Abstract:Immigrants, who comprise a growing group in many European countries, are usually under‐represented in the political process. Sweden's immigrant policy, with its far‐reaching social and political rights, liberal citizenship laws and respect for cultural differences, is often regarded as an exemplary model of how to integrate immigrants in society. The 1975 electoral reform in Sweden gave immigrants the opportunity to become active in the democratic process by allowing foreign citizens to vote in local political… Show more
“…In order to make the result more intuitive, the coefficients can be converted from logged odds to odds ratios by exponentiation of the β coefficient. The result then indicates an odds ratio of .55, predicting that the odds of voting decreases by .45 for immigrants in comparison to natives, which is similar to the gap in electoral participation between immigrants and natives found in previous studies (Bäck and Soininen 1998;Jiménez 2011). I continue by testing H1, proposing a mobilising influence of public contextual hostility among immigrant residents.…”
While we know that anti-immigrant attitudes are widely expressed in the public opinion and through parties aiming to limit immigration and migrant rights within European countries, we know less about the effects of such contextual hostility on immigrants, the targeted group. Making use of the cross-national variation of anti-immigrant attitudes and anti-immigrant party strength, my study tests the impact of public and political contextual hostility on voting among citizens in 28 countries. Results from multilevel modelling show that anti-immigrant attitudes in the public to some extent increases voting among citizens with the immigrant background in comparison to natives, indicating a mobilising influence of contextual hostility within the targeted group. The mobilising effect is however not found in countries with the highest levels of anti-immigrant attitudes, or when measuring hostility with anti-immigrant party parliamentary representation. In addition, I find an unexpected negative effect of public contextual hostility on voting among natives, suggesting a strong demobilising influence of hostility within the native group.
“…In order to make the result more intuitive, the coefficients can be converted from logged odds to odds ratios by exponentiation of the β coefficient. The result then indicates an odds ratio of .55, predicting that the odds of voting decreases by .45 for immigrants in comparison to natives, which is similar to the gap in electoral participation between immigrants and natives found in previous studies (Bäck and Soininen 1998;Jiménez 2011). I continue by testing H1, proposing a mobilising influence of public contextual hostility among immigrant residents.…”
While we know that anti-immigrant attitudes are widely expressed in the public opinion and through parties aiming to limit immigration and migrant rights within European countries, we know less about the effects of such contextual hostility on immigrants, the targeted group. Making use of the cross-national variation of anti-immigrant attitudes and anti-immigrant party strength, my study tests the impact of public and political contextual hostility on voting among citizens in 28 countries. Results from multilevel modelling show that anti-immigrant attitudes in the public to some extent increases voting among citizens with the immigrant background in comparison to natives, indicating a mobilising influence of contextual hostility within the targeted group. The mobilising effect is however not found in countries with the highest levels of anti-immigrant attitudes, or when measuring hostility with anti-immigrant party parliamentary representation. In addition, I find an unexpected negative effect of public contextual hostility on voting among natives, suggesting a strong demobilising influence of hostility within the native group.
“…Finally, existing research suggests that, if anything, changes in immigrant representation drive immigrant turnout. Scholars have found that immigrant candidates in Sweden tend to mobilize the co-ethnic vote (Blomqvist 2000; 2004; Schierenbeck and Schütt 2004), and that knowing that fellow countrymen run for office has a strong positive effect on turnout among immigrants (Bäck 2004). FIGURE 7. Native and Foreign-Born Voter Turnout in Municipal Elections as a Share of Each Sub-Population…”
Section: Is Discrimination An Important Driver Of the Representation mentioning
W idespread and persistent political underrepresentation of immigrant-origin minorities poses deep challenges to democratic practice and norms. What accounts for this underrepresentation? Two types of competing explanations are prevalent in the literature: accounts that base minority underrepresentation on individual-level resources and accounts that emphasize political opportunity structures. However, due to the lack of data suitable for testing these explanations, existing research has not been able to adjudicate between these theories. Using registry-based microdata covering the entire Swedish adult population between 1991 and 2010 our study is the first to empirically evaluate these alternative explanations. We examine election outcomes to municipal councils over the course of six elections and find that variation in individual-level resources cannot explain immigrants' underrepresentation. Further, when comparing immigrants and natives who face comparable political opportunity structures a large representation gap remains. Instead, we argue that discrimination by party gatekeepers plays a more significant role in perpetuating the underrepresentation of immigrants than do individual resources or structural variables.
“…In the developed democracies of Western Europe, residents of foreign origin tend to be less active in political life than the native population (Togeby 2004; Fennema & Tillie 2001; Adman & Strömblad 2000; Bäck & Soininen 1998). Given this state of affairs, it should be both empirically and theoretically important to investigate under what conditions immigrant associations may provide resources, motivation and – ultimately – political power to its members.…”
The voluminous participation literature notwithstanding, knowledge is still scarce on how voluntary associations more precisely provide their members with politically significant human and social capital. This article focuses on the capacities of immigrant organisations to promote the political integration of ethnic minority members. Analysing a unique dataset, based on face-to-face interviews with representatives of 106 organisations of four different immigrant groups in Greater Stockholm, the study empirically investigates what the authors refer to as an association's ' political integration potential ' (PIP) -the possibility of a given ethnic association to promote the inclusion of its members in the political community of the host society. As elements of PIP, the article examines associational-level political activity as well as support and mobilisation of individual members, and analyses how the former may be induced by the latter. Furthermore, the article tries to explain why some types of organisations do better than others in these respects. It finds that size and diversification of associations have an important impact on PIP, thus explaining observed differences between associations of the ethnic categories included in this study.
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