Optimal Opportunities for Ethnic Organization and Political Integration? Comparing Stockholm with Other European Cities

Abstract

In most European cities, immigrants and their children comprise a rapidly growing share of the population. Although heterogeneous in most aspects, this category is characterized by at least one distinctive political feature, namely its underrepresentation in democratic decision structures (Bäck and Soininen, 1998: 29; Fennema and Tillie, 2001; Togeby, 2004; Myrberg, 2007). Obviously, this situation implies a potential ‘participatory distortion’ (Verba et al., 1995) in which ethnic minorities risk getting less attention paid to their problems and needs than the native majority population and, consequently, an unknown number of original and innovative views may never get through to the political agenda. If so, this political inequality constitutes a problem not only for individuals whose voices go unheard but also for the democratic society as a whole. In this respect, public policies aimed to facilitate the integration of immigrants seem to have failed.