The political participation of immigrants in Italian rural areas

Democracy should help decreasing social inequalities, internal divisions and guaranteeing equitable access to the public decision-making for all groups of society. As a result, to ensure a more stable democracy, immigrant citizens should be granted equal access to political participation. The more open immigration laws, regulations, and norms there are in the countries where immigrants settle, the more possibilities immigrants have to participate in politics. The options for immigrants to participate in politics, however, vary depending on the milieu in which they live. In this paper, I argue that the place where immigrants live functions as a political opportunity structure that influences immigrants’ participation opportunities. Therefore, this article first focuses on the impact that the place where immigrants live has on their political participation. Second, it aims to discover how immigrants’ political participation is encouraged in the rural areas of the Italian regions Piemonte, Lazio, and Campania. I hereby rely on a comparative case study of participation in nine rural municipalities (≤5.000 inhabitants) with a minimum 8% immigrant share. Third, as political associations are concentrated in urban areas, I ask what kind of associations are available to immigrants in rural settings. Because political participation in rural areas reveals a number of complex dynamics, as residents rely significantly on their social networks, family ties, volunteerism and religious affiliations instead of conventional forms of political participation, I apply a broad approach to the concept of political participation. To investigate this, the article draws its data from legal documents and semi-guided interviews with mayors, politically active people with an immigrant background, voluntary associations and clergymen.