Mechanisms of Exclusion Ethnicity and Representation in Sweden: Local Party Nominations

Transcription

1 Mechanisms of Exclusion Ethnicity and Representation in Sweden: Local Party Nominations Maritta Soininen, Ph.D. Associate professor Department of Political Science University of Stockholms Stockholm Sweden Tel: maritta.soininen@statsvet.su.se Not for circulation or citation without the permission of the author. Paper presented at the ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops, Helsinki 7 12 May Workshop 21, Migration and Representation in Parliamentary Democracies 1

2 Introduction The ongoing de territorialisation of work, economics and politics forces democratic institutions to deal with a new kind of socio political landscape. Migration, migrant populations and new ethnic minorities are a crucial part of this development and raise the question of formal and substantial political rights for these minority groups and their equal right to political representation. The paper discusses different approaches to the problem of lack of equality in political participation and representation and highlights the workings of political institutions, and in particular the political parties, in how they perform from an integration policy perspective. Its empirical focus is on the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion of immigrant minorities in Swedish political parties, and more precisely on the internal nomination of candidates and decision about the party list. It discusses how the institutionalised recruitment routines and values, and interest conflicts, surrounding candidate nominations and how they affect the immigrant minority representation. Unlike much of the work on political participation and the numerical representation of ethnic minorities in the political constituencies, this study takes as its point of departure recent organisational developments in Swedish political parties, and especially in how the management rationale of effectiveness and efficiency guides their actions. The organisational shift from political parties being mass parties towards becoming electoral parties also influences their capacity to include diversity and ethnic minorities in the party organisation and to get nominated to political posts. Another important development that has a general impact on the ideological and political orientation of the parties and more precisely how they handle the issue of immigrant under representation, is the increasing political polarisation around the multicultural/ ethnic order in Swedish politics as in rest of the Europe. The question the paper raises is how the institutionalised informal and formal rules that the parties apply in recruitment processes undermine or alternatively enhance the equal possibilities for immigrants to be proposed as candidate nominees and to get ranked on the draft party list. 2

3 What is the problem with immigrant minority representation? Political parties and immigrant representation It is difficult to image the representative democracy of today without a vital party system that aggregates and channels the interests of its citizenry. However, the increasing internationalisation and de territorialisation of work, economy and politics creates new challenges for the political parties as key actors in the representative democracy. Not only is politics formulated by multiple actors on new multiple arenas and contexts, from national and local to international and regional contexts, resulting in growing uncertainty in political decision making (Scholte 2005), it also results in groups that are excluded from democratic political influence, either because they lack formal political rights due to international migration, or, in the case they are guaranteed formal political rights, find it hard to implement them in practice. Responses to these changing conditions for representative democracy due to globalisation and internationalisation have included, among other things, suggestions for introducing new forms of cosmopolitan democracy ( Held 1995; Dryzek 2000), with arrangements for representative democracy on other than national state level. Although this might remedy some of the problems, such as the lack of accountability or lack of predictability due to the multiple contexts and actors involved, it still does not come to terms with the new inequality immigrants experience when lacking substantial equal political rights and equal representation. The new political inequality, in terms of the difficulties the immigrants face to gain political influence, is, then, a contemporary problem that is part of a wider democracy problem. As a result of these developments, the Swedish party system, although historically characterised by stability and continuity, faces emerging patterns of political inequality among the Swedish citizenry and denizenry not based on social class cleavages but on cleavages in ethnic terms. Given the historical background of the Swedish party system this situation obviously puts a great deal of adaptational pressure on the political party organisations to adjust to and to cope with contemporary diverse society. The question is how the political parties go about performing their traditional central functions, to recruit and socialise members and nominees, and to channel and aggregate interests in a society that on the one hand celebrates individualism, difference and internationalisation and on the other hand includes new groups with poor possibilities to enjoy equal political influence. 3

