Ruud Koopmans (born 2 February 1961, in Uithoorn) is a Dutch sociologist and professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin. His research focuses on migration, social integration and transnationalization. [1]
Ruud Koopmans (born 2 February 1961, in Uithoorn) is a Dutch sociologist and professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin. His research focuses on migration, social integration and transnationalization. [1]
A native of Uithoorn, Ruud Koopmans studied political science at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), where he obtained a MA in 1987. In 1992, he received a PhD from UvA for his dissertation on the post-war social movements and political system in West Germany, which he wrote under the supervision of Hanspeter Kriesi. After a short stint as researcher at the Social and Cultural Planning Office in The Hague, Koopmans joined the WZB Berlin Social Science Center in 1994, where he continues to work today (2019) as research director of the department on migration, integration and transnationalization. In addition to his position at the WZB, Koopmans worked from 2003 to 2010 as professor of sociology at the Free University of Amsterdam and has been since 2010 a guest professor on political science at UvA. Moreover, Koopmans became professor of sociology and migration research at the Humboldt University of Berlin in 2013. In terms of professional duties, Koopmans performs or has performed editorial duties for the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies , International Journal of Comparative Migration Studies , Mobilization and the American Journal of Sociology , among others. He is notably a member of the board of trustees of the German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM) and of the academic advisory board of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). [2]
Ruud Koopmans' research fields include immigration and the integration of migrants, ethnic inequality and ethno-cultural conflicts, religious fundamentalism, the politics of globalization, social movements and evolutionary sociology. [3] Many of Koopmans' research articles, especially on immigration, have been co-authored with Paul Statham.
Ruud Koopmans' earliest field of research has been the analysis of social movements in Western Europe. Together with Hanspeter Kriesi, Jan Willem Duyvendak and Marco Giugni, Koopmans has extensively studied the relationship between the structure of political opportunities and the mobilisation patterns of social movements in Western Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. [4] [5] In particular, Koopmans highlights in his analysis of West German protest movements from 1965 to 1989 how facilitation, repression and likelihood of success frame activists' choices among strategies of innovation, increased participation or increased militancy. [6] [7] Relatedly, in research co-authored with Duyvendak, he shows that anti-nuclear movements' success in opposing nuclear energy has been determined mainly by the movements' ability to seize political opportunities by changing public opinion and mobilizing followers, no matter the shape of the evidence upon which the anti-nuclear movement's claims were based. [8] In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Koopmans continued to contribute further to the study of protest, [9] [10] making e.g. the case for political claims analysis and protest event analysis as methodological advances, [11] [12] and advocating in favour of political opportunity structure as analytical framework. [13]
Koopmans' research on new social movements brought him to study Western Europe's far right movements, which were on the rise in the 1990s. For instance, investigating the causes of racist and extreme right violence in the early 1990s, Koopmans argues that such violence is rather a result of political elites attempting to exploit opportunities for political mobilization than of the extreme right's grievances with foreigners and asylum seekers, leading to a paradoxical situation where racist violence is lower in countries with strong far-right parties (e.g. France or Denmark). [14] Moreover, in a study of the dynamics between repression and mobilization of the German extreme right in the 1990s, Koopmans finds that situational police repression generally tended to escalate mobilization by the far-right, whereas more indirect, institutional repression such as bans of organizations and demonstrations or trials and court rulings against far-right activists had a clearly negative impact on the extreme right's level of mobilization. [15] In research with Statham, Koopmans compared the success of the extreme right in Germany during the 1990s, where it was confined to the role of influential outsider, and Italy, where it has become strongly integrated in the country's political institutions, and traced these outcomes to differences between both countries discursive and institutional opportunity structures. [16] Using the evolution of the German far right in the 1990s as example, Koopmans has also showcased how "discursive opportunities", i.e., opportunities to mobilize public attention, shape the actions of social movements, whose activities evolve in reaction to their visibility, resonance and legitimacy in the public sphere. [17] More specifically, together with Susan Olzak, Koopmans has explored how differences in public visibility, resonance and legitimacy of right-wing violence in Germany affected the spatial and temporal distribution of violence against different target groups, linking the violence with "discursive opportunities". [18] Finally, turning to the Dutch far-right, Koopmans – along with Jasper Muis – has analysed the rise of Pim Fortuyn and the LPF in 2002, finding that discursive opportunities significantly contributed to Fortuyn's success with regard to gaining voters' support and his ability to mediatize his claims, which then induced further feedback loops. [19]
A major field of Koopmans' research has been immigration and the integration of immigrants. In early research with Statham, he finds little evidence that migrants and ethnic minorities erode nation-states' sovereignty and mixed evidence for their contribution to the internal cultural differentiation of states, but strong support for the continuing relevance of the nation-state regarding the in- or exclusion of minorities. [20] Studying how the access to citizenship shapes immigrants' mobilisation, Statham and Koopmans find that mobilisation to be highly prevalent in Germany, where immigrants were historically largely excluded from the national community, less so in multicultural Netherlands and lowest in Britain with its assimilationist incorporation model. [21] In another study, Koopmans and Statham study migration and ethnic relations through the lens of the political opportunity structure approach. [22] In further analysis of immigrants' mobilisation, Koopmans finds that immigrants are highly engaged in public debates on issues relevant to them the more inclusive the local incorporation regime is, though cross-local differences are dwarfed by differences between nations, suggesting a continuously strong role for the nation-state regarding political integration. [23] Finally, investigating the impact of migrants' participation in associations on their political integration in Berlin, Koopmans, Maria Berger and Christian Galonska don't find any significant impact of such participation on migrants' interest in German politics, though migrants active in ethnic organisations tend to also be more politically active. [24] Koopmans' "early" research on immigration and diversity, along with other research by e.g. Statham, Giugni and Florence Passy, is reflected in Contested Citizenship; the book argues that the construction of citizenship is the key determinant of Europe's immigrant populations' experiences and notably challenges the notion that "multiculturalism is always good for immigrants". [25]
