The Impact of Discrimination and Associational Membership on Political Participation of Migrants in Brussels

It can be hypothesised that lived experiences of discrimination by migrants has a negative impact on their identification with their country of residence (and its political institutions) and on social trust, which in turn will have a negative impact on political trust and electoral and non-electoral political participation. There might, however, be an interaction effect with associational membership. Indeed, it could be argued that associational membership in ethnic-identity based associations functions as a collective compensatory strategy (making up for weak individual resources) and might lead to increased electoral and non-electoral political involvement. We will test these hypotheses making use of survey data (N=1708) collected in 2009-2010 in the Brussels Capital Region among representative samples of immigrants of Moroccan, Turkish and Congolese origin and a non-immigrant comparison group. The data will allow us to verify whether the same patterns are to observed in different ethnic minority groups.