as contrary to their professional ethics as police agents, were acceptable as part of their specific work ethics. This involved understanding, humane treatment, going out of one’s way to satisfy a client but also occasionally taking it out on this last: ‘It is part of the temperament of a person, because it may happen that I repeat to the foreigner for ten times the same thing, and I repeat it to him calmly. And perhaps the eleventh time, I explode, because, unfortunately one is a human being and it may happen that there is some misunderstanding. Clearly, from the moment that we are in our uniforms, this should not happen because we are at the service of the public, we refer to the users and we should in any case remain calm. Unfortunately, this does not always happen, I repeat we are human beings’ (FO4) In reality, the work ethics of the FO agents involved an implicit albeit strong component of national identity. More often than not the clients were identified as ‘foreigners’ and the discourse was structured in terms of ‘us/FO agents’ and ‘them/foreigners.’ This, in our view, emphasised the weak position of the immigrant client as a non-member of this national community and, at the same time, strengthened the community building among FO colleagues. In conclusion, the professional identity of the FO agents was constructed both through identification with the ingroup-the FO team and through differentiation from Others. The internal community building discourse, which included straightforward statements about collegial solidarity and a fellow feeling developed in the office, was confirmed by our participant observation. Relations between colleagues involved a high degree of intimacy and complicity, especially when Others like immigrant clients or researchers were present. But
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also when we observed the interaction between FO agents from a distance, sitting together with clients in the waiting area, their behaviour expressed an informal collegial spirit. The ingroup identity was emphasised through multiple ingroup-Other contrasts. As regards their professional ethic, the Other were other Italians, either colleagues from other offices of the Ministry of Labour or other professionals like lawyers. As regards their more specific work ethics, the Other were the immigrant clients. Their being ‘foreigners’ in this country was made explicit at any suitable occasion and was maintained salient both in their interview talk and in their daily work routines. As noticed also in section 4, the linguistic forms used towards immigrants pointed to their ‘weakness’ as non-members of this community even if they were legally present in the country and their rights were protected by law like those of Italians.
6.4 Conclusions regarding identity processes Our study of the identity processes organising interaction between FO agents and immigrants and thus influencing the micro-processes of policy implementation has revealed interesting patterns. Although national identity as such was not brought up as a dimension organising the relationship between street-level bureaucrats and clients, it was maintained salient in various implicit ways. In conformity with the immigrants’ structural position in Italian society as holders of limited rights and non-members of the political community, the FO agents emphasised the ‘foreign-ness’ of their clientele. Regional or local identities were not referred to either in the discourse or in the behaviour of the FO agents, despite Italians’ tendency to identify with their region or locality of residence. In fact, regional or local identity is not salient in an international context where clients come from different countries and even continents. Professional identity, as hypothesised, was important for our informants and played a significant part in their interaction with immigrants. Professional identity was built in different ways and by reference to various outgroups. The FO’s distinctiveness was emphasised through contrast to other public security forces, police offices and lawyers. It was intertwined with a specific work ethics of hard work, humanity and public service which, however, proved to be more a question of paying lip service to these norms rather than actually putting them into practice. The work ethics of the FO were based on humanity but in a different way than that advocated in interview talk: FO agents perceived themselves and immigrants as human being engaging in individual interaction. Although they were aware of their institutional role, this appeared to be of secondary importance in determining their behaviour at work as well as their appreciation of the clients’ quests or needs. They regarded as normal that both themselves and immigrants might be upset and behave in improper ways as a result of pressure put upon them by their respective roles and situations: the former because of their high workloads and the latter because of the hardship they had endured. Similarly, their decisions were partly guided by their individual, humane judgement of their clients’ situation and claims. Putting procedural rules aside, they justified their decisions to give priority to some cases over others or to help solve specific clients’ problems in terms of ‘human need’, ‘compassion’ and ‘understanding’ of which they were the individual and absolute judges. Our other sources of data have shown that prioritisation and improvisation in the daily work routines was also, and perhaps primarily, related to personal acquaintance with clients or outright favouritism. Discretion thus was exercised informally, also where it was not required because of the vagueness or deficiencies of the policy provisions. This discretion appears to serve the personal needs and interests of the FO agents. 58
