Patrick Ireland begins this detailed and clearly presented discussion about belonging in relation to patterns of European Union migration by raising a critical issue with the concept of ethnicity, defined as a “collective group consciousness that imparts a sense of belonging derived from membership in a community bound putatively by common descent and culture” (pp. 2–3). Ireland's study finds that belonging is context specific, rather than derived from common descent. This finding implies that there is by definition no readily available general policy applicable to one type of immigrants, say, Turks or Moroccans across all EU member states. Instead, each country's possibilities for integration differ. To Ireland, ethnicity “is not so much a category as a dynamic, elastic entity. Its value as a social, economic, and political resource varies; the appraisal depends considerably on institutions and policies.” (pp. 4–5).

This citation places the book's approach in a conceptual context that allows two key issues of central importance for migration research to be addressed: first, the challenge to theorize belonging in a way that avoids the modern ontologies of political borders or cultural myths; and second, the normative proposition that research on immigration theorizes migrants as citizens-to-be, rather than human resources to be controlled. This is a task with considerable potential for migration and citizenship studies alike. The author engages in raising the standard of migration studies from institutionalist stock taking, which usually prefers snapshots, toward a normative dimension that entails the possibility of change. To do that, he asks how institutional factors and social policies have shaped opportunities for ethnic identity formation and ethnic maintenance (p. 5). The answer to this question is pursued in some empirical detail over six chapters, including case studies on Germany (Chapter 2), German cities and city-states (Chapter 3), the Netherlands (Chapter 4) and Belgium (Chapter 5).

The shift in research focus from managing migration at the gates of entry toward understanding conditions for integration based on daily practices implies a change of method. That is, instead of analyzing state decision making and government policies stressing external state borders, Ireland sets out to investigate what he calls “street-level dynamics” (p. 14). By analyzing social policy data, including educational and social welfare systems, as well as political participation in local communities, he highlights the role of internal cultural boundaries. While political boundaries are the stable remnants of the Westphalian state system, cultural boundaries are flexible and reflect the specific local contextual conditions. This view enables and encourages thinking and policy making that considers the possibility of cultural diversity based on “peaceful ethnic relations” within political communities and “promoted by the postwar European welfare state” (p. 15). It offers an approach to the study of integration based on structural (labor market, education, social services, etc.) and political-cultural (modes of participation, inclusion, and cultural exchange) dimensions for both academics and practitioners (pp. 17–18).

Practitioners will find this book's insight into the connection between “social policy restructuring and the transformation of migration” (p. 14) a particularly welcome addition to a research field that has predominantly addressed either migration or citizenship and rarely sought to reconcile the significant and, as this book argues, consequential interrelations between both. Academics are recommended to consider the book's findings as an invitation to leave behind exclusive research on either migration or citizenship and begin to merge not only research programs but also the academic discussion about collaborative research building, among others, on the work of William Barbieri, Klaus Eder, Adrian Favell, Martin Heisler, James Hollifield, Rey Koslowski, and Yasemin Soysal. Ireland's “street-level” perspective on immigrant group behavior follows the insight that “rights do not equal practice” (p. 25). A key axiom of reflexive citizenship studies holds that “the rule lies essentially in the practice” (Charles Taylor, “To Follow a Rule …” in Calhoun et al., eds., Critical Perspectives, 1993) and evolves from it, as critical citizenship studies have pointed out (especially Seyla Benhabib, Jane Jenson, Ruth Lister, Carol Pateman, Anna Yeatman, and Iris Marion Young).

The book's three national (Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands) and eight city case studies (Bremen, Berlin, Essen, Nuremberg; Liege, Ghent; Rotterdam, The Hague) produce the insight that “specific ethnic traits could not be responsible for the shape of social relations in the cases considered” (p. 210). Ireland contends that this finding “contradicts widely held cultural explanations for the ethnic conflict rightly or wrongly associated with the presence of immigrants” (p. 210). The proposition that institutional factors and policies are more influential than, for example, national identities has lead to the important insight that the “Turks who were seen as difficult in German cities were viewed as relatively unproblematic in their Dutch and Belgian equivalents” (p. 211). This conclusion is consistent with a reflexive approach to institutional change and identity formation, which holds that as subject positions, identities and hence feelings of belonging are always part of social practice and cultural representation (Eder). They are therefore not readily transferable from one political community to another.

It would have been interesting to see a more detailed discussion of the five “visions of multiculturalism” presented in Chapter 1, including liberal nationalism, liberal neutrality, liberal multiculturalism, cultural pluralism, and communitarian pluralism (pp. 14, 222–24) and a link developed between the conceptual significance of these models and the conclusive observation that “foreigners are becoming Europe” (p. 234). It is here where the research program laid out by Ireland's excellent work could embark into an even closer collaboration with the citizenship scholarship. While keeping with institutional change and social policy, such a focus would allow for a more consistent and rigorous assessment of the possibilities of migration by drawing more explicitly on the normative dimension. Minor issues such as the potential inclusion of a chapter on methodology and the addition of an appendix including the list of expert interviews conducted prior to and throughout the duration of the fieldwork notwithstanding, Becoming Europe is recommended as required reading for both undergraduate and graduate coursework. In addition, it should be widely consulted by practitioners.