New perspectives on the electoral participation of immigrants in Sweden

Variance in electoral turnout among immigrants may lead to certain groups being systematically under or over-represented in political decision-making.

Voting is a valuable indicator of integration in civic life, and the project casts new light on the dynamics of immigrant electoral participation and its implications for the health of democracy.

Sweden – which enfranchises all over-18s in local and regional elections after three years of residence, and has one of the highest foreign-born populations in the EU – features as a case study.The project is innovative in several ways.

For the first time, register data on the whole electorate from three consecutive elections (2018-26) allows investigation of long-term bases of immigrant electoral turnout.

Second, it delves deeper into the heterogeneity of political resocialisation, examining the links between ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ through interview with religious organisations, and whether the election of foreign-born public representatives increases the turnout of immigrant voters.

Third, it looks at the facilitating and inhibiting factors to immigrants’ participation, through extensive focus groups with key groups of voters.

Based at the Malmö Institute for Studies of Migration, Diversity and Welfare (MIM), the 4-year project is headed by a political science professor with extensive experience of studying elections. It involves other senior and junior researchers with quantitative and qualitative expertise.