It increased their autonomy in their daily routines, offered them satisfaction when they felt they made a difference to their (selected) clients’ lives, obeyed to personal sympathies or antipathies that are in open contrast with any sense of impersonal, modern bureaucracies. Although some of these features of street-level bureaucracy behaviour have been identified by Lipsky (ibid.), such a personalised and unaccountable pattern of implementors’ behaviour may, in our view, be explained only in relation to the clientelistic culture that has for long pervaded Italian administration and the perception of clients as partly illegitimate because foreigners. The FO agents’ understanding of their clients’ reactions was also based on the clients’ ‘human nature’ and their emotions. Hence, the immigrants’ difficulty to understand what they were told, was interpreted as unwillingness to understand or refusal to accept something that was unfavourable to them. Their reactions, both positive and negative, were interpreted as a question of temperament. This temperament, as a psychological predisposition was not directly related to the immigrants’ nationality. Nonetheless, clients and their patterns of behaviour were categorised in relation to their countries of origin. Eventually, this categorisation was subsumed under the two more salient categories that structured interaction in the FO office: ‘we are all human beings’ and ‘they are foreigners’. These two contrasted identity levels organising the informal codes of practice in the FO had a negative impact on the efficiency of the FO and on the quality of service received by the immigrant clients. Their categorisation as ‘foreigners’ implicitly de-legitimised their position because as non-citizens they were seen to be at an unfavourable position. FO agents perceived this ‘weakness’ to be ‘natural’ and ‘intrinsic’ to the status of an immigrant. This view provided for an implicit justification of the difficulties that immigrants faced in dealing with the FO or other public services. On the other hand, the common categorisation of both FO agents and clients as ‘human beings’ justified the lack of standardisation in the service provided, the ‘mistakes’ that occurred, the misunderstandings. The fact that the FO agents held the power over their fellow human beings, the immigrants, was thus overlooked and neutralised. In conclusion, these findings show, first, that national identity is an important factor that influences the process of implementation of immigration policy provisions albeit in ways that do not immediately reflect the specific features of the host nation’s identity. The important factor is the fact that immigrants are not members of the national community. The precise content of the national culture and the ways in which immigrant cultures differ from it appears to be less salient. Second, professional identity and the normative dimensions attached to it play an important part in the implementation process and reflect the particular national administrative traditions. Thus, the contradiction between the old administrative culture of red tape and inefficiency that has been documented in scholarly research on Italy and the new culture of efficiency and flexibility introduced by recent governments is apparent in the issue and renewal of stay permits for work purposes. The lip service paid to efficiency, hard work and non-discrimination is matched with a set of informal, personalised patterns of behaviour. Efficiency is thus replaced by a fiction of efficient processing in which many clients come and go from the FO offices without however having their quests properly attended. At the same time, those with the necessary social capital, manage to obtain their service in a truly efficient manner. 7. Concluding remarks All the above raise very important issues about the process of policy implementation with regard to the issuing of stay and work permits by the Italian Foreigners’ Office. We have 59
argued that culture is relevant to the functioning of organisational processes as it validates norms and values and guides the definition and achievement of goals and outcomes. Although this case study refers to a single office in a specific Italian city, it makes several empirical and ultimately analytical contributions. It sheds light on the complexity of the organisational culture in the Foreigners’ Office of the Florence police headquarters and indicates some of the parameters for establishing the link between how the law is implemented and the ways in which organisational culture and identity processes shape this implementation at the micro-level. Several instances of discretion were identified in the daily activities of the FO. Formal discretionary practices involved more flexible interpretation of the law which aimed (a) to find solutions and achieve certainty in daily routines, (b) to process efficiently the work and facilitate co-ordination with other public agencies, (c) to avoid unnecessary hardship for the immigrant and/or help her/him. Formal discretion did not involve prioritisation of tasks within the specific office, or request of further resources. Re-organisation of the internal resources and of the office’s work, both formally and informally, took place to deal with unexpected workloads and keep the speed of client processing high. Formal discretionary practices responded to the flexibility and efficiency requirements placed on the FO. Informal discretion, on the other hand, took the form of prioritisation of cases, favouritism and discrimination. The scope of informal discretionary practices was more