Neighborhood network governance, ethnic organization, and the prospects for political integration

How may ethnic organizations work as mechanisms for political integration in suburban multicultural contexts with participative and network modes of governance? The overall argument of the paper is that a shift from vertical to more horizontal modes of governance affects the prospects for ethnic associations to fulfil different democratic functions. It does so in a complex, multidimensional and somewhat contradictory way. Although network modes of governance are often argued for in terms of openness and inclusion, it should not be taken for granted that such governance structures do promote democratic functions of ethnic associations. Drawing on an in-depth case study of ethnic associations and network politics in Botkyrka, Sweden, the purpose of the article is to provide theoretically informed arguments on how the political integration potential of ethnic organization is affected when they participate in local network-like arrangements and institutions. In brief, the article outlines three arguments: (1) There are different mechanisms of ethnic organization that might contribute to a more politically integrated society. (2) More horizontal network modes of governance generate new conditions for these integrative mechanisms to emerge out of ethnic organization. (3) In such a context of network governance, the different integrative mechanisms of ethnic organizations are not always supplementary, but sometimes contradictory, causing genuine dilemmas to be dealt with by local actors.