4 Problems of political inequality in Sweden The Swedish research on minority political participation and representation shows distinct gaps between the levels of electoral participation, party membership and representation in political constituencies, between the native born Swedes and those with immigrant minority background. Moreover, when we look at the recent investigations, we see that this gap has tended to widen (Adman & Strömblad 2000). The problem of ethnic minority under representation is of course not a specific characteristic of Swedish political life but a general problem in Western politics (Norris & Lovenduski 1995; Solomos & Back 1995; Rushanera & O Cinneide 2002). Political parties face a new task in today s increasingly multicultural and ethnically diverse societies; it is not only about managing the representation of traditional class interests but also about being able to represent, aggregate and channel a much wider interest representation in a society as the political mobilisation is increasingly based on new combating conflict lines; not least on ethnicity and race, religion and gender but also on sexual orientation. Indeed, it is easy to argue why the political parties could, through offering a shared platform for a dialogue around key political, ethical and moral values even play a more vital role in today s diverse societies than in culturally more homogenous societies. What is then the response of the Swedish political parties on the ongoing internalisation and globalisation of politics? What do they do about it? Interestingly enough, when facing the new conditions, the political parties belong, according to later studies, to those organisations in a society that are least influenced by the internationalisation of politics; instead they keep safely to the national political arenas (Ahrne, Rydgren & Sörbom 2005). Another factor is that Swedish political parties have successively become more exclusive as the numbers of active party members decline (Petersson 2000, eds)). The increasing difficulties in mobilising and recruiting new members, will according to present calculations based on the falling membership numbers (even if perhaps exaggerated) result in the last party member of a Swedish political party leaving by 2017 (Petersson 2005). Individuals and resources Although integration, including political integration, takes time research results clearly indicate that factors like the length of the stay in Sweden, labour market status or knowledge in Swedish language, only have a very limited capacity to statistically explain the 4

5 differences in immigrant and native political participation and representation (Teorell & Westholm 1999). An interesting question is how the policy making, public discourse and social science research are closely interrelated. In particular, this question could be said to be even more interesting when we discuss the problems that are related to how to implement substantial equal political rights. It is not only the case that we as researchers choose to study social problems because there is a public understanding that something should be done about them. The influence goes in the opposite direction; Our choices of approaches to conceptualise and make sense of a current societal problem often have an important impact on the public discourse, and through them guide and legitimate the problem framing that underlies the political action taken. The research helps to provide and legitimate an understanding of what the real problem is, how it could be addressed and which kind of political measures appear to be adequate and appropriate. Seen in that perspective, our theoretical and methodological choices are not only an internal issue for the research community, they have an important bearing on public policy making, if not always immediately then in a longer time perspective. A closely related issue is that, although there is a variety of concurring approaches and theoretical perspectives, instead of seeing diversity as something enriching, and also as something that reminds us about the relative and contextual value of different approaches, we tend to take the fight for one or another approach as being the only right way to address the problem at hand. More specifically, the different theoretical understandings of political exclusion, can be expected to influence the everyday political framing of the under representation of immigrant minorities, in the public debate. The question is then what kind of political consequences different perspectives might have? The SES, Socio Economic Status Model, has historically been the dominating approach to study of political participation and representation (Almind & Verba 1963; Verba & Nie 1972; Brady, Verba & Schlozman 1995). Therefore, it has naturally also largely influenced the political science research on immigrant political participation. The explanation for differences in and patterns of political participation are here sought in individuals different access to social and political resources; these include both material and social resources, like income, education, time, administrative and other skills and competencies. Also the normative orientations of the 5

6 individual play en important role. It is of central value that he or she has been socialised to have a positive orientation towards political participation and political institutions as well as that he or she has trust in politicians, political institutions and her/his capacity to influence political decision makers. Access to such resources is in other words an important explanation for those differences in political participation that we can observe between different groups in a society. The SES Model has logically taken a central role in studies of immigrant and minority participation as the research in this area has naturally been incorporated into the broader research tradition; to explain differences in levels of political activity, between immigrant minorities and the majority, and between different immigrant minority groups. In the Swedish context, this means that explanations for immigrant exclusion from the political arena have been sought in circumstances like the status in the labour market, status as labour or refugee migrant, civil status, membership in majority and minority organisations, media consumption, not to mention the length of stay in Sweden, citizenship and education ( Bäck & Soininen 1992, 1996, 2004; Teorell &Westholm 1999; Adman & Strömblad 2000). In short, the lack of different kinds of resources from normative orientations to social and material resources will explain the lower levels of electoral participation, party membership and under representation in political constituencies among the immigrants, when compared with the majority population. A special kind resource is ethnic group identity and belonging. Leighley and Vedlitz ( 1999) have paid attention to minority ethnicity based resources promoting the ethnic group identity and belonging that have been shown to have a positive impact on levels of minority participation, through contributing to political mobilisation among the minority members. Social capital and culture are other kind of factors that can help us to understand variations in activity levels between the ethnic majority members and immigrant minorities. The political cultures do differ, and while in some of place more stress on political compromising, this does not need to be the case in other cultures (Togeby 2003). In a recent Swedish study on immigrant participation in organisations and associations, the results revealed that individuals access to social networks, besides the level of knowledge and interest, were the most decisive factors behind the membership in organisations (Borevi & Strömblad 2004). Furthermore, the findings from research on the Swedish political parties and their efforts to mobilise immigrant voters in the 2002 election, showed that networking between the representatives of the immigrant 6