Studying how integration policies and welfare states have affected the integration of immigrants in a broad range of Western European countries, Koopmans finds that policies which fail to provide strong incentives to immigrants to become fluent in the host country's language and develop contacts with members of other ethnic groups, when combined with a generous welfare state, have resulted in low labour force participation, high segregation and a disproportionate likelihood of criminal behaviour, as e.g. in Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands, whereas countries with either assimilationist integration policies or a relatively lean welfare state have achieved better integration. [26] Moreover, in a comparison of the socio-cultural integration of naturalised and non-naturalised immigrants in the Netherlands, France and Germany, Koopmans and Evelyn Ersanili find that limited conditions for naturalisation in terms of cultural assimilation may promote integration, as shown in Germany and France, but also that allowing immigrants to hold dual nationalities doesn't have substantial negative effects. [27] In further research on immigrants' citizenship rights in Europe, Koopmans, Ines Michalowski and Stine Waibel find no evidence for cross-national convergence on these rights, the inclusivity of which has stagnated from 2002 to 2008 as right-wing parties countermobilized and slowed or reversed liberalization of citizenship rights. [28] Overall, reviewing the multicultural policies in the main European and Anglo-Saxon destination countries, Koopmans argues that multicultural policies have had "little effect on socioeconomic integration, some positive effects on political integration, and negative impacts on sociocultural integration", with religious rights as the main source of controversy. [29]
Another area of Koopmans' research has been the evolution of the European public sphere. Together with Jessica Erbe, Koopmans finds that whether and how political communication is Europeanized varies substantially between policy fields, with differences strongly depending on whether the policy mandate lays with governments or with the EU, suggesting that a further transfer of competencies to the EU would also entail the Europeanization of further parts of the public sphere. [30] In another study, Koopmans moreover finds that governments and executive actors have been the main beneficiaries of the Europeanisation of public debates relative to legislative and party actors and especially compared to civil society actors, who are weakly represented in the European public sphere, which in turn affects actors' public support for – or opposition to – European institutions and integration. [31] Koopmans' and Statham's research on the European public sphere have been compiled in an edited volume, The Making of a European Public Sphere, which addresses how European integration in the 1990s and 2000s was debated in mass media and how that integration has shifted the power balance between governments, parliaments and civil society. [32]
Koopmans is married to a Turkish woman, [33] and they have a daughter together. [34]
A political movement is a collective attempt by a group of people to change government policy or social values. Political movements are usually in opposition to an element of the status quo, and are often associated with a certain ideology. Some theories of political movements are the political opportunity theory, which states that political movements stem from mere circumstances, and the resource mobilization theory which states that political movements result from strategic organization and relevant resources. Political movements are also related to political parties in the sense that they both aim to make an impact on the government and that several political parties have emerged from initial political movements. While political parties are engaged with a multitude of issues, political movements tend to focus on only one major issue.
Human migration is the movement of people from one place to another with intentions of settling, permanently or temporarily, at a new location.
In sociology, an ethnic enclave is a geographic area with high ethnic concentration, characteristic cultural identity, and economic activity. The term is usually used to refer to either a residential area or a workspace with a high concentration of ethnic firms. Their success and growth depends on self-sufficiency, and is coupled with economic prosperity.
Transnationalism is a research field and social phenomenon grown out of the heightened interconnectivity between people and the receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states.
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short-term stays in a destination country do not fall under the definition of immigration or migration; seasonal labour immigration is sometimes included, however.
Social integration is the process during which newcomers or minorities are incorporated into the social structure of the host society.
Migrant domestic workers are, according to the International Labour Organization’s Convention No. 189 and the International Organization for Migration, any persons "moving to another country or region to better their material or social conditions and improve the prospect for themselves or their family," engaged in a work relationship performing "in or for a household or households." Domestic work itself can cover a "wide range of tasks and services that vary from country to country and that can be different depending on the age, gender, ethnic background and migration status of the workers concerned." These particular workers have been identified by some academics as situated within "the rapid growth of paid domestic labor, the feminization of transnational migration, and the development of new public spheres." Prominent discussions on the topic include the status of these workers, reasons behind the pursue in this labour, recruitment and employment practices in the field, and various measures being undertaken to change the conditions of domestic work among migrants.
