Managing Difference: Immigrant Integration Policy in France, Britain, and the United States

In this chapter I compare changes in immigrant integration policies in two European countries-France and Britain-with those of the United States. I focus first on the "national models" around which integration policies have been described, and then on the dynamics that are driving the changes and evolution of these models. I argue that national models in each country differentiate the direction, the content and the intensity of integration policy. These differences are most evident, moreover, if we examine not only the policies themselves, but the perceived success and failure of different integration policies. I argue that three dynamics have been driving the evolving management of integration policy: problems of urban order, the development of European union and perceptions of failure and success.