7 associations and the local political parties, was seen as a factor having a positive mobilisation effect on immigrant involvement in local politics (Bäck & Soininen 2004). Political consequences of the resource approach What can we say about the political consequences of the theoretical models that take their point of departure in factors like individuals resources, either material, cultural or social, as main explanatory variables? I would like to problematise the resource perspective on immigrant political participation and how it leads us to a number of politically interesting conclusions. First, when the problem of inequality in political activity and influence and underrepresentation of members of immigrant minorities among elected politicians is in the first place conceptualised in terms of access to resources of different kind, this then also informs the solutions to inequality. Naturally, the political solution at hand is to provide the individuals and groups that lack behind with adequate resources, from technical and political information to those training skills and capacities that are needed to be politically active, and to influence the individual attitudes and norms in a direction that affects positively political activity. For instance, the Swedish the government regularly allocates funding for electoral information campaigns directed to immigrant groups (Bäck & Soininen 2004). The resource solution can then said to be very much in the heart of the general welfare policies. The societal problems can be best solved or if not at least regulated through allocating material and other resources to narrow the social gaps and in doing so to contribute to regulating potential social conflicts. In such a perspective, the welfare of political participation is part of the general welfare policies. Such a policy aims to strengthen the individual political resources. Therefore it is easy to view it as a positive, consensus oriented, solution that does not challenge any of the central values or institutions in society. This also guarantees it broad political support. I would like to argue that there are two problems with this politically smooth approach. First, in the public debate the lack of adequate resources explanations for political exclusion of women, immigrants or other minorities, often tend to produce negative identity politics (Connolly 1991). In other words, the target groups for policy measures are in the first place identified in terms of the problems they have, and the resources they lack. In short, 7

8 immigrants are not integrated enough to be politically active or women are not ambitious enough to pursue careers. In that way, such groups are easily attributed less positive qualities in opposition to what are seen as socially highly valued qualities. Moreover, especially in the case of persons with immigrant background, generalisations are easily made about all immigrants, although the empirical results actually may cover a sample of immigrant groups. A part of the picture is that often, the main emphasis is put on differences between categories immigrants and native Swedes, in that way actively constructing these groups, even though more detailed analysis reveals that the in group variation is far higher than variation between categories. Finally, in political perspective when discussing political inequality in terms of access to individual resources, there is the risk of blaming the victim. Certainly, the resource approaches are needed, among other things to evaluate the effects of different public policy measures. It is only when they are used unreflexively to contribute to negative identity politics that they become a political problem. A different but central problem with the resource approach is that although it relies on political solutions on the inequality problem, it misses the question of political institutions. It leaves un problematised the workings of political institutions, and how their rules and routines might contribute to political inequality in a society. The institutional turn Instead of focusing on the individual resources, or rather the lack of them as the main explanatory variable to immigrant participation and representation, other approaches have been introduced that in the first place highlight the effects the political and social institutions have on activity levels. Examples of this kind of studies include research on how the electoral systems influence the immigrant minority participation. For instance, the candidate centred electoral system in Denmark makes it relatively easy for immigrant nominees in local elections to get elected (Togeby 2003). Similar results are reported from Norway, and especially from the local elections in the city of Oslo, where the combination of the electoral system, together with an active role of immigrant associations, has contributed to a high level of minority representation (Brochmann & Rogstad 2005). Also in Sweden it has been possible to see some positive effects of 1998 electoral reform that introduced a system of modified person vote alongside the party vote, on immigrant 8

