Buffering the Negative Impact of Perceived Discrimination? - The Importance of Neighborhood Characteristics for Immigrants’ Political Trust

Perceived discrimination influences political attitudes of immigrants, as previous studies demonstrated. Nevertheless, we know little about contextual factors that might influence this relationship. For individuals in general, it has been shown that local contexts, such as neighborhoods, shape people’s everyday life and also influence their political attitudes. I argue that this is equally true for the political attitudes of immigrants and hypothesize that neighborhood characteristics, like neighborhood social cohesion, significantly influence the negative relationship between perceived discrimination and immigrants’ political trust. To empirically assess this assumption, I use data from an original survey conducted in neighborhoods of large German cities, which was fielded in Fall 2022 and oversamples immigrant respondents. The results confirm the negative influence of perceived discrimination on immigrants’ political trust. This negative effect, however, is mitigated by higher levels of neighborhood social cohesion. Thus, a better social climate within a neighborhood has a crucial effect on immigrants’ political trust. In practical terms, this study’s findings highlight the importance of local contexts for immigrants' political attitude formation, which implies that neighborhoods matter for successful political integration.