869525

research-article2019
JOS0010.1177/1440783319869525Journal of SociologyBusbridge

Review Essay
Journal of Sociology

A multicultural success story?

1­–8
© The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
Australian integration in sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1440783319869525
https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783319869525
comparative focus journals.sagepub.com/home/jos

Rachel Busbridge
Australian Catholic University, Australia

Books reviewed:

Race, Ethnicity and the Participation Gap: Understanding Australia’s Political Complexion
By J. Pietsch
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018.

Strangers No More: Immigration and the Challenges of Integration in North America and Western
Europe
By R. Alba and N. Foner
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015.

Integration of Immigrants and the Theory of Recognition: ‘Just Integration’

By G.U. Goksel
London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Abstract
Australia is often held up as an exemplary multicultural society in cross-national comparisons,
particularly in relation to the integration of immigrants. Yet, this ‘grand narrative’ of Australia’s
multicultural success risks an over-simplified picture of the dynamics of integration in Australia,
obscuring dimensions on which Australia’s performance is comparatively poor. Juliet Pietsch’s
Race, Ethnicity and the Participation Gap makes a valuable contribution to a more nuanced
discussion, asking why the political participation of non-European ethnic and immigrant minorities
in Australia is so low compared to Canada and the United States. This review article brings
Pietsch into critical conversation with two recent books on comparative integration in North
America and Western Europe: Richard Alba and Nancy Foner’s Strangers No More and Gulay
Ugur Goksel’s Integration of Immigrants and the Theory of Recognition. Read alongside each other,
these texts encourage deeper reflection on where Australia sits on a variety of indicators of

Corresponding author:
Rachel Busbridge, Australian Catholic University, 115 Victoria Parade, Fitzroy VIC 3065, Australia.
Email: rachel.busbridge@acu.edu.au
2 Journal of Sociology 00(0)

immigrant integration as well as how integration is conceptualised in Australia. This article thus
contributes to existing literature on the contemporary state of Australian multiculturalism, while
also pointing towards directions for future research.

Keywords
immigrant and ethnic minorities, integration, multiculturalism, political participation

Speaking in 2016 about the apparent retreat of multicultural policies in Western liberal
democracies, then-Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane insisted
upon Australia’s exceptional status as a multicultural ‘success story, not a failure’
(Soutphommasane, 2016). This is a common narrative in the Australian context, which
is regularly seen as uniquely geared towards the successful integration of immigrants and
ethnic minorities. Commentators and politicians regularly tout the values and benefits of
cultural diversity for Australia – former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, for instance,
was fond of declaring it ‘the most successful multicultural country in the world’. Levels
of public acceptance of multiculturalism remain high, as do positive societal attitudes
towards immigration, even as these have slipped somewhat in recent years (Markus,
2018). Australia indeed ranks relatively well on integration measures when it comes to
cross-national comparisons. On the Multicultural Policy Index, which assesses social
inclusion policies and multicultural forms of citizenship, Australia scores marginally
ahead of Canada, well outranking European countries (Kymlicka, 2012). Even with
ongoing issues with racial discrimination, occasional bursts of identity-related social
conflict and an expanding guest worker program, Australia also appears highly success-
ful when it comes to the outcomes and experiences of immigrants (Collins, 2013).
At the same time, grand narratives cannot capture the full complexities of reality and
very often obscure situations and circumstances that do not fit within their parameters.
The grand narrative of Australia’s multicultural success story is no exception. Despite a
good showing across a variety of integration measures, there are in fact a number on
which Australia’s performance is comparatively poor. As Juliet Pietsch (2018) points out
in Race, Ethnicity and the Participation Gap, the most striking of these is the lack of
political representation of immigrant and ethnic minorities at the federal level of politics.
With only a tiny minority (less than 3%) members of the House of Representatives from
a non-European background compared to 17% for the general population, Australia sits
woefully behind both Canada and the United States (US). Perhaps even more striking is
that this discrepancy is rarely flagged as an issue in the integration of ethnic and immi-
grant minorities. Instead, as Pietsch calls it, Australia’s ‘political complexion’ remains
startingly white, something that the most recent 2019 election has done little to change
(Blakkarly, 2019).
Two recently published books on immigrant integration in North America and Western
Europe, Richard Alba and Nancy Foner’s (2015) Strangers No More and Gulay Ugur
Goksel’s (2018) Integration of Immigrants and the Theory of Recognition, are useful for
comparative analysis. The former is arguably field defining while the latter represents a
new wave of scholarship approaching integration in novel ways. Pietsch’s book is an
Busbridge 3