9 participation (Bäck & Soininen 1999). This contributed to increased political mobilisation around immigrant candidates in immigrant minority groups. A related but more central question is the intensified mobilisation around the multiethnic order in today s diverse societies. It is an issue that is closely related to the representation of social interests and the role of different group interests in politics, and how this is regulated institutionally. The mobilisation around the multiethnic order is manifested among other things in how the xenophobic right wing parties have successively become a significant element in European and also in Swedish politics. For instance in Sweden, in 2006 the Sverigedemokraterna won seats in around one third of the local constituencies, and in many cases they have played a key role because neither any of the two main blocs, socialist and non socialist, gained enough electoral support to be in a majority. More generally, as part of this increasing mobilisation the established political parties have successively taken a more restrictive approach to issues of immigration and integration. The institutionalised understandings about the political conflict lines have had an impact on our way of conceptualising contemporary political problems. So, the low participation of immigrants in politics is understood as an immigrant issue and is in the dominant public discourse conceptualised as a socio economic problem of integration, the right wing xenophobic and anti immigration mobilisation is viewed as a deviation/exception from normal and as regards minority ethnicity neutral politics. The argument here is that there is risk that this kind of conceptualisation of the problem contributes to concealing the fact that both the immigrant absence in politics as a result of lack of substantial equal political representation and the growing presence of xenophobic streams in politics, are two sides of the same coin of political mobilisation around the issue of multiethnic order. Rather, both the political marginalisation and the anti immigrant and immigration mobilisation can be seen as constituting a larger pattern of a political conflict lines. Seen from that perspective, institutional solutions like the party internal arrangements that regulate the nomination process and affect minority ethnic representation can be viewed as forms of political mobilisation. 9

10 The political parties consequences of the institutional development for immigrant representation How to understand political parties as organisations Is it possible that some specific aspects of established organisational rules will result in unintended discrimination of minority members? The answers to such empirical questions can be found through scrutinising the standard operating procedures, the operation of routines and rules that guide the activities in the party organisations. Some organisational rules, although valuable for the party organisation, might contribute to the unintended exclusion of minority members. The political parties are usually studied as special kind of organisations in their own right, not to be compared with other private and public organisations. The following discussion however takes a different view, and the party organisations are rather seen in the light of the new institutional organisation theory (Immergut 1998; Hall & Taylor 1996; Meyer, Boli & Thomas 1994; Powell & DiMaggio 1991). Therefore the focus is not on how they diverge from other public and private organisations, but instead on what they have in common with them. The argument here is that the Swedish party organisations not only share the general developments with but to a high degree also the problems facing modern organisations, and that this has effects on their ambitions, capacities and powers to promote equality in political representation. In short, in the Swedish public sector the relatively rapid organisational development during the last two decades, has resulted in new organisational forms and roles seen the day light. For example, the public administration has been largely informed by policy ideas like New Public Management, stressing as leading values effectiveness, efficiency, result evaluation and relying on different kind market or quasi market solutions (RRV 1996:50). There has been a promise of more cost effective production of public services. One consequence has been an adaptation of typical business sector solutions like downsizing and outsourcing, in order to trim the organisational activities to concentrate on core production areas. In fact, the public organisations, as well as political party organisations, belong to an organisational field, where as open systems they continuously interact with other private and public organisations, through the exchange of resources, personnel and ideas (Scott 2003). In such a theoretical perspective (DiMaggio 1988; Scott 1995) we can describe the political parties as being part of the private public organisational field; they share the ideas of what is seen an appropriate or less appropriate way to take action, and what is understood as 10

11 reasonable solutions to problems and how to measure success. What the organisational theory explains in particular, is how, in aiming to develop their own activities, the organisations use techniques that imitate other, more successful organisations (Sahlin Andersson 1992). This is especially the case when an organisation is facing a problematic period in its own development (Hatch 2002). How does this help us to understand the political party organisations? During the last decade or two the debate on current democracy problems has in Sweden particularly focused on the problems of the party system. The falling electoral participation, and the fact that smaller numbers of citizens are willing to engage in party activities, makes it more difficult for the parties to fill their key channelling function between the decision makers and citizens (Gidlund & Möller 1999). For example, the number of active party members was three times higher during the 1960s than 1990s (Petersson 2000, eds). In the public debate, the shrinking numbers of party members are frequently interpreted as an expression of lack of trust in politicians (Petersson ). A part of this problematic scenario is that while the party activity does not appear to be an attractive alternative, other forms of political participation are; the average citizen is both knowledgeable and critical, and the political activity in different kind of (quasi) political organisations is relatively high. Especially among young people there is a growing interest in more deliberative forms of policy dialogue, and new forms of political communication (Micheletti 2005). The slimmed and trimmed party organisation is today even less independent of its members than before. The membership fees comprise around ten percent of the budget of the party organisations (SOU 2004:22). Instead, the financial support by the state which is directly related to a party s electoral success makes percent of the party budget. This means in practice that a political party organisation has not much to gain through recruitment of new members. It is more rational to put efforts into electoral campaigns that can secure the number of seats, the financial situation and political powers, than to allocate resources on campaigns to recruit new members. So, the lack of economical incitements for parties to recruit new members is even more obvious when it comes to such socially heterogeneous groups like immigrant minority groups; they are regarded by the political parties as even more costly to reach both as voters and as recruits (Bäck & Soininen 2004). One result of these developments is that the social make up of parties show an 11

