B15 - Politics and Immigration
Date: Jun 4 | Time: 08:45am to 10:15am | Location:
Exploring Local-level Contextual Effects on the Political Participation of Immigrants in Quebec: Antoine Bilodeau (Concordia University), David Dumouchel (Université de Montréal)
Abstract: Research on immigrant political participation has begun to stress the importance of taking into account both individual- and contextual-level factors when trying to understand newcomers’ engagement in the host society (Verhulst et Walgrave, 2009; Barrett et Brunton-Smith, 2014; De Rooji 2012). This paper pushes further this line of inquiry by examining variations in levels of engagement among immigrants living in different localities in Quebec. Our contribution is twofold. First, moving beyond cross national research comparing immigrant political participation across countries and assessing the role of national policies, our paper examines the role of local-level contextual factors with a special attention to the welcoming context of reception by the surrounding majority group. Second, we explore a range of political activities wider than commonly examined and that includes both institutional and non-institutional forms.
The analyses rely on a stratified survey of 2,073 immigrants and 3,047 non-immigrants living in 29 localities or boroughs in Quebec. The non-immigrant population is used as a benchmark for comparison, allowing us to distinguish immigrant-specific effects from generalized effects for both immigrant and non-immigrant populations. We compare levels and determinants of political participation between immigrants and non-immigrants across 12 indicators, including municipal, provincial and federal turnout, contacting elected municipal, provincial and federal officials, volunteering for a party, boycotting a product, manifesting, etc. Multi-level regression analyses will take into account the 1) characteristics of respondents’ country of origin, 2) individual experiences in the host society, and 3) the characteristics of the local environment of residence.
What Do Immigrants Know About Politics, and When Do They Learn It?: Randy Besco (University of Toronto), Md. Mujahedul Islam (University of Toronto)
Abstract: While there is research on the political participation of immigrants, much less attention has been paid to their level of political knowledge, despite the fact that the fundamental structure and determinants might be quite different than for other citizens. This paper examines three research questions. First, how quickly do immigrants learn about politics in their new country? The knowledge gap might close quite quickly, or take decades. Second, are the correlates of political knowledge different? The causes of a lack of knowledge are quite different for non-immigrants when compared with immigrants, and therefore the usual correlates of political knowledge, such as education, might not apply. Third, are different kinds of political knowledge learned at different rates? On the one hand, knowledge about politicians and parties is easily gained from the media, while knowledge about institutions is more difficult to obtain. To examine these questions we pool surveys over multiple decades in Canada and the United States, and draw on several panel studies.
Talking About Artificial Intelligence: How Do Expert Communities Understand the Link Between Emerging Technologies and Populism: Bessma Momani (University of Waterloo), Ryan Deschamps (University of Waterloo), Sarah Shoker (University of Waterloo)
Abstract: As jobs lost to offshore manufacturing and low-cost producers, rising inequality, automation of work, and higher unemployment are all being forecast to accelerate, Right-Wing Populism is expected to expand throughout the West. Ireland and Portugal, however, have experienced many of the trends that go along with a rise in right-wing populism, but little populist success. To understand better why these countries have proven resilient to these ideas, our paper will scrutinize the politics of Ireland and Portugal using case study method including in-depth literature review, interviews and group discussions with Irish and Portuguese residents to ask "what makes societies resilient to populism?" The resulting information will produce a set of options for policymakers and civil society actors to use as a source to mitigate the influence of these populist ideas.
The Geography of Nativism: Urban-rural Divides in Immigration Attitudes: Joshua Gordon (Simon Fraser University), Yannick Dufresne (Université Laval)
Abstract: Tensions around immigration constitute one of the core sources of populist movements across the West (e.g., Judis, 2017). In most countries, there are significant differences in attitudes towards immigration between urban and rural or small town areas (e.g., Maxwell, 2017). This has set the stage for intensifying polarization, as these areas drift further apart in their partisan preferences. This paper examines the geography of such urban-rural divides in three countries – Australia, Canada, and New Zealand – using data from VoteCompass, an interactive voter information tool. VoteCompass generates very large samples, which allows precise estimates of the geography of public opinion. Drawing on this data, the paper shows that the primary driver of the urban-rural split is the share of the population with a university education – big cities have a relatively high share of university graduates, who tend to be pro-immigration. This “compositional” effect dominates the “contextual” effect of living in an urban environment, and diverse urban areas may in fact make individuals less pro-immigration, holding demographic or “compositional” differences constant.