This paper seeks to study how the ethnic composition of electoral districts relates to the descriptive representation of citizens of immigrant origin (CIOs) at the district level in national elections. In theoretical terms, special attention is payed to political parties’ roles as gatekeepers and their electoral incentives to open up pathways for immigrant-origin representatives to parliament as well as the institutional opportunities for CIO communities to influence this process. Thus, we consider the concurrent effects of electoral districts’ ethnic composition, electoral systems and methods of candidate selection. The study uses electoral districts as the main unit of analysis to explain the descriptive representation of CIO. Thereby, we uncover patterns linking immigrant constituencies and immigrants’ descriptive representation in national parliament. Hence, this chapter is an important contribution to the study of electoral system effects as well as to our knowledge about the dynamics of descriptive representation of CIOs in the European context.
