The Role of Multilevel Governance in Building Institutional Capacity for Refugee Integration Policy: A Case Study From Norway

This article contributes to the research on institutional capacity building as a tool to improve the local implementation of welfare policies when successful implementation is contingent on cooperation across sectors of governance. Our case is the municipal, state and county–municipal cooperation on the establishing of an upper secondary school adapted to the needs of newly arrived refugees in Norway. While a lack of formal education has been identified as a major hindrance for the labour market integration of refugees, only a handful of municipalities offer upper secondary education that explicitly and efficiently targets the needs this group has for language training, income support and leniency with requirements for documentation of primary education. Our ambition is to investigate whether multi-level governance can increase the local institutional capacity to act on the identified need for formal education. Our analysis is based on a case study of two Norwegian municipalities that have developed a measure that efficiently meets the refugees’ need for formal education. Our findings suggest that initiatives to increase institutional capacity can be important for the outcome of local integration measures. Strong institutional network capacity to plan, implement and manage policies and programs seem to be helpful in order to establish collaboration within and between levels, because it improves the municipalities’ ability to respond and build relations across municipal and governance levels