12 ageing organisation (Petersson 2000, eds), with an under representation of women and persons with immigrant background. I the case of immigrants the gap has even widened to some extent (Adman & Strömblad 2000). Unsurprisingly the groups that are instead over represented among the party members include retired and middle aged persons, men, middle class people and entrepreneurs (Petersson 2000, eds; Gidlund & Möller 1999). Seen against this background the under representation of immigrants seems to be a logical consequence of the general organisational developments of the political parties. Still, there might be other mechanisms that could make it difficult for them to become involved in party activities. The identity of a party organisation might lead to both direct and institutional discrimination of potential immigrant members. A number of factors indicate that the party organisations have become more closed. Although the Swedish parties still have relatively active organisations, there has been a clear shift in how they are run. The image of party organisations is of an increasingly professional organisation where the highly skilled employed staff runs the party activities, rather than relying on contributions by active members. This professional turn means that the number of employees at central level has grown rapidly, many of them working with media and public opinion issues (Nord 2004). The weakened party loyalties of the electorate mean that the opinion building processes play an important role and that the parties have become more opinion market oriented in their strategies (Nord 2004). The professional identity tends then to give rise to we and them thinking, widening the gap between the members and the professional top in charge of the organisation. So, as electoral parties they are more campaign oriented, prioritising work on media strategies. The development has been described as one in which parties have abdicated from their central task to mobilise, recruit and socialise new members, which also means that they do not fill the central socialisation function, to strengthen social contacts, integration and trust (Petersson 2000, eds). This latter kind of political work is of course more important for groups like immigrants who are not part of already established social networks. In an historical perspective there is a parallel to the role the Social Democratic mobilisation and socialisation activities has played for the working class people. To the extent that the party organisations have become more closed to average citizens it is not difficult to imagine how that threshold can seem even higher for immigrants who 12

13 seldom have role models with immigrant background among the members or the staff. Not only is the party identity one of a successful and politically effective organisation. The party identity moreover has its historical layers. The identity of the Swedish political parties is also defined in their historical, national context which has been in the first place based on the shared ideal of ethically homogenous demos. The state policies against old Swedish minorities like Same people and the Finnish speaking minority in Tornedalen are expressions for the historically established identity policy (Mörkenstam 1999; Municio 1993). To the extent that such an ethnically exclusive majority identity is still a central element in party identity, it automatically has discriminatory effects on persons with minority ethnic background. This does not mean that the party organisations would openly be negative. Far from it, they can be most welcoming to potential immigrant members and sometimes even make special efforts to reach to immigrant groups. The question is rather about the difficulties that potential immigrant members face when trying to identify with or represent an organisation that in its identity signals ethnic homogeneity as a norm. In more concrete terms, the expressions for what is experienced as the normal shared identity in the party organisation in practice also often includes more or less open prejudicial attitudes from jokes to more serious statements towards other cultures and minority ethnicities (Dahlstedt 2000, 2005; Soininen & Etzler 2006) The identity of the party organisation may have discriminatory effects. For immigrants, it is difficult to identify with an organisation that is prejudicial about their ethnicity. As members they would meet attitudes that can be experienced as harassment, and in order to be able to uphold a positive social identity, it is then better to stay outside of such an organisation. Self elimination is a very effective mechanism of social exclusion. It is also important to say that several Swedish political parties have taken action to recruit immigrants. However, the positive effects of such temporary measures can easily be counteracted by the less visible but negative effects of dominating institutional routines. To conclude, this short overview over the institutional arrangements of the Swedish political parties shows that we can identity a number of barriers that are disadvantageous for immigrants and make it thus difficult to pave the way for more equal political representation. 13

