ABSTRACT

Amsterdam's migrant policies provide a textbook example of changing host society attitudes toward Otherness, and how these changes are expressed in the policies of one city over time. This chapter elaborates the various aspects of Dutch host-stranger relations, together with the broader context of postwar immigration to the Netherlands and national policy responses. Pillarization also played an important role in how newcomers were later perceived and incorporated into Dutch host society. In particular, it facilitated the institutionalized Pluralism that characterizes the Dutch response to ethnic diversity, e.g. publicly supported denominational schools. The chapter describes the local context of immigrant settlement in the city. It discusses the evolution of Amsterdam's response to postwar immigration, from Non-policy in the late 1950s to the current Diversity Policy. The chapter provides a discussion on Amsterdam's 'Minorities Policy' of the 1980s, which illustrates the Pluralist-type of local policy response. It then summarizes and analyzes this 60-year policy trajectory, in light of the typology.