Immigration and anti-immigrant voting in the 2017 German parliamentary election

We empirically examine the relationship between immigration and votes for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in the 2017 German parliamentary election. We conduct a cross-sectional analysis, exploiting election results and socio-demographic as well as geographic features of the 401 German administrative districts. We find that immigration has a negative effect on AfD voting. A 1 percentage point increase in the share of foreigners is associated with a decrease in the AfD vote share of up to 0.37 percentage points. The result is robust to several estimation variations, such as addressing the potentially endogenous distribution of foreigners with an instrumental variable analysis.

The Influence of Ethnic Media Online on Vietnamese American Immigrant Voting Patterns

Several studies have found that Vietnamese Americans display Republican voting patterns in U.S. elections compared to Democratic voting patterns found in other Asian American ethnic groups. The literature in the field speculates that these voting patterns can be explained by cultural beliefs attained from the Vietnam War and disdain for communism and China. Other research has explored the prevalence of ethnic media usage in the Vietnamese American community. This study aims to explore the role of ethnic media usage on Vietnamese American immigrant voting patterns. To investigate this phenomenon, semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with six Vietnamese American immigrants ranging from the ages of 30 to 54. The collected data was analyzed by coding for themes (thematic analysis). Analysis of the interview responses demonstrated that ethnic media usage has a significant impact on voting patterns and political beliefs. The findings of this research indicate that Vietnamese Americans sought out ethnic media that would specifically cater to their pre-existing beliefs, solidifying their political views, and ultimately leading them to vote a certain way. With this understanding, future election campaigns should focus their efforts online through ethnic media outlets to better interact with the Vietnamese community. Further research is needed to explore this phenomenon in other ethnic groups and to ascertain the importance of ethnic media to immigrant populations.

Prior Residence and Immigrant Voting Rights

Although the moral foundations of voting rights regulations have been the subject of widespread scrutiny, there is one aspect of the debate which has gone largely unquestioned and is currently accepted in every state’s actual voting rights regulations. This is the requirement of prior residence, which stipulates that immigrants are granted the right to vote only once they have lived in the host country for a certain period of time. It is this requirement I call into question in this paper. Taking up the most plausible justifications for this requirement, I aim to put substantial pressure on its moral acceptability by arguing that it is not directly grounded by any of the principles that are currently defended as a means to determine the demos, nor a proxy for some other morally relevant feature, nor a warrantor for abilities held to be significant for the right to vote.

Boldly Representing Immigrants in Tough Times

This concluding chapter circles back to the political sphere and examines what actually happened on Election Day. It looks at how first-and second-generation immigrant candidates (Grace Meng, Ted Cruz, and Tammy Duckworth) had fared and considers what can be said about immigrant voting behaviors in light of what we now know about immigrant-serving nonprofit behavior. Further, given these patterns, the chapter turns to what nonprofits can do in the future to better incorporate electoral work into their missions and what the findings of this research suggest for the presidential election in 2016 and beyond. The chapter looks ahead to future elections and recommends that immigrant-serving nonprofits consider seven issues when they decide to engage in an election: technology, staffing, institutionalization, continuous strategy, coalitions, new gateways, and authenticity.

The Precarious Position of Immigrants

This chapter explores the demographic shifts that took place between 2000 and 2012, which saw the composition of immigrants in the United States change greatly. Despite growing in number over the last three decades, immigrants have participated in politics at lower levels than other U.S. citizens. This chapter examines the gap in immigrant voting with the help of important findings from political behavior and political sociology research. This literature shows how varied immigrant politics are in the United States and also suggests why nonprofit engagement in elections should draw more attention. The chapter also examines how political institutions, especially nonprofit organizations, have advanced and sometimes slowed immigrant voting.