Politics Feeds Back: The Minority/Majority Turnout Gap and Citizenship in Anti-Immigrant Times

Abstract

Voting is a democratic virtue and an important mechanism for citizens to let their voices be heard. However, citizens do not participate in politics at equal levels, with consequences for their political power. While turnout gaps between different socioeconomic groups are well researched, the biggest gap in many Western European countries today has been overlooked: that between the children of immigrants (minority youths) and the majority population. I argue that existing theories fall short in addressing this gap because they do not attend to the distinctly political forces that shape citizens’ relationships to politics. Building on the policy-feedback literature, and analyzing seventy-one in-depth interviews with minority and majority youths in Denmark, I show that because these groups are targeted very differently in policy and political discourse, they have substantially different conceptions of politics and their status as citizens. Many minority youths react to anti-immigrant political messages by dissociating from politics, but I warn against interpreting their quiescence as political apathy. Instead, dissociating from politics can be a strategy to reclaim power over their self-understanding and can be experienced as empowering. These findings challenge classic conceptualizations of political engagement and open discussion about how to understand political behavior in increasingly diverse societies.

Non-citizen voting rights and political participation of citizens: evidence from Switzerland

“…When looking at our estimation removing between canton differences, all things considered, compared to the period before the introduction of NCV rights, citizens have reported as having participated in 0.45 more polls (or an increase of 4.5 percentage points participation in polls) when NCV rights are introduced (see Model 2). Next, Table 2 also reveals that CIBs report lower participation when compared with NCs, in line with earlier work (Jones-Correa, 2001;Bird et al, 2011;Simonsen, 2020). Compared to NCs, CIBs report about 0.45 less federal poll participation (see Model 2), equivalent to about 4.5 percentage points fewer polls.…”

“…As robustness checks, we also explicitly model and study the political partisanship and share of foreigners in the municipality of residence. Notably, the presence of strong anti-immigration rhetoric and radical right-wing discourses are shown to suppress the minority vote (Simonsen, 2020). Using data from the results of the legislative elections within our observation period (OFS, 2019a), we control for the share percentage of the vote for the dominant radical-right party in Switzerland (Swiss People's Party SVP) in each municipality and report no change in our main findings, see Table A26.…”

“…The pervasive decline of voter turnout rates in many advanced democracies and the social and political tensions that this trend poses have been well-documented in contemporary political science research (Blais and Rubenson, 2012). Adding to this, today, weak electoral mobilisation among voters with immigration or minority backgrounds further challenges principles of democratic governance (Simonsen, 2020;Bevelander and Hutcheson, 2021). Crucially, the systematic political disengagement among these groups raises serious questions about the quality of democratic representation in host societies (Blatter et al, 2017).…”

Who's a good citizen? Status and power in minority and majority youths' conceptions of citizenship

“…That the political citizen ideal is a privileged ideal is underlined by the fact that it was expressed more by youths whose parents are employed (compared to youths with one unemployed parent). 4 Finally, privilege is reflected in the fact that the political citizen ideal relies on a conviction of having power to affect society and politics: The experience of being capable of and entitled to political influence, which is part of the political citizen ideal, was less prevalent among minority youths in the study; an observation which may contribute to understanding the minority/majority turnout gap in Denmark (Simonsen, 2021). More generally, the subscription to the political citizen ideal among a substantial segment of majority youths, and the near absence of this ideal among minority youths, gives the impression of strong agency among the former group.…”

“…The experience of being capable of and entitled to political influence, which is part of the political citizen ideal, was less prevalent among minority youths in the study; an observation which may contribute to understanding the minority/majority turnout gap in Denmark (Simonsen, 2021). More generally, the subscription to the political citizen ideal among a substantial segment of majority youths, and the near absence of this ideal among minority youths, gives the impression of strong agency among the former group.…”