Replication Data for: A New Electorate? Explaining the Party Preferences of Immigrant-Origin Voters at the 2017 Bundestag Election

Immigrants now constitute a sizeable and rapidly growing group among many Western countries’ electorates, but analyses of their party preferences remain limited. Theoretically, immigrants’ party preferences might be explained with both standard electoral theories and immigrant-specific approaches. In this paper, we rigorously test both perspectives against each other using the most recent data from Germany. Applying the Michigan model with its three central explanatory variables – party identification, issue orientations, and candidate evaluations – to the party preferences of immigrant-origin and native voters, we find that this standard model can explain both groups well. In contrast, we find no direct effects of the most prominent immigrant-specific variables, and neither do these meaningfully moderate the Michigan variables. However, we find strong formative effects on the presence of political attitudes and beliefs: immigrants with a longer time spent in Germany, a stronger German identity, and less experience of discrimination report significantly fewer item non-response for the Michigan model’s main explanatory variables.

当前，移民已成为诸多西方国家选民群体中规模可观且增速迅猛的组成部分，但针对其政党偏好的相关分析仍较为有限。从理论层面而言，移民的政党偏好既可以通过标准选举理论得到解释，也可借助针对移民的专属研究路径进行阐释。本文依托德国最新调研数据，对这两种理论视角进行了严格的对照检验。我们将包含三大核心解释变量——政党认同（party identification）、议题立场（issue orientations）与候选人评价（candidate evaluations）——的密歇根模型（Michigan model），应用于移民出身选民与本土选民的政党偏好分析，结果发现该标准模型能够很好地解释两类选民的偏好特征。与之形成对照的是，我们未发现最具代表性的移民专属变量存在直接影响，且这些变量也未对密歇根模型的核心变量产生显著的调节效应。不过，我们发现其对政治态度与信念的形成存在显著塑造效应：在德国居住时长更长、德国身份认同更强且遭遇歧视经历更少的移民，其在密歇根模型核心解释变量上的题项无应答率显著更低。