14 Exploring the effects the nomination processes on immigrant minority representation In what ways do the informal and formal guidelines and routines affect the selection of nominees and there possibilities to get ranked so high on the party list that they have a chance to get elected to a political position? The following discussion will first look at the process of putting forwards names of potential candidates, second at rules that influence the ranking of the nominated candidates on the party draft list and finally the decision about the party list, suggested by the nomination committee, and the overall role of the nomination committee. First a few words about the empirical results. They refer to a study of seven local party organisations and their nomination committees, in two Swedish cities, Örebro and Malmö, more in detail reported in Partierna nominerar (Soininen & Etzler 2006). The results are based on interviews with representatives for candidate nominee committees in local elections in these two municipalities, as well as on existing documentation around the nomination processes. The study covered all the main political parties that are represented in the Swedish parliament; the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, the Centre Party, the Green Party, and the Left party and the Social Democratic party. The results from local party organisations show important similarities as regards the nomination processes and how the party organisations dealt with immigrant representation. Therefore, the focus here will be on these shared patterns and not on differences between the parties, or the two municipalities. What you need to get nominated the criteria for recruitment and selection of nominees The nominee committees, or selectorates, that are in charge of the party internal work surrounding the nomination of candidates, decide about the party draft list and the ranking of the nominees, from top candidates to those far down on the list with little chance to win a political position. Given that the Swedish electoral system is party centred, i e that the vote in election is in the first place a vote for the list the party has decided, and not for a specific candidate, the party list plays a central role for the outcome of the election. The 1998 electoral reform in Sweden introduced the possibility to tick for a special candidate on the party list, and thereby to change the ranking order. In practice, however, a candidate must get a considerable number of such individual votes in order get elected on these 14

15 personal votes. In the local election the limit was put on 5 percent of the party votes. The reform was later on evaluated as a half hearted one, it made a marginal difference to the old system and only few voters used this new possibility to vote for a person (Holmberg & Möller 1999;). Thus, the institutional arrangement of the central role given to the party list in the Swedish politics makes it even more important to scrutinize those party internal processes that result in the party list. What were the most important qualities for a good candidate as described by representatives for the nomination committees? Could some of these qualities be more difficult for an immigrant party member to reach in order to be put forward as a potential nominee? Or, can we claim that some of the criteria would be favourable for this category of potential nominees? The 14 interviewed representatives for the internal nomination committees brought up group membership, social representation, as one of the central qualities that have become increasingly important. Next, personal qualities also count. Here the stress is put on among other things the media performance of the potential candidate. Given how the political parties put increasing focus on the opinion building processes through the media, as we earlier mentioned, it is easy to understand why the nominee committees stress the mediality of an potential nominee as an important selection criteria. Although this requirement could for a number of reasons expected to be disadvantageous for potential immigrant nominees, it could also be the case that to be a different kind of candidate might be highly valued by the media. Moreover, the qualification of having a long experience of internal party political work has become less important, although the requirement of having a formal party membership is still strong, in order to get nominated, according to the representatives for the local nomination committees. Generally, the attitude towards recruiting nominees outside of the party organisation has become more positive as a response to the problems with shrinking membership numbers. Still, in practice, this kind of nominee recruitment was not anything that was practised in the 14 local party organisations. To the extent that the there is today less stress on that the nominee to have a long experience of party internal work, this has not in a significant way affected the demands put on potential immigrant nominees; As the representatives for nomination committees explain, in practice they still have to wait longer than the native majority members to get nominated. 15

16 The quality of the candidates The distance between the professional party organisations and potential members tends to grow. Therefore it has become all the more important for new members to fit in. Politics as a special life style and identity, among the established members, together with a special language used, which as earlier studies show is a barrier for new members, including persons with immigrant background. The political parties struggle with the same problems as any other organisations when loosing popularity and facing the problem shrinking membership numbers. When they appear as less attractive they also run a high risk of becoming vulnerable in their recruitment processes. This leads easily to a vicious circle. Problems in recruitment make it even more difficult to uphold an image of successful and attractive organisation. An important consequence of this development is as the representatives for the nomination committees described it that it becomes increasingly important for a party organisation to control the quality of the new aspirants and to ensure that these have the right attitudes and values seen from the perspective of the party. The hardened quality control is not least important in order to stop less appropriate candidates being elected, which could easily happen if the recruitment base shrinks. From the point of view of the ethnic minority recruitment this could have important consequences. It most likely raises the threshold to be passed for all who deviate from these right values. The more defensive the party s recruitment policy, the more easily it can nourish a more sceptical attitude towards those individuals that do not fit the picture of an ideal nominee. The issue is more complex than being solely about direct discrimination of aspirants with immigrant background. On the contrary, they might be welcomed by the party s nomination committee. The discriminatory element here is rather about the more subtle forms of discrimination when the criteria that are applied in the evaluation of the potential candidates, when left un reflected, may contain an element of prejudicial attitudes against persons who in some way differ from the familiar majority ethnic candidate profile. They run an increased risk of being dropped out in the selection process. Some of the representatives of the local nominee committees brought up the issue of problems in connection with how the quality criteria are applied. The threshold is most probably higher for the nominee aspirant with an immigrant 16

