Systems of Immigrant Incorporation and Descriptive Political Representation

This paper addresses the extent to which the political opportunity structure (POS) in European democracies affects the outcomes of descriptive political representation of citizens of immigrant origin (CIO) in national parliaments. The paper focuses on comparatively examining the type of policies that European host countries adopted in order to accommodate diversity. It further discusses how implementing specific institutional and policy settings might alter the chances of CIOs of securing access to elected offices. Specifically, we study the main aspects of the model of immigrant integration through a wide range of contextual factors - the citizenship regime, the legal framework through which the host countries encourage immigrants’ active engagement in the political arena, the policy measures implemented in the field of anti-discrimination, and the existence of consultative bodies - which might help to explain cross-countries variations in the levels of political representation of CIOs