How do local actors promote civic participation of immigrants?

In this I chapter introduce the concept of “approaches to integration” to examine how local actors respond to challenges of immigrants’ integration based on their political orientation and interaction and explain how these approaches affect the ways actors promote civic participation of immigrants in local contexts. Comparing practices of actors in three Italian cities of the North (Bergamo, Reggio Emilia, and Bologna), and using qualitative methods collected during ethnographic research I conducted in Italy in 2013 and 2014, I identify three “approaches to integration”: assistance, intercultural, and political rights promotion, and analyse how each affects the ways actors promote immigrants’ civic participation in the three selected cities. Overall, the study contributes to understanding the role of multiple actors in shaping civic engagement of immigrants showing that political ideology as well as interaction between top-down and bottom-up dynamics account for important variations in the incentives for civic participation offered to immigrants in cities.