important entry in this literature and testament to the value of a systematic comparative
perspective on integration. If grand narratives obscure, they also reveal much about the
limits and oversights of legitimating institutions, structures and forms of knowledge. In
holding the Australian multicultural success story to account, Pietsch challenges the
focus on social cohesion, national identity and service provision in integration policy and
scholarship, inviting a less depoliticised approach framed by the ideals of democratic
participation and accountability.

Immigrant and ethnic minority political representation

Race, Ethnicity and the Participation Gap tackles an issue that has long been recognised
as a critical indicator of integration – that is, the political participation (or lack thereof)
of ‘visible’ immigrant and ethnic minorities. Pietsch’s starting point is simple: we can
assess the representativeness of national-level institutions by how well they reflect the
diversity of their populations. This is especially the case, she argues, in ‘settler and cul-
turally diverse societies’ which ‘ought to mirror their multicultural populations’ in order
to be viewed as genuinely representative (p. 3). It is with this normative framework of
descriptive representation that she approaches the massive discrepancy between
Australian minority populations and minority representatives. While the US and Canada
still have not achieved representative parity in their national legislatures and assemblies,
both have achieved much higher levels of visible minority participation than Australia
has (19.5% and 13.6% respectively in 2015) as well as an upward trajectory in numbers
of non-white representatives since 2000. That Australia has not, despite structural soci-
etal similarities, would seem to be indicative of either significant social inequalities or a
lack of opportunities for immigrant political integration. It also raises serious questions
concerning the quality of Australian representative democracy.
Pietsch’s concern is to understand why Australia lags so far behind other countries in
the political integration and representation of immigrants. A variety of reasons often
cited in the literature for the lack of minority participation in political institutions
include immigration and citizenship patterns, political party barriers, socioeconomic
status, professional qualifications and language skills, group characteristics such as ori-
gin, size and concentration and social factors such as discrimination and exclusion (p.
22). Pietsch examines the validity of these explanations with the use of mixed quantita-
tive and qualitative methods. The book begins with an overview of the historical and
legal-institutional contexts of the three countries, before narrowing in on the Australian
context. Chapter 4, for instance, makes use of qualitative data from interviews with
MPs from immigrant and non-immigrant backgrounds. Interestingly, while the vast
majority acknowledged discrimination and racial prejudice as factors in the recruit-
ment, selection and nomination of party members, Pietsch observed a sense of defeat-
ism in relation to party and faction gatekeeping and the consequences of this for
immigrant and ethnic minority candidates. Instead, MPs were more likely to attribute
responsibility for the lack of participation to immigrant communities themselves, who
were variously perceived as ‘politically disengaged, inappropriately strategic, inexperi-
enced and constrained by homeland cultural and political origins’ (p. 101).
4 Journal of Sociology 00(0)

