Civic Integration through Commissioned Communities: On the Cross-Sector Co-Production of Conditioned and Clientised Participation

Policymakers across Western welfare states increasingly make full citizenship contingent on refugees adapting to liberal democratic values and practising active citizenship. Simultaneously, the New Public Governance paradigm has reinvigorated policymakers’ belief in civil society as a needed partner for tackling societal challenges, such as integration. Consequently, cross-sector co-production of civic communities is being perceived as a model for increasing the participation and integration of refugees. The practices and outcomes of cross-sector co-produced integration remain underexplored. Based on a three-year qualitative study of four cross-sector integration projects in a Danish municipality, this paper contributes knowledge on the matter. We explore how volunteers and municipal agents practise the co-production of civic communities to enhance participation among refugees. We find that a recurrent way of co-producing communities is through public agents commissioning communities from voluntary organisations. Next, we identify two recurrent forms of participation available to refugees through the commissioned communities. In the first form, termed conditioned participation, the commissioning of communities is characterised by inter-sectorial distance and knowledge gaps, making participation conditioned on the resources of each refugee. In the second form, termed clientised participation, the inter-sectorial collaboration resembles a commissioner/service-provider relation, with refugees as clients being referred to voluntary services.