often than not to serve some clients better than others and appeared to hide a network of power relations and possibly corrupt practices within the office. However, informal discretionary practices were also adopted as coping strategies: they helped the FO agents manage and rationalise their daily workloads. Last but not least, informal discretion took at times the form of ‘organised philanthropy’: individual agents put special initiative and agency into their work to serve specific clients whom they perceived as being in special need. Informal discretion, often but not always applied ‘against’ rather than ‘in favour’ of the immigrant clients, subscribed to the more traditional current in the FO’s organisational culture which privileged a clientelistic pattern of relations between public servants and clients. Two analytical and normative questions are pertinent to the findings of this research. The first question concerns the type of discretion exercised at the micro-level of implementation. We have established at the beginning of this study that discretion is inherent in implementation processes. Therefore, we have investigated the type of discretion exerted by the FO agents, its extent and purpose. John Burke (1990) proposes a typology for classifying ‘good’ and ‘bad’ discretionary practices, which refers to the political standing and legitimacy of discretion exercises. According to the principles of responsibility and accountability that ought to govern liberal democratic regimes, only discretionary practices that respond to certain criteria are considered legitimate. Thus, discretion under conditions where a formal legal view of accountability is strongest is more likely to be ‘good’ because checked and confined within specific limits. This type of discretion is most likely to provide remedy for ineffective policies or defective policy design. In contrast, when a strong level of accountability is guided by professional norms, i.e. factors that are internal to the bureaucracy, discretion is likely to be illegitimate. The internal nature of accountability involves the risk that discretion serves the interests of the professional community rather than the wider community of users. In conditions of weak accountability, where however external sources determine the responsibilities and answerability of street-level bureaucrats, discretion is likely to be positive if incremental and pragmatic in character, according to Burke. He argues (1990: 143) that in conditions of decentralisation and fragmentation of the policy environment, where external accountability exists but is weak, discretion may provide scope for initiative and 60
improvement, contributing significantly to achieving policy goals. Burke here neglects to discuss cases in which the weak external control may lead to excessive autonomy and further disorient implementation away from the policy goals. Last but not least, it is under conditions of weak internal accountability that discretion is most likely to be ‘bad’ for the community of users. Under such conditions, the implementation process is guided by the personal beliefs of the high- or low-rank bureaucrats who are hardly accountable to anyone except their personal morality and/or sense of purpose. In this case, discretion may involve a substantial redefinition of the ends and purposes of the policy in question, in line with the specific implementor’s interests or predilections (Burker ibid.: 143). Discretionary practices in the Florence FO were exercised under conditions of weak external and internal accountability. To a large extent, FO agents appeared to feel accountable to their own, shared among the team, ethics dominated by the ‘needy immigrant’ myth and their personal-professional identity definitions. Their discretion was also exercised under conditions of weak external accountability to the extent that the FO management, under pressure from trade unions, NGOs and the media, required formal but not necessarily substantial efficiency. Thus, a process of excessive routinisation was adopted as a coping strategy. Social and political actors outside the government did not appear to have the necessary power to create conditions of strong external accountability for the FO and hence achieve a substantial improvement in the services provided. The second question that relates to our findings concerns the policy politics involved in implementation (Brodkin, 1990). Both macro- and micro-levels of policy implementation must be seen in the wider context of policy design, legislation, implementation and evaluation and within the wider socio-economic, political and cultural environment in which they take place. As a matter of fact, vagueness or contradictions in the immigration policy in Italy transfer the tensions and compromises of the legislation arena to the level of street-level bureaucracies. The hidden dilemmas of politics thus re-emerge and are solved in the microlevel of implementation. This transfer however has important implications not only for the success of the specific policy measure as such, in this case the management of immigrant workers in the Italian labour market. It has consequences also for the functioning of a democratic polity: the extent to which it guarantees equal rights and equal access to services for all; the immigrants’ position in the host society as holders of rights or disenfranchised policy ‘objects’ (rather than subjects); and the power relations between different groups both within the bureaucracy and in society as a whole. Discretionary practices in implementation that stem from the policy politics transfer tend to privilege certain groups over others and violate the rights of citizens and denizens alike.