Opposition to immigration, also known as anti-immigration, has become a significant political ideology in many countries. In the modern sense, immigration refers to the entry of people from one state or territory into another state or territory in which they are not citizens. Illegal immigration occurs when people immigrate to a country without having official permission to do so. Opposition to immigration ranges from calls for various immigration reforms, to proposals to completely restrict immigration, to calls for repatriation of existing immigrants.
Kurds in the United States refers to people born in or residing in the United States of Kurdish origin or those considered to be ethnic Kurds.
Immigration and crime refers to the relationship between criminal activity and the phenomenon of immigration. The academic literature and official statistics provide mixed findings for the relationship between immigration and crime. Research in the United States tends to suggest that immigration either has no impact on the crime rate or even that immigrants are less prone to crime. A meta-analysis of 51 studies from 1994–2014 on the relationship between immigration and crime in the United States found that, overall, the immigration-crime association is negative, but the relationship is very weak and there is significant variation in findings across studies. This is in line with a 2009 review of high-quality studies conducted in the United States that also found a negative relationship.
Postnationalism or non-nationalism is the process or trend by which nation states and national identities lose their importance relative to cross-nation and self-organized or supranational and global entities as well as local entities. Although postnationalism is not strictly considered the antonym of nationalism, the two terms and their associated assumptions are antithetic as postnationalism is an internationalistic process. There are several factors that contribute to aspects of postnationalism, including economic, political, and cultural elements. Increasing globalization of economic factors have shifted emphasis from national economies to global ones.
Daniel Levy is a German–American political sociologist and an Associate Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Levy earned a Bachelor of Arts in sociology and political science (1986) and a Master of Arts in sociology (1990) from Tel Aviv University, as well as a Doctorate of sociology from Columbia University in 1999. He is a specialist on issues relating to globalization, collective memory studies, and comparative historical sociology. Levy, along with the historians Paul Gootenberg and Herman Lebovics, is a founder and organizer of the Initiative for Historical Social Science, a program that is run out of Stony Brook with the goal of promoting the "New Historical Social Sciences". He also, along with the Human Rights scholar and historian Elazar Barkan, is the founder of the "History, Redress, and Reconciliation" Seminar series at Columbia University. The seminars are an attempt to provide "a forum for interdisciplinary work on issues at the intersection of history, memory, and contemporary politics" focusing particularly on the "redressing [of] past wrongs and gross violations of human rights."
Migration studies is the academic study of human migration. Migration studies is an interdisciplinary field which draws on anthropology, prehistory, history, economics, law, sociology and postcolonial studies.
Rauf Ceylan is a German-Turkish sociologist and author. He is professor of sociology of religion and sociology of migration at the University of Osnabrück.
Ursula Apitzsch is a German political scientist and sociologist. Since 1993, she has been Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Frankfurt. Her research fields are cultural analysis, biographical research, migration, ethnicity and gender.
Jan Rath is a Dutch social scientist who is holding a chair in Urban Sociology in the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His academic studies have focused on the nexus of urban structures and processes on the one hand and their social, ethnic and religious dimensions on the other. His work is highly cited in the sub-fields related to the problematization of immigrant ethnic minorities, and on urban economies, entrepreneurship, and cultural consumption.
Crimes may be committed both against and by immigrants in Germany. Crimes involving foreigners have been a longstanding theme in public debates in Germany. In November 2015, a report that was released by the Federal Criminal Police (BKA) stated that "While the number of refugees is rising very dynamically, the development of crime does not increase to the same extent." Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière (CDU) noted that "refugees are on average as little or often delinquent as comparison groups of the local population." A 2018 statistical study by researchers at the University of Magdeburg using 2009-2015 data argued that, where analysis is restricted to crimes involving at least one German victim and one refugee suspect and crimes by immigrants against other immigrants are excluded, there is no relationship between the scale of refugee inflow and the crime rate. In 2018 the interior ministry under Horst Seehofer (CSU) published, for the first time, an analysis of the Federal Police Statistic, which includes all those who came via the asylum system to Germany. The report found that the immigrant group, which makes up about 2% of the overall population, contains 8.5% of all suspects, after violations against Germany's alien law are excluded.
Africa hosts the fourth largest number of global international migrants. In 2017, 25 million people migrated within and outside it. Most of migration in Africa occurs within the continent as 19 million people moved between African countries. The surge in international migration within Africa is due in part by the efforts of African states and international institutions to enhance regional integration. Regional migration in the African continent is also largely facilitated by the development of infrastructure and diffusion of western languages and culture.
Hein de Haas is a Dutch sociologist and geographer who has lived and worked in the Netherlands, Morocco and the United Kingdom. He is currently Professor of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). His research concentrates on the relationship between migration and social transformation and development in origin and destination countries. He is a founding member and director of the International Migration Institute at Oxford University. He is also Professor of Migration and Development at the University of Maastricht and directs IMI from its current home at UvA. In his work, De Haas has advanced a long-term view of migration as an integral part of global change and development, challenging a range of conventional wisdoms dominating migration debates. De Haas is lead author of The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World, a leading text book in the field of migration studies. He also maintains a blog on migration-related topics.
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