Who is Talking When? Migrant MPs‘ Legislative Behavior in the German Bundestag.

As European societies have been increasingly shaped by migration and integration in recent decades, questions arise about the appropriate parliamentary representation of immigrants and migrated communities. Against this backdrop, the legislative behavior of members of parliament (MPs) with and without a migration background is becoming more important. Drawing on recent theories of descriptive and substantive representation, I argue that MPs with a migration background are more likely to deliver speeches on issues that are of greater interest to migrant communities than their autochthonous colleagues. Furthermore, I argue that those MPs with a migration background are more likely to diverge from their parties' positions on these topics. The analysis is based on parliamentary speeches delivered in the German Bundestag between 2009 and 2020. The legislative data is complemented by information on the MPs’ type of mandate and structural characteristics of the constituencies. Applying a negative binomial regression model, I find that migrant MPs are more likely to talk in debates concerning the issues of civil and minority rights. The results have important implications for the study of legislative processes concerning societal minorities and allow for a more fine-grained understanding of the political representation of migrated communities.