”Tänk om alla andra invandrare var lika duktiga som du” : Sju invandrare om drivkrafter, möjligheter och hinder i ett partipolitiskt engagemang

The main purpose of this study is to explain why immigrants engage in party politics and examine the possibilities and difficulties emigrants with a position of trust meet in party politics. To fulfil the purpose, four questions have been raised and addressed. 1) Which motives and incentives can explain immigrants’ engagement in party politics? 2) Do immigrants meet some kind of barriers in party politics, and if so, which are they? 3) Do immigrants need any specific qualities to influence politics? 4) What can be learnt from immigrants’ engagement in party politics to secure a multi-cultural party politics? As the questions imply, this paper is delimited at an individual level and adopt a qualitative approach. Furthermore, I implement a qualitative approach, where the theoretical framework and empirical literature are combined with interviews. The findings of this study are that immigrants are driven to engage in party politics preferably by idealistic motives; specifically they want to influence politics and society in aspects of integration. Additional vital motives are the social interaction between the members, followed by information, personal satisfaction, and knowledge and career opportunities. In most cases, immigrants meet barriers such as communications impediments, mainly based on cultural differences. Furthermore, immigrants have to adopt a special political jargon and certain norms and principles. Together they seem to constitute guiding principles on how to act in party politics. These barriers are also mechanisms that immigrants need to adapt to in order to influence politics. Furthermore, immigrants have to contend with discrimination and stereotypes. Finally, we can assume that direct democracy and deliberative democracy can contribute to a better integration of immigrants in party politics