European democracies have grown ethnically diverse in the recent years. Yet, ethnic minorities remain underrepresented in politics. Despite the theoretical argument asserting that ethnic minorities should perform better in systems allowing voters to cast intra party preferences, empirical studies bring mixed results. In particular, scholars highlight the role of both parties and voters in explaining the electoral success or failure of ethnic minority candidates. Using data on regional elections between 1995 and 2014 in Brussels, our study shows that even though parties have made gradual efforts to include ethnic minorities on their lists, voters appear to be an important force behind the election of ethnic minorities. We find variations according to party ideology, with socialist and – to a lesser extent – Christian democratic candidates benefiting the most from preferential voting. However, the positive impact of preference votes seems to decrease over time, as parties themselves become more inclusive and tend to allocate more realistic positions to their ethnic minority candidates in recent elections.

This article compares the study and professional backgrounds of ethnic minority and native Dutch MPs in the Netherlands using self-collected data from 2010-2016. We build on previous studies and further develop and test the compensation and similarity model. We expected that ethnic minorities compensate with regard to the duration of their education and the length of their professional and pre-parliamentarian political careers. Furthermore, in line with the similarity model, we expected greater similarities between ethnic minority and Dutch MPs in terms of their educational and professional backgrounds and political experience. The results show more evidence for the similarity model than for the compensation model. We find that ethnic minority MPs have similar educational levels and types of political experience as Dutch MPs, however, contrary to the expectation they do not have more but less years of professional and pre-parliamentarian political experience.

The media are key actors in political inclusion and exclusion. Existing research has shown that women and racial minorities receive less coverage and are portrayed more negatively than white males. Yet, less is known about differences in media coverage within and between groups. This study disentangles such variation with an intersectional lens. Drawing on newspaper analysis of all 55 politicians with a migration background who ever held a seat in Dutch parliament (1986-2016) we analyze the quantity and tone of media coverage and examine how they are identified. Our findings show that although women receive more coverage than men, this is no advantage. Women are framed more often and in more variety as ‘different’ compared to their male minority colleagues. The most visible politicians are particularly negatively described in terms of their different identities when they aim to achieve a higher position of power in the party.

This paper employs focus group data with Flemish muslim youth to explore how they deal with the visible emergence of ethnic minority representatives (EMRs) in Belgian elected bodies. The focus groups tap into their shared identity experiences and subsequent expectations vis-à-vis EMRs. Using grounded theory to analyse our data, we distinguish three different EMR typologies: those who are autonomous yet loyal to the group, those who are responsive to ethnic/religious issues but perceived as reductive, and those who sell-out to mainstream politics. These typologies challenge approaches presuming the extent to which representatives advance policies responsive to group members’ interests as ideal or desirable.