Differentiation and Diversity in practising public policy — hindrance or possibility?

Firstly, the impact of differentiation amongst clients in public policy is investigated. Focus is directed towards activation policy, which aims to include individuals into the labour market. In Sweden activation is used as a part of integration policy, and a large number of those involved are immigrants. Empirical examples from Sweden are analysed of how public policy administrators, when applying activation policy, differentiate among the clients based on presumptions about gender and `race`. The question of how the underlying construction of Swedish welfare policy makes this differentiation possible is also addressed. Secondly, also drawing on empirical examples, the impact of diversity amongst administrators in relation to differentiation and discrimination of clients is discussed, with reference to the concepts of representation and recognition. Could one solution to problems with negative differentiation amongst immigrants be diversity amongst the administrators? Could administrators from a specific group be seen as representative for other individuals from the same group and thereby enhance this group’s possibilities integration