Chapters 5, 6 and 7 test these assumptions through use of quantitative data and a focus
on Asian-Australians, the minority group with the least proportional representation in
national political institutions. Being Asian is the most important predictor of the absence
of party identification in Australia (p. 108). Nonetheless, this does not mean that Asian-
Australians are not interested in politics. Pietsch shows that Asians in general demon-
strate an interest in informal participation in Australian politics as well as home-country
politics – however, they have low feelings of political efficacy. Contrary to socioeco-
nomic explanations such as length of stay in Australia, she interprets this as stemming
from a general lack of political empowerment relating to structural and social barriers.
Chapter 7 shows that Asian immigrants are more likely to have experienced racial dis-
crimination and less likely to enter professional and managerial positions than their
European counterparts, even those considered highly skilled. In this regard, Piestch
makes a solid case for the significance of low-level discrimination in Asian political
disempowerment.
What Pietsch ultimately seems to be arguing for is reform of Australia’s political-legal
system – after all, both the US and Canada have white dominant societies and are doing
much better with descriptive political representation. The key distinction she isolates is
that Australia lacks legal-institutional frameworks that encourage naturalisation and pro-
vide symbolic and material support for cultural diversity. In Canada and the US, affirma-
tive action, quotas and funding for minority advocacy groups politicise identity in a way
to make it relevant at the top level of politics. The watering down of multicultural policy
in Australia, along with residency requirements, the citizenship test and lack of dual or
multiple citizenship, has the opposite effect of hindering ethnic and immigrant participa-
tion. Pietsch thus places responsibility for the lack of minority political representation
squarely back onto Australia’s institutions, which, she argues, are constrained by an
understanding of multiculturalism as simply social service provision. This is a provoca-
tive interjection, yet it does raise further questions which are perhaps illustrated best by
the decision to focus on Asian-Australians. Pietsch notes that pan-ethnic mobilisation is
essential to political representation but the question of a pan-Asian political identity in
Australia is not clear, something which is amplified by her inclusion of Chinese, Indians,
Filipinos and Vietnamese in the category. While she argues that there is some potential
for collective mobilisation based on common interests of taxation, the economy and
education, as well as a slight preference for the Labor party, this is perhaps counter-
intuitive given the dominant logics of identity in Australia, which tend to make sharp
distinctions between Asian communities as well as between migration waves (Busbridge,
2017). That Asian identity is a more meaningful category of mobilisation in the US but
not Canada, which has a similar immigration history to Australia (p. 112) ought to invite
additional engagement on the multiplicity of factors shaping integration.

Broadening the comparative lens

Given that Australian policies, regimes and attitudes towards immigration find parallels
in North America and Western Europe, Alba and Foner’s transatlantic study of integra-
tion in Strangers No More is a valuable way to broaden comparative scope. All of the
countries Alba and Foner deal with in this study – Canada and the US in North America
Busbridge 5

and Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands in Western Europe – are reckoning
with the consequences mass post-war immigration and the challenges presented by this
new cultural diversity. Their focus is what they call ‘low-status’ immigrants, that is, those
with the lowest levels of education, who are typically marked as ethnically or racially
different. In Canada, however, unusually selective immigration makes the category of
‘visible minority’ more apt. Despite different immigration histories and institutional
structures, these countries have significant populations of low-status groups, such as
Hispanics in the US, Turks in Germany and North Africans in France, all of whom face
the ‘greatest barriers’ to integration in the first and second generations (p. 4). Despite
higher levels of human capital, Canada’s visible minorities also face similar barriers.
Like Pietsch, Alba and Foner see political representation – that is, the ability to be
voted into office – as the ‘paramount indicator’ of social inclusion (p. 143). Interestingly,
immigrant groups are least successful in Germany and France but most successful in the
Netherlands with 10% representation in national legislatures; Canada and the US rank
somewhere in the middle when it comes to the electoral success of visible minorities and
Hispanics. In some ways, this is surprising given the Netherlands’ very public turn away
from multiculturalism in recent years. However, Alba and Foner emphasise it as a lefto-
ver from the comparatively strong multicultural policies the country implemented in the
1980s, which were based on group empowerment and included granting foreigners with
five years residence the right to vote in local elections. In this regard, they conclude that
‘countries that seem to have provided most scope for immigrant-origin politicians have
been most willing to acknowledge immigrants as ethnic minorities with distinctive needs
and cultural rights’ (p. 164). The fact that the Netherlands, even despite its current poli-
tics, ranks most highly would seem to provide support for Pietsch’s arguments for a more
affirmative approach as well as the power of descriptive representation to broaden the
life chances and opportunities of ethnic and immigrant minorities.
One the most valuable contributions of Strangers No More is its foregrounding of
integration as a multidimensional, interactional and heterogeneous process. The book
explores multiple factors that facilitate or impede integration, such as educational ine-
quality, educational attainment, residential segregation, mixed marriages and religious
arrangements. Just as Pietsch confronts common explanations in her book, Alba and
Foner tackle grand narratives in theirs, such as the idea certain national models are more
amenable to incorporation or that settler societies are more culturally inclusive. In con-
trast to a strong North American–European divide, Strangers No More demonstrates that
‘there are no clear-cut winners or losers: each society fails or succeeds [at integration] in
different ways’ (p. 3). While there are common barriers in the six countries, no single
institutional system or model is capable of ensuring parity between ‘immigrants and their
descendants’ and the native population (p. 225) – integration is simply too complex for
easy answers. In the case of residential segregation, for instance, Alba and Foner empha-
sise that immigrant neighbourhoods can be both ‘stations of integration or intensifiers of
disadvantage’ (chapter 4). Furthermore, good performance on certain indices of integra-
tion does not necessarily make for good performance on others, and in fact may work
against what would be deemed successful integration on different measures.
Take the issue of political representation. Pietsch notes that representation is best
achieved when racial or ethnic minorities are geographically concentrated. In contrast to
6 Journal of Sociology 00(0)

