Abstract
Abstract Political parties are an important part of the institutional framework for migrants’ political integration, but remain an underdeveloped area of research in the literature on political opportunity structures (POS) for migrants. Departing from the POS framework, this article addresses the question of what role the intra-party structure of candidate recruitment has for enabling the political career path of people with migrant background. It focuses on the case of Sweden, which has one of the most open POS in terms of formal political rights. Based on an interview study with party officials and political candidates with migrant background, we identify a number of party-internal factors in this POS. The empirical analysis combines two approaches in institutional theory in order to differentiate between ‘thresholds’ related to strategic considerations and short-term vote-maximisation, and ‘barriers’ embedded in roles, identities and organisational practices. In addition to making a contribution to research on the responsiveness of political systems in open-POS countries, the article discusses how the institutional approach can be useful for identifying possible solutions for supporting the political career of immigrants.
Highlights
Research on the political integration of migrants has traditionally focussed on formal institutional arrangements, such as political systems and citizenship rights
In order to examine the role of the structure for candidate recruitment, we draw on data from an interview study with party officials and political candidates of migrant background in Sweden
Party organisations can seem ‘bureaucratic’ for anyone entering politics and our interviews suggest that these thresholds can be perceived as more difficult to overcome by potential candidates with immigrant background
Summary
Research on the political integration of migrants has traditionally focussed on formal institutional arrangements, such as political systems and citizenship rights. Political parties are an important part of the institutional framework for migrants’ political participation (Bird, Saalfeld and Wust 2011; Bloemraad 2013; Ciornei 2016; Celis and Erzeel 2017; Oliveira and Carvalhais 2017) but their role in the context of POS and political integration remains an underdeveloped area of research One reason for this is that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) become the most important arenas for migrant political mobilisation in countries with a closed POS, characterised by a lack of formal rights (Pilati 2016). In order to examine the role of the structure for candidate recruitment, we draw on data from an interview study with party officials and political candidates of migrant background in Sweden
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