Heterogenous Electorates? Attitudes and Vote Choice Among Immigrants and Natives

• In Event: Immigrant Political Participation and Voter Behavior in Host Societies

Abstract

Important immigrant populations represent a major challenge in most Western European democracies. Especially when combined with an expansion of suffrage to non-citizens, significant immigrant populations contain the potential of shifting the socio-political landscape in Europe. Against this background, surprising little is known about immigrants’ political attitudes and how they relate to their voting behavior. In this paper, I argue that not only do political preferences differ between immigrants and natives when looking at three policy dimensions but that immigrant vote choice is differently motivated than native electoral behavior. Using data from the European Social Survey across 16 European democracies, I find evidence that spatial voting theory seems to apply differently to minority voters compared to natives. Contrarily to native voters, immigrants' attitudes in the immigration dimension trumps their attitudes on economic and cultural policies in terms of importance for vote choice. I contend that these differences in the link between attitudes and vote choice raise important questions about parties’ mobilization strategies of such heterogeneous electorates and, consequently, their political representation and integration.

Author

• Anna-Lena Nadler