Turnout of immigrant and non-immigrant EU citizens at the European Parliament elections of 2009: testing the mobilization thesis

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1 Turnout of immigrant and non-immigrant EU citizens at the European Parliament elections of 2009: testing the mobilization thesis by Mark N Franklin (European University Indstitute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Presentation prepared for the EUDO Dissemination Conference, Brussels 2011

2 EP election Turnout of immigrants* versus non-immigrants to the EU 50% 48% 12% 36% x Average turnout difference, immigrant non-immigrant 25% Immigrant * Immigrants include only those with the right to vote in the EP election of 2009 Non-immigrant

3 How do immigrants become assimilated politically? It might be thought that immigrants would fail to vote because of ignorance of the political options they needed to choose between in their new country or that they were so unaware politically that they did not even notice than an election was taking place.

4 How do immigrants become assimilated politically? It might be thought that immigrants would fail to vote because of ignorance of the political options they needed to choose between in their new country or that they were so unaware politically that they did not even notice than an election was taking place. The theory here is that voting is a social act. We know that people are more likely to vote if they have friends and family who care whether they vote or not. Immigrants might lack the social connections that would give them an awareness of the issues at stake and the importance of voting.

5 How do immigrants become assimilated politically? It might be thought that immigrants would fail to vote because of ignorance of the political options they needed to choose between in their new country or that they were so unaware politically that they did not even notice than an election was taking place. The theory here is that voting is a social act. We know that people are more likely to vote if they have friends and family who care whether they vote or not. Immigrants might lack the social connections that would give them an awareness of the issues at stake and the importance of voting. Questions were included in the 2009 European Election Study to test these ideas. The next two graphs illustrate the findings...

6 EP election turnout of first and second generation immigrants by country of origin 50% 48% x 25% Origin of mother or father of 2 nd generation immigrants 36%x 28% x Origin of 1 st generation immigrants Finding: immigrants from countries that always hold elections vote at the same rate as do non-immigrants. Evidently they do not find it hard to learn about political options in their new country. Country that never Country that sometimes Country that always holds elections holds elections holds elections or non-immigrant Country of origin

7 Campaign awareness by immigrant country of origin (mean) mobilized Never holds elections Sometimes holds elections Always holds elections or non-immigrant Implication: If immigrants were mobilized they would vote =(0 1 = 0)(2 3 =.4)(4 5 = 1)

8 EP election turnout of immigrants and non-immigrants by whether mobilized 50% 48% x Non-immigrants 36% x Immigrants Finding: Campaign awareness makes no difference to immigrants. Even if they have considerable awareness of the campaign they still do not vote. 25% No campaign awareness Much campaign awareness

9 In conclusion... When considering immigrant voting behaviour, much depends on where the immigrants are from. If they are from countries with a tradition of democratic elections then they behave no differently at European Parliament elections than nonimmigrants. Immigrants from countries with no tradition of democratic elections behave very differently. Even if they notice that an election is in progress they take no part. Yet it is clear that assimilation does take place. 2 nd generation immigrants have closed about half of the turnout gap that afflicts 1 st generation immigrants.

10 In conclusion... When considering immigrant voting behaviour, much depends on where the immigrants are from. If they are from countries with a tradition of democratic elections then they behave no differently at European Parliament elections than nonimmigrants. Immigrants from countries with no tradition of democratic elections behave very differently. Even if they notice that an election is in progress they take no part. Yet it is clear that assimilation does take place. 2 nd generation immigrants have closed about half of the turnout gap that afflicts 1 st generation immigrants. These findings rule out the hypothesis that guided data collection for this project that assimilation would be found to derive from the establishment of social connections with voters and increasing awareness of and interest in the electoral arena leaving open the question of exactly how immigrant assimilation takes place. Further research is needed on this topic.