Pathways to Power: The Political Representation of Citizens of Immigrant Origin in Seven European Democracies

PATHWAYS is a tightly integrated, internationally co-operative and comparative project of social scientists at British, French, German and Dutch universities, 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, the
parliamentary activities of representatives of immigrant origin (substantive representation). These are our outcomes of interest. In a second step, we will seek to
build on, test and (where necessary) extend, explanations of the variations in representation we observe. These are based on empirical theories of political
representation in liberal democracies with a particular emphasis on the impact of political institutions and macro-level contextual factors on representation.
With regard to descriptive representation, our objectives are 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 relation to substantive representation, our objectives are to study 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).
In relation to both types of representation, our goals are to (a) to provide the social science and stakeholder community with original data on the political representation of CIOs in seven European countries - some of which have been neglected in previous studies - making the data freely available; 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.

Our study of the descriptive representation of immigrant-origin groups will shed light on what policy and institutional reforms are better suited to redress inequalities in political representation. By drawing on different theoretical traditions, and addressing the topic from a comparative perspective, we seek to inform this debate in a rigorous manner. The project will serve the academic community of those conducting research on representation and immigration. Our target audience will also include policy makers, especially those who work on the equalities, diversity, social cohesion, integration and active citizenship agendas, as well as non-academic research institutions, ethnic minority organisations, political parties, interest groups, NGOs, and the media.

We are particularly interested in reaching out to international think-tanks like International IDEA (Stockholm) and the Migration Policy Group (Brussels), and to statistical organisations such as Eurostat. Particularly, the 2011 Pilot Study on Indicators of Immigrant Integration by Eurostat highlights the lack of unified indicators on immigrant integration across Europe for the dimension relative to Active Citizenship. Hence, our project will seek to have a lasting impact on how policy makers and official statistics reflect on the political integration of CIOs in European countries.
Given this projected audience, we are proposing to disseminate the data and the results of our analyses in various ways: through (1) academic and wider-audience publications, (2) a project website, an e-newsletter and a Twitter presence, (3) policy briefs and reports aimed at stakeholders and policy-makers, (4) presentations at academic conferences and workshops; and (5) user engagement seminars and a final international conference.
The specific planning of outputs and dissemination is as follows:

1. Academic dissemination:
- Papers to be presented at international and national academic conferences (Annual Meetings of the APSA and the American Sociological Association; ECPR General Conference; PSA Annual Conference; Triannual conference of the Deutsche Vereinigung fuer Politische Wissenschaft; the Congrès of the Association française de science politique; EPOP; etc.).
- Publication of an edited book and/or a monograph (Saalfeld's enquiries with the editors of some major international university presses were met with enthusiasm);
- Submissions of articles to high-impact international journals (the leaders of the first two work packages will be responsible for the submission of at least four jointly authored articles in major international journals in political science and migration studies);

2. Non-academic dissemination:
- One public dissemination event presenting the descriptive analyses, addressed at international collaborators and stakeholders in month 18;
- A final dissemination conference directed at stakeholders and academics in month 36;
- Regular updates of findings on the project website and regular tweets with results from the project;
- E-newsletter twice per year with information about the project events and findings;
- Press releases for all key outputs throughout the project; articles summarizing the key findings and their implications will be submitted in year 3;
- Interim reports to stakeholders and final report of key findings.

Additionally, we will be collaborating with the European Union Democracy Observatory (EUDO) on Citizenship, led by the European University Institute, particularly Professor Rainer Bauboeck. EUDO CITIZENSHIP is very interested in integrating data on electoral representation of such groups into the respective country profile pages on their observatory. This collaboration fits their own plans to expand the thematic scope of the EUDO CITIZENSHIP observatory towards access to electoral rights. Their users will then be able to combine information about access to citizenship status, voting rights and descriptive representation outcomes.