Understanding support for immigrant political representation: evidence from German cities

ABSTRACT

Immigrant-origin residents are under-represented in many West European legislatures, and this is often seen as a problem for democratic legitimacy. Yet little is known about the level of demand for immigrant-origin political representation, whether among immigrant-origin residents or among non-migrants. We present new evidence from surveys in German cities, and examine factors that may explain variation in the desire for migrant-origin political representation. We show that there is considerable support, both among those with and among those without immigrant backgrounds. However, this is not always linked to a voting preference for migrant-origin candidates. Support for migrant-origin political representation turns out to be a multifaceted phenomenon. In order to understand support for the political representation of migrant-origin residents, scholars need to look beyond migrant-origin voters. Our results also suggest that scholars should study the issue of migrant-origin political representation in the context of wider conflicts over cosmopolitan versus nationalist values, and inclusive versus exclusive political institutions.

KEYWORDS:

• Political representation
• immigrant political incorporation
• local politics
• Germany
• diversity

Acknowledgements

Daniel Volkert helped design and collect data for this project. The survey on which this study is based was financed by the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. We are grateful for feedback from panellists at the 2015 Council of European Studies annual meeting in Paris.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability

The survey data for this paper and a copy of the code used to calculate results will be submitted to the GESIS digital archive within three months of first publication.

Notes

1 A brief note on terminology. In line with sociological evidence on the multi-generational dynamics of immigration and integration, and in line with official and public discourse in Germany, we focus on “people with a migration background” (Migrationshintergrund). These are first and second generation migrants. Since this phrase is unwieldy, we refer to ‘migrant-origin’ residents, as compared to ‘non-migrants’ who do not have an immediate family history of migration.

2 According to the Federal Statistical Office,

the population group with a migration background consists of all persons who have immigrated into the territory of today’s Federal Republic of Germany after 1949, and of all foreigners born in Germany and all persons born in Germany who have at least one parent who immigrated into the country or was born as a foreigner in Germany. The migration status of a person is determined based on his/her own characteristics regarding immigration, naturalisation and citizenship and the relevant characteristics of his/her parents. (Statistisches Bundesamt 2014)

3 As of 2014, 29% of those in cities with over 100,000 people (Statistisches Bundesamt 2015, 50).

4 The total immigrant-origin population is 16.4 million. Of these, 9.2 million are German citizens. The country is also home to 3.1 million EU citizens. See Statistisches Bundesamt (2015, 82–93). Note, though, that detailed numbers are not available for those entitled to vote.

5 For example, there is no significant difference in average responses to the question of whether ‘Politicians in [city] try to represent the interests of the population,’ comparing residents without (p = 0.53) or with (p = 0.55) migrant backgrounds in our cities to the distributions of responses from people with and without migration background across the 16 German cities in the Diversity and Contact survey (see Schönwälder et al. 2016).

6 In particular, it would be desirable to study the effects of systems that allow preferential votes for individual candidates. Such systems exist in a number of the German states.

7 These numbers are based on analyses at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity based on the names and birthplaces of city councillors, and on surveys or interviews where this was necessary to verify an immigrant background (see Schönwälder, Sinanoglu, and Volkert 2011).

8 We obtain substantively similar results when we include the items separately rather than as an index.

9 We also see modest differences across immigrant generations; we opt not to focus on these in this paper. Second generation migrants are neither more nor less likely to say they would prefer to vote for migrant-origin politicians, or that they would like to see more migrant-origin political leaders. Second generation migrants are somewhat more likely to say their interests would be better represented if there were more migrant politicians (p = 0.03), but slightly less likely to say that only German interests are represented (p = 0.01). The differences across outcome measures are much bigger than those across generations.  For instance, 70% of first-generation and 68% of second-generation respondents say they would prefer to see more immigrant-origin politicians in leading roles.  In contrast, 20% of first-generation and 14% of second-generation respondents say that at present only German interests are represented, rather than the interests of all city residents.