Immigrant integration policies and descriptive political representation

This chapter addresses the extent to which the political opportunity structure (POS) in
European democracies affects the outcomes of descriptive political representation of citizens of
immigrant origin (CIOs) in national parliaments. The study comparatively examines the type of
policies that European host countries adopt in order to accommodate diversity. It further
discusses how implementing specific institutional and policy settings might alter the chances of
CIOs of securing access to elected office. In particular, we focus on the main aspects of
immigrant integration models through a wide range of contextual factors - the citizenship
regime, the legal framework through which the host countries encourage immigrants’ active
engagement in the political arena, the policy measures implemented in the field of antidiscrimination, and the existence of consultative bodies for the immigrant population- that might help to explain cross-countries variations in the levels of descriptive political representation of CIOs.