Political Integration through Ethnic or Nonethnic Voluntary Associations?

Strömblad, Per; Adman, Per

doi:10.1177/1065912909341539

Cited by 26 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Do the same socio-economic and demographic individual characteristics that lead natives to enter politics also matter for immigrants? Prior research on immigrant-origin populations finds that age, education, income, and employment are significant predictors of political participation, though these variables do not perform as reliably among immigrants as they do among natives (e.g., Fennema and Tillie 1999, Ramakrishnan 2005, Strömblad and Adman 2010).…”

Section: Existing Research On Immigrant Political Representationmentioning

confidence: 98%

Why Are Immigrants Underrepresented in Politics? Evidence from Sweden

et al. 2015

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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.

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Section: Existing Research On Immigrant Political Representationmentioning

confidence: 98%

Why Are Immigrants Underrepresented in Politics? Evidence from Sweden

et al. 2015

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“…Moreover, membership in voluntary associations has a positive effect on local political participation among Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese, and Antillean immigrants in the Netherlands, while the results from Denmark and Belgium are less consistent across different ethnic groups. Surveying immigrants in Sweden, one study found that the effects of voluntary associations on minority political participation depend on the type of association (Strömblad & Adman, 2010). While voluntary associations encourage non-electoral political activities among immigrants, associations based on ethnic origin do not.…”

Section: Resource-based Models Of Political Participation Among Minormentioning

confidence: 99%

Race, Ethnicity, and Political Behavior

Just¹

2017

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics

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and KeywordsWhether as a consequence of colonialism or more recent international migration, ethnic diversity has become a prominent feature of many contemporary democracies. Given the importance of ethnicity in structuring people's identities, scholars have sought to incorporate ethnicity in their models of people's political behavior. Studies focusing on individual support for group interests among ethnic minority members find that higher socioeconomic status generally leads to a reduced emphasis on ethnicity in forming individual political opinions. However, this relationship is often considerably weaker among ethnic minorities with frequent experiences of discrimination, pessimistic assessments of equal opportunities in a country, and social pressures from group members to comply with group norms. Research also shows that, in comparison to majority populations, members of ethnic minorities are generally less active in politics, more likely to use contentious forms of political action, and support left-wing political parties that promote minority interests. Key explanations of differences between ethnic minorities and majorities in Western democracies focus on the importance of individual and group resources as well as political empowerment via representation in policymaking institutions, usually enabled by higher shares of minority populations within electoral districts.

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“…Voluntary associations' mobilizing role has also been supported by evidence from research on migrant political participation (Leighley and Vedlitz 1999;Leighley 2001;Strömblad and Adman 2011). While such studies have tried to disentangle the impact of different variables specified by prominent theories of participation, we still know little about which mechanism is responsible for the linkage between associational involvement and political participation among migrants.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Trust, Identity, Skills, or Recruitment?: Assessing Four Explanations of the Relationship between Associational Involvement and the Political Participation of Migrants

Giugni

Grasso

2019

International Migration Review

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This article investigates the nature of the relationship between associational involvement and migrant political participation. We explore the extent to which empirical evidence supports the mechanisms proposed by four popular theories in the political participation literature: social capital, group consciousness, civic voluntarism, and mobilization theory. To do so, we employ a mediation-effect approach with data from random samples of migrants in four European cities. Our results show that associational membership mainly operates through a direct effect stressing organizations’ role as agents of mobilization and that associational membership and the links that migrants forge in these associations are crucial for their political engagement. The evidence presented shows that the mobilizing role of voluntary associations — not their role in developing trust, furthering group identity, or providing skills — remains the key to understanding why such organizations spur migrant political participation.

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Political Integration through Ethnic or Nonethnic Voluntary Associations?

Cited by 26 publications

References 18 publications

Why Are Immigrants Underrepresented in Politics? Evidence from Sweden

Why Are Immigrants Underrepresented in Politics? Evidence from Sweden

Race, Ethnicity, and Political Behavior

Trust, Identity, Skills, or Recruitment?: Assessing Four Explanations of the Relationship between Associational Involvement and the Political Participation of Migrants

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