17 background as he/she needs to put more effort into convincing the party organisation that he/she has the right qualities. The fact is that sometimes it might the case that some degree of healthy suspicious attitude towards ethnic diversity is included in the core values the potential nominee is expected to promote regardless of his/her background. The social representation of interests, opinions and groups In the Swedish politics of today, to represent some special interests or groups has become even more important. Although it is often mentioned in the public debate that Swedish society has become more individualised, leaving less space for collective identities like ideologically based party identities, or other collective identities, group interests still seem to play an important political role. The question is what kind of impact this has on the representation of immigrants in politics. Hypothetically, we would expect that a stronger stress on group interests would enhance the likelihood for a potential immigrant candidate to get nominated. Let us see what the results of the nomination study tells us about that. Network recruitment Networks and informal social contacts tend to play a crucial role in the candidate nomination process, according to nomination committee representatives. Surely, it is far from enough for the potential nominee to demonstrate the right personal qualities. How to mobilise support if you are less than well known in the party organisation? What he/she needs to do is to reach out to the party members, through socialising and being active in the party organisation. In other words, the nominee must gain popularity in the local party organisation and this is usually done through existing networks. The committee representatives testify that this kind of recruitment practice can be especially negative for potential nominees with immigrant background these nominees usually simply do have not the same access to the existing networks inside the party organisations and in the local society as native Swedes. Obviously then, while the network means inclusion it also means exclusion; the precise idea is that not everybody can be a member. What probably makes it relatively more difficult for immigrant nominees to get access to these important informal networks is that the 17

18 membership criteria are here even more subtle than for more formal organisations. Indeed, the networks can instead work against under represented groups, because they also have a conserving effect. The representatives for the nomination committees described how they sometimes find it particularly difficult to lift down a person from a political position as this person is a member of an informal network to which they also belong. The institutionalised formal networks of the parties, which are in the first place for women s associations or youth associations, have an important role in the candidate nomination process, both in how the candidates are discussed in nomination committees and when voting about the party draft list. Given the central role of both the informal and formal party internal networks, we then need to ask how immigrant minorities are organised? Do they have platforms of their own, either informal, or more formal? Of the 14 studied local party organisations only in two of them had the immigrant members some form of internal network. This is an interesting result, especially if we compare it with the mobilisation of women and young people who on a regular basis have internal networks to monitor and secure their interests in a party s inter organisational processes. In other words, the results are not especially encouraging. First, informal and formal networks are regarded as important in order to mobilise support for a nomination. Second, the nomination committee representatives were of the opinion that the existing networks disfavoured potential immigrant nominees. Third, immigrant members have no own supporting platforms. We asked the representatives for nomination committees what could be done about their representation in the party organisation? The answer? Not very much. They share a sceptical attitude towards organised immigrant interest representation. Furthermore, they were reluctant to formulate policy goals or standards for immigrant representation on party lists, such as the ones the party organisations have for women s representation. To conclude, although the demand for group representation and group membership is an institutional rule that could be expected to benefit immigrant nominees, in practice, it turns out that this does not apply in the same way to immigrants as it applies to other groups like, for example, on women or young people. To be a member of an immigrant group is not regarded as group membership bonus. 18