high levels of immigrant residential concentration in many areas of North America and
Western Europe, most Australian electoral districts are mixed, with Anglos the majority
population (Pietsch, p. 75). While it may not lend itself to easy ethnic mobilisation, Alba
and Foner suggest that residence in mixed areas where members of the native majority
live generally implies greater connection to mainstream society (p. 97). Similarly, while
Pietsch concludes that discrimination is hindering Asian-Australian political representa-
tion, it is pertinent to recognise that discrimination may have the opposite effect of politi-
cising group difference and compelling minority political organisation. This is arguably
the case in the US, where a tradition of grassroots organising is grounded in a more lais-
sez faire approach to cultural diversity and a greater reliance on funding from private
sources (Alba and Foner, p. 116). Moreover, the ‘paradox of race’ (Alba and Foner, ch.
5) is that the US is strongest at group-specific rights and affirmative action precisely
because it has such a deep-seated and troubling racial history. Immigrants in the US
benefit from the institutional, political and discursive legacies of the civil rights move-
ment (and often in ways that national minorities like African-Americas do not) and other
attempts to redress the injuries of past injustices (p. 109). In this sense, it may be those
groups who have suffered significant discrimination, socioeconomic disadvantage and
social exclusion that are ‘better poised for electoral success’ (p. 166).

Reassessing integration
Alba and Foner conceptualise integration as the full membership of society, where immi-
grants have the ‘same educational and work opportunities as long-term native-born citi-
zens’, the same life chances ‘to better their own and their children’s lot’ as well as a sense
of dignity and belonging ‘that comes from acceptance and inclusion in a broad range of
societal institutions’ (pp. 1–2). Although full parity is perhaps impossible given the histori-
cal recency of large-scale immigration, they emphasise integration as a two-way street
which requires some changes in mainstream institutions in order to allow immigrants to
participate and advance socially and materially. Piestch’s critique is that Australian institu-
tions simply have not been open enough to this type of change, which would require a
renewed appreciation for ‘nation-building ideas of inclusive citizenship and identity, cul-
tural diversity, cultural rights, recognition and representation’ (p. 10). Integration is encour-
aged, but only to the extent that ‘political and economic structures are left intact’ (p. 69).
This critical perspective is the point of departure of Goksel’s Integration of Immigrants
and the Theory of Recognition, which argues against placing the burden of integration
onto immigrants and instead placing it on institutional problems that halt integration in
the first place. Similar to Pietsch, who views the lack of minority political representation
in Australia as evidence of a democratic deficit, Goksel maintains that integration should
be seen as a democratic justice problem. Viewing integration in these terms opens it to
new tools, approaches and modes of interpretation. Goksel’s chosen approach is Axel
Honneth’s theory of recognition wherein self-realisation is fostered through social rela-
tions. In concentrating on the social pathologies ‘suffered by immigrants in the host
country’ (p. 16), she maintains that recognition theory brings into view integration from
the perspective of the immigrant, as well as the institutional and social orders of rights,
status and esteem of host countries and how they position ethnic minority groups.
Busbridge 7

