Several schools of thought claim that citizens can develop their democratic skills at the workplace. Here I focus on the hypothesis put forward by Carole Pateman and by Sidney Verba and colleagues that state that by practicing civic skills and democratic decision-making at the workplace, citizens become more active in politics. I test the hypothesis with a nationally representative panel survey of the Swedish population. My findings contradict previous empirical research as no impact on political participation was discovered. I argue that the effects may have been overestimated in prior studies because the tests were based on cross-sectional data: insufficient care was taken with a number of significant methodological problems. The study points to the importance of using panel models when investigating the causes of political participation.

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This article challenges previous findings suggesting that ethnic associations promote political participation among immigrants. Analyzing recent survey data from Sweden, the authors find that political activity among immigrants is encouraged by associational involvement in general but not by associations based on ethnic origin. To explain this difference, the authors examine important causal mechanisms between associational involvement and political participation. They conclude that while ethnic associations induce the development of civic skills, they do not create enough opportunities for mobilization through networks of political recruitment. Hence, compared to associations in which both mechanisms operate, ethnic associations tend to provide less politically stimulating environments.

Political trust among immigrants in Western Europe seems to be surprisingly high, especially among immigrants from non-democratic countries with institutions plagued by corruption. Over time, however, trust tends to diminish among these individuals. In this paper we argue that this may neither be explained by acculturation nor by experiences of discrimination. Analysing Swedish survey data we instead conclude, although tentatively, that falling expectations regarding the performance of host country institutions is a fruitful explanation. Such expectations presumably become more modest the longer one has been living in Sweden, causing a time-related drop in the overall confidence in Swedish political institutions.

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