19 The argument of rationality The fact that the immigrant group membership does not generally count as an asset may have its logical explanation in what kind of group the immigrant minorities actually constitute. Given that the political parties act in a rational way, to place special weight on group membership, must be motivated, either because the group constitutes a strong enough pressure group, or for other reasons. Would a special concern for immigrants then be beneficial for the party? The general answer is no, with the exception of a possible unclear majority situation where their votes could play a crucial role. In the Swedish electorate the non native Swedes comprise approximately 10 percent of the population 20 percent if we also include those with immigrant background, i.e. persons who are born in Sweden with one or both parents born abroad. Seen from party rationality point of view it is hardly efficient to try mobilise this group, by means of nominating immigrant candidates. The first problem is the unknown correlation between the number of immigrant candidates on a party list and the immigrant votes for a party. Second, as the electoral participation among immigrants is very low, on average 40 percent among those who are not Swedish citizens, there is only a very limited number of votes to be won for the party that invests in immigrant nominees. It simply is not good business to try to reach out to immigrant voters; they are moreover a socially very heterogeneous category, including older cohorts of labour migrants but also large numbers of refugee migrants, with extreme variations in their educational background. The argument of rationality that guides the party organisations action to maximise the number of votes in relation to economical and other costs invested does not favour immigrant nominees. There are other social categories which can be much more beneficial for a party to mobilise and recruit, not least because smaller efforts give greater results, in terms of votes and seats. Interestingly enough, among such beneficial groups we can identify those that demonstrate hostile anti immigrant opinions. In fact, a political party does not even need to go so far that it would deliberately take action to recruit members and mobilise voters among groups with xenophobic attitudes. It might be enough not to openly challenge these opinions 19

20 which easily could be the case if the party promotes immigrant nominees, ranked high on the party list. Thus, the passive act of ignoring potential immigrant nominees would do the job, and indirectly contribute to maximising the possibility of bringing in the votes of less immigrant friendly voter categories. For a party, in a cost benefit perspective, these votes are of equal value. We will come to this issue when we take up the question how the leading party members and representatives of the nomination committees can promote potential immigrant nominees. As it is, mobilisation around the multiethnic order is not only about immigrant mobilisation to gain political influence, it works the other way round too. The key question is then to what extent the institutional rules favour immigrant respective anti immigrant mobilisation. Other ways to boost the numbers of minority candidates If quotas for minority representation do not get support of the nomination committee leaders, maybe there are other ways to combat the under representation of immigrants on the party list? Coaching and mentoring is one method that has been frequently used to pave the way for potential women nominees for higher ranking positions on the list, according to the representatives for nominee committees. This is done for example by giving them personal support but also by giving them internal publicity in party organisation and making them more visible in various informal and formal contexts. In practice, the members of the nomination committee, as well as other persons in the leading positions in the party organisation can help to lift up and make a potential nominee known among the members so that they can win member votes in internal party primary. How does it then work for the immigrant nominees? The interview nominee committee leaders formulate an interesting argument around this issue. While they describe themselves as being the ones who want to promote immigrant nominees to get them ranked high on the party list, they also explain how the average members are more reluctant to rank immigrant nominees on higher list positions. This clearly makes the situation more complicated. The fact that the nomination committee is in a position where it needs to take in the consideration the reluctant and less immigrant friendly opinions that exist, among the party members and among potential voters, this effectively puts a limit on their good will to get 20

21 immigrant nominees ranked high on the list. Several of the nominee committee representatives report how, in the local party organisations, the opinions was to some extent informed by stereotypical and negative attitudes against immigrants. Moreover, in some cases the nominee committee leaders reported even about openly xenophobic attitudes among the party members and how this kind of opinions could also be found among elected local politicians. What then can they, as leading persons in the local party organisations, do about the situation? As they described it, to take open action to combat xenophobic and anti immigrant opinions was not always seen as the most natural way to handle the situation. Internal party primary The consultative party primary, where the party members give their votes to potential candidates, has in most party organisations a crucial influence on the ranking of the candidates for the party s final nominee list. Although the primary contributes to strengthening the internal democracy in the party organisation, as it stresses the importance of the active member opinion, it also has its democratic pitfalls. One of them is that in practice it becomes a barrier for members from under represented groups in the party organisation, like young people and persons with immigrant background, but also women, to get nominated to a higher list position. Persons who do not belong to the established groups in the party simply have more difficulty winning the popular member vote, according to the nominee committee representatives. As the interviewed representatives described it, the average party member opinion is relatively conservative and therefore also reluctant to vote for potential candidates from underrepresented groups. Part of the explanation for this conservative opinion can be found in the general developments of the party organisations and especially in the lack of new recruitment; the result is that the social make up of the ageing party organisations does not mirror the diversity in the surrounding society, with the effects that has on the nomination process. Not only is the average member opinion relatively conservative. As we already mentioned, the more directly prejudicial attitudes among the members contribute to the fact that immigrant nominees will find it hard get enough votes to get higher ranking positions. The same conclusion is valid for the local party district association nomination instrument which in the social democratic party replaces the internal primary in non socialist parties. 21