Political integration and the career opportunities of immigrants in political parties: Experiences from Swedish party organisations

Abstract

Political parties are an important part of the institutional framework for migrants’ political integration, but remain an underdeveloped area of research in the literature on political opportunity structures (POS) for migrants. Departing from the POS framework, this article addresses the question of what role the intra-party structure of candidate recruitment has for enabling the political career path of people with migrant background. It focuses on the case of Sweden, which has one of the most open POS in terms of formal political rights. Based on an interview study with party officials and political candidates with migrant background, we identify a number of party-internal factors in this POS. The empirical analysis combines two approaches in institutional theory in order to differentiate between ‘thresholds’ related to strategic considerations and short-term vote-maximisation, and ‘barriers’ embedded in roles, identities and organisational practices. In addition to making a contribution to research on the responsiveness of political systems in open-POS countries, the article discusses how the institutional approach can be useful for identifying possible solutions for supporting the political career of immigrants.