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theses

This dissertation examines the processes of immigrant political incorporation by focusing on Turkish immigrants and their organizations in Germany and France. The primary research concern is to explain variations in the degree and the trajectory of political incorporation across immigrant groups and host countries. The existing literature prioritizes either group-based (i.e. migrants’ socio-economic status, ethno-cultural identities, strength of their ethnic organizational networks, or size and geographic concentration) or institutional factors (i.e. national citizenship policies, multicultural policy frameworks, electoral regimes, or minority incorporation structures) as determinants of immigrant political incorporation. While the existing theoretical frameworks provide rich accounts on internal and external political opportunities that are available to immigrant groups, they share the common weakness of explaining when and how immigrant groups take the advantage of these political opportunities and become active participants in their host country politics. This dissertation contributes to the current literature by demonstrating that immigrant groups’ perception of their group position in their host country’s inter-ethnic context influences the extent to which they seek to integrate into the politics of their host country. In this respect, immigrant groups who see themselves as holding a disadvantaged position in their host country’s ethno-racial hierarchy are more willing to become politically active and improve their perceived disadvantaged position compared to other groups. On the other hand, immigrant groups who perceive themselves to occupy a higher position in host country ethno-racial context feel less of an incentive to become politically active, and instead prefer to maintain their distinction from the lower status immigrant groups who tend to mobilize politically. The empirical findings in this research are drawn on my fieldwork research in Germany and France, which was undertaken in two rounds between 2010 and 2012. To develop my framework, I used a wide breadth of sources ranging from in-depth elite interviews to census and mass-surveys, from documentary materials to fieldwork observations.

ETD_5361

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Evren Yalaz

doi:10.7282/T3416VC7

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.