Modes of Migration City Network Mobilization in the EU and US Multilevel Institutional Systems: The Neglected Role of Politics

The existing literature on the multilevel governance of migration in Europe and on migration federalism in the United States tends to assume that the modes of city network (CN) mobilization can be accounted for by different institutional opportunity structures which favor collaborative relations with higher levels of government and civil society in Europe and more contentions interactions in the United States. However, comparative research on how CNs mobilize in different multilevel systems is scarce and largely focuses on official discourse. To fill this gap, this article conducts an inductive policy frame analysis of the discourse and actions of two CNs—the Working Group on Migration and Integration in Europe and Cities for Action in the United States—and examines official documents they released between 2014 and 2019. We find that the actions of CNs are often decoupled from their discourse and are centered on political advocacy, thus challenging the idea that modes of CN mobilization are shaped by institutional opportunity structures. We propose an alternative understanding of CNs as political actors that adapt their discourse and actions to the multilevel political context in which they operate, i.e., to the political leaning of national governments or to the policy issues at stake.