The Political Discussion Networks of Immigrants and Native Born Voters

Despite that fact that political discussion has become a more common topic of research in political science, and despite the fact that immigrants have begun to comprise a larger portion of the United States population, the content and effect of immigrant political discussion networks have not yet been examined. In this paper we examine whether engaging in political discussion is a means by which to encourage immigrants to participate in political activities. Our evidence shows that while immigrants are as likely as native born citizens to engage in political discussions, immigrants are less likely to share politically-relevant information during such conversations. Further analysis shows that immigrants are less likely to exchange information because they have weaker political predispositions than native born citizens. As a consequence, the relationship between political talk and political participation is not statistically significant for immigrants, suggesting that political discussion is not a sufficient means by which to encourage foreign born citizens to participate in civil society