Politicians like me? Ethnic minoritized citizens’ assessments of descriptive representation in Germany and the Netherlands

Minoritized politicians – their presence and actions – are often considered crucial for the political representation of minoritized groups. To see how ethnic minoritized groups are represented, researchers often rely on top-down ethnic categories, i.e. Turkish-German politicians stand for Turkish-German citizens, that risk essentializing citizens with complex identifications. In this paper, I explore minoritized citizens’ perspectives and ask (1) how they identify and when they consider politicians to be ‘like them’ and (2) how and when having politicians they identify with matters to feeling represented. To shed light on citizens’ experienced representation by politicians, this paper combines insights from classic political representation literature, critical theory (intersectionality) and Hannah Arendt’s conceptualization of political judgement. The empirical material consists of 19 focus groups with German and Dutch ethnic minoritized citizens (N=98). I compare how ethnic minoritized citizens experience representation by politicians between minoritized groups (Germans with Turkish, resettler and African roots, Dutch with Turkish, Moroccan, and Surinamese backgrounds) and within groups along axes of gender, social class, religion, and age. Additionally, I contrast focus groups findings between two countries (Germany and the Netherlands) to tease out how differing political systems and legacies of diversity in politics impact citizens’ evaluations.