Introduction

Abstract

This book investigates the opportunities and constraints for migrant groups to participate in the political sphere of the host society. It has two main aims. First, to address the question: what factors influence relative levels of political participation amongst migrant groups? In order to more fully explore this question, the book concentrates on three types of actors: political parties, migrant organisations and individual participants. These actors operate in a given political environment which is formalised by and through the various institutional arrangements set up by the state.¹ The presence of a framework-establishing state sets out the parameters for political action. Second, the book aims to examine what type of opportunities and constraints such arrangements provide by paying closer attention to how specific institutional arrangements give rise to particular political opportunity structures (POS). It will be argued that institutions do matter in that they not only affect actors’ options but also that institutions to some extent affect the role of the state, or rather, determine the extent of state involvement.