The ostensible focus of Integration of Immigrants is the socioeconomic conditions

experienced by recent immigrants. Certainly, economic integration is an important indi-
cator of successful immigration policy and there is evidence that minority groups con-
ceptualise integration in socioeconomic terms rather than cultural ones, focusing on
things like opportunities for good employment, material wealth and access to quality
education (e.g. Hersi, 2016). As Goksel notes in the context of Canada, almost all indica-
tors suggest that visible minority immigrants face economic and social barriers that
European ones do not, with higher rates of poverty and employment. However, rather
than low-skilled or humanitarian immigrants, who rank most poorly on these measures,
she concentrates on highly skilled immigrants who enter with professional permanent
visas. As is the case in Australia, skilled immigrants encounter lack of recognition of
their overseas qualifications and very rarely find work in the profession in which they are
trained and for which they received a visa. The choice of recognition theory in this regard
has much to offer, insofar as it allows Goksel to speak to the expectations of such immi-
grants, which most certainly have a role to play in perceived and actual integration. The
strong political theory bent of the book means that she is unable to offer any sustained
empirical reflections on this beyond her personal experience, but she nonetheless identi-
fies an important issue for integration in countries with highly selective immigration
regimes like Canada and Australia.
Alba and Foner assert that the ‘immigrant bargain’ has always entailed the accept-
ance of low-level work for improved future economic prospects (p. 47) and there is
broad evidence to suggest intergenerational economic integration into the mainstream.
Australia, for instance, sees blue collar to white collar social mobility for the third gen-
eration, even if the pace of integration is differentiated for Europeans and non-Europe-
ans (Johnston et al., 2015). The question is how does the immigrant bargain hold up for
highly skilled immigrants, for whom intergenerational mobility may not suffice for the
social acknowledgement, esteem and self-realisation promised by the global capitalist
economy? What Goksel is actually flagging is the more subjective dimensions of inte-
gration like meaning and emotion, which have a powerful yet underexamined role to
play in immigrant experiences. As Jeffrey Alexander (2013: 55) suggests, ‘emotional
responses to immigration tell us relatively little about the objective situation, but a great
deal about the condition of social solidarity’. Do different categories of immigrants
have different expectations and what might be the consequences for integration and
political participation? Pietsch notes that the socioeconomic differences associated with
high- and low-skilled immigration are a point of differentiation in the Asian-Australian
community. How these distinctions feed into pan-ethnic political mobilisation is yet to
be fully recognised in the literature, likewise the subjective dynamics that compel
immigrant political action.

Conclusion
The three books discussed here raise a number of evocative and politically astute ques-
tions for understanding the dynamics of integration in Australia. By bringing the Alba
and Foner, and Goksel books into conversation with Pietsch’s Race, Ethnicity and the
Participation Gap as the centrepiece, I hope to have flagged some of these or at the very
8 Journal of Sociology 00(0)

least made a case for the value of comparative scholarship for an enlarged and more
robust perspective on Australia’s position as an apparently successful immigration coun-
try. Pietsch makes a strong, and I think critical, argument that policy frameworks are less
significant for immigrant and ethnic minority political representation than are ‘practical
resources and symbolic support to participate as leaders in society and politics’ (p. 77).
The focus on policy in much research on Australian integration arguably presents a road-
block to the type of critical work the authors invite us to engage in, redirecting attention
and resources from more political questions of immigrant incorporation, participation
and representation. It may additionally contribute to the depoliticising of ‘race and per-
sistent inequalities’ (p. 6) in Australia. Of course, there is much to commend in the
Australian multicultural success story, but it is ‘a success that demands our vigilance’
(Soutphomasane, 2016). As Pietsch puts to us, and Alba and Foner and Goksel reinforce,
this vigilance can only be sustained with a clear-eyed perspective on national dynamics
and a willingness to wade into politics.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

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Author biography
Rachel Busbridge is lecturer in Sociology at the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne. She is the
author of Multicultural Politics of Recognition and Postcolonial Citizenship: Rethinking the Nation
(Routledge, 2017) and publishes on multicultural politics, nationalism and settler colonialism.