Abstract
The Political Assimilation of Immigrants: Migrant-to-Native Differences in Western Europe
Highlights
Over the past 20 years, immigration has been one of the most controversial issues in European politics, all the more since the so-called 2016 refugee crisis sparked new interest in the matter
What are the patterns of immigrants’ political assimilation? How do they differ across immigrants of different social, religious, and ethnic backgrounds? What are immigrants’ preferences on issues such as immigration policy itself or European integration? What are the mechanisms behind the assimilation of foreign-born individuals? an emerging literature is trying to answer these questions, the public debate remains ill-informed about the true magnitude of political divergences between natives and immigrants
As for gay rights, the absence of convergence at the regional level could be explained by the nature of political preferences on that issue, which have fewer self-interest motives and rely more heavily on deep-seated religious and cultural beliefs that are more likely to persist over time among religious and older individuals
Summary
Over the past 20 years, immigration has been one of the most controversial issues in European politics, all the more since the so-called 2016 refugee crisis sparked new interest in the matter. The integration of foreign-born individuals into the economic, political and social fabric of the state is one of the most important challenges that receiving countries in Western Europe are facing In this respect, an often overlooked aspect of assimilation regards immigrants’ political preferences: it is important to understand whether or not immigrant voters represent a different political bloc from their native counterparts, not least because their preferences could significantly alter the design of public policies in their host societies. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this debate by studying the political opinion gap between first-generation immigrants and natives in Western Europe on issues of redistribution, restrictions on gay rights, European integration, immigration policy, and political trust
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