Political Science

Pathways to Power: The Political Representation of Citizens of Immigration Origin in Seven European Democracies’ (PATHWAYS)

Programme group: Challenges to Democratic Representation

PATHWAYS is a project seeking to advance knowledge in two areas concerning citizens of immigrant origin in Europe

Funded by: NWO

Duration: 01-05-2014 until 30-04-2017

PATHWAYS is a tightly integrated internationally co-operative and comparative project seeking to advance knowledge in two areas: 

(a)   the descriptive representation of citizens of immigrant origin (CIO) in the legislative assemblies of seven European countries (Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands and Spain) at the national and regional levels (where meaningful regional assemblies exist); and 

(b)   for the first time, substantive political representation of citizens of immigrant origin (CIO).

 

With regard to (a) the descriptive representation, the object of this project is to collect data on the variation in the parliamentary ‘presence’ of CIOs across seven European democracies at national and regional levels of government, and analyse it in terms of age, gender, national origin, career and political history and examine the primary socio-economic, political and institutional factors that affect the access of CIOs to elected office.
In studying (b) substantive representation, the objective is to examine variations and similarities of parliamentary activity of CIOs across the seven countries and analyse whether there is a relationship between descriptive and substantive representation (as hypothesised, e.g., by critical mass and mainstreaming approaches). 

Research methods

By means of comparative analysis of both primary and secondary data, this project aims to:

  • (a) provide the social science community with original data on the political representation of CIOs in seven European countries and 
  • (b) to describe and explain variations and similarities in the descriptive and substantive representation of CIOs using, and extending, existing empirical theories of political representation in political science with particular emphasis on political institutions, strategies, social networks and political opportunity structures. 

 

Published by  AISSR

4 July 2014