ABSTRACT
As the integration debate heated up, political and policy attention focused on immigrants and Muslims who were actually or potentially criminal, radical, insulated or apathetic. All of these behaviors and attitudes were framed as expressions of a lack of civil integration. Culturalists and pragmatists agreed on this point but disagreed on how to solve the problem. Culturalists developed a discourse demarcating the civil community along the lines of ethnic culture and emphasized the need for strict enforcement. Pragmatists, too, felt that Muslims needed to integrate but considered this a collective challenge, not an exclusive obligation for Muslims. Amsterdam was the most important discursive milieu for the development of Pragmatism. In the 2002 elections, Labor was pushed out of office at the national level and in Rotterdam but remained in power in Amsterdam, which thus functioned as a showcase for Pragmatism.