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APPENDIX I: LIST OF INTERVIEWS This list includes the interviews cited in the report. Please note that further details on our interviewees cannot be disclosed for confidentiality reasons. Information on the exact dates of the interviews, the address of the specific office/organisation studied or additional information on the sub-division in which an employee or NGO/trade union representative worked has also been omitted so as to ensure that our interviewees’ identity remains unknown.
Public Administration Provincial Labour Office (Ufficio Provinciale del Lavoro), Ministry of Labour Labour Inspection Office (Servizio Ispezione del Lavoro) Employee LAB1 Employee LAB2 Informal talk with immigrants waiting outside the office Participant Observation at the Labour Inspection Office Labour Policy Office (Ufficio Politiche del Lavoro), Employee LAB3 Employment Office (Ufficio di Collocamento) Employee LAB4 Employee at counter LAB5 Employee at counter LAB6
Ministry of Interior Prefettura of Florence Employee PREF1 Foreigners’ Office of Questura of Florence Police officer FO1 Police officer at counter FO2 Employee FO3 Police officer at counter FO4 Police officer at counter FO5 Police officer FO6 Participant observation at the Foreign Office
Trade Unions and NGOs Trade Union Immigration Office, TU1 Trade Union and Immigrant Community Representative, TU2 ARCI, TU3 65
ARCI, TU4 ARCI, NGO1 ARCI Shelter (Casa Accoglienza) NGO2 ARCI, informal talk non recorded, NGO3 ARCI-interviews with two conscientious objectors serving at the shelter NGO4 ARCI-interviews with immigrants hosted at the shelter, NGO5 Second shelter (Centro di accoglienza), ARCI, NGO6 Egyptian Association-Mosque, NGO7 Nosotras (Latin American women association), NGO8 The offices of an earlier Albanian immigrant association were found to be closed and we were told by other interviewees that it had never really existed. Similarly it was impossible to locate a Moroccan immigrant association other than the mosque.
Professionals Lawyer 1, LAW1 Lawyer 2, LAW2 Lawyer 3, LAW3
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INTERVIEW GUIDE Questions to serve for guidance during interviews: 1. Which is the particular function and aims of this administrative office? 2. Which is the hierarchical structure and the individual tasks of the people working in this bureau? 3. Describe the type of work along with the formal and informal activities that you undertake within the field of your professional competence? 4. In what ways various office tasks are being divided among employees working in the same general project? 5. Are your duties in this office defined in a clear, detailed way, or it could be, at cases, that there is a certain degree of overlapping of tasks among colleagues and perhaps between different administrative offices? 6. Describe the itinerary which an immigrant follows among the various, different administrative offices in respect to the issue ‘work permits’. For instance, from which administrative office immigrants are sent to you and where do you sent them? 7. Which groups of immigrants most commonly present themselves to this office and as a consequence with which groups of immigrants do you mostly deal? 8. Which legal documents do you use to help you do your job in this particular office? (could we have copies of these documents that you handle in the office?) 9. Describe a day’s work, perhaps on a typical case. With what are you usually occupied with in your duties? 10. Are there cases which you consider more difficult than others. For example, would you say that there are certain issues / office policies to refer to specific groups of immigrants or the procedure followed consists always of coordinated measures followed by also other competent administrative offices beyond the Florentine region? 11. According to your experience and according to the informal information that one is inevitably exposed to when working in an administrative public office is there any discriminative practice towards certain immigrants (perhaps due to the diversity of cases that you have to deal with)? 12. Would you say that in this office has it own regional policy? Which is that? 13. What about the administrative practices to facilitate the application and the implementation of the law in the regional offices? According to your experience are there any cases where you had to do something more or less from what the law writes (always within the field of your professional competence)? 14. According to you what is it that renders the application of the law about immigration difficult or problematic? 15. To which level to you feel involved to the problems at work? 16. Is your job stressful? 17. Do you have a lot of cases to deal with? Is there a mountain of work in the everyday agenda? Which cases get priority? 18. How would you see things work in a more efficient way in this office? 19. How would you see immigration policy in Italy improved?
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