Has the pandemic shifted cleavages in political representation? Differences in ethnic minority citizens’ experienced representation in times of the Covid-19 pandemic

Despite the democratic significance of representation, a plethora of minority groups feel overlooked. In the Netherlands, just like in other European countries, ethnic minorities are and feel particularly underrepresented in the elected bodies. Moreover, among ethnic minorities, (experienced) representation seems to differ by gender, socio-economic status (SES), and religion (e.g. De Vroome et al., 2013; Verba et al., 2003). Various socio-demographic characteristics thus intersect, as, for instance, ethnic minority women are relatively better represented than minority men in Dutch politics (Jacobs & Spierings, 2016). However, despite an emerging literature on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic generally, we currently know remarkably little about whether and how the Covid-19 pandemic has shifted these cleavages in political representation among ethnic minorities. The pandemic might be an equalizer and flatten existing cleavages, as privileged groups might find it more difficult to deal with their new, averse experiences. But the pandemic might also have deepened existing divides, as historically marginalized groups have been hit harder, making Covid a new case-in-point for their voices going unheard. This paper explores whether the pandemic has exacerbated or alleviated gaps in political representation among ethnic minorities in the Netherlands. We study whether gendered, socio-economic, and religious disparities differ depending on experiences with and opinions on Covid and restrictions. Specifically, we examine whether these representation cleavages differ depending on whether citizens a) have personally had Covid; b) have friends who had Covid; c) are afraid to get Covid; d) favor looser restrictions; and e) believe in Covid-conspiracies. Ultimately, this study lays bare whether our conventional understandings of who feels better or worse represented hold during a pandemic or whether these insights should be amended. Empirically, we study around 400 Dutch ethnic minority citizens using the Dutch Ethnic Minority Election Study 2021, which uniquely includes direct measures of perceived descriptive and substantive representation (Lubbers et al., 2021). Despite having ethnic-minority interest parties and MPs, these data illustrate that experienced representation is overall negative. During the pandemic, compared to other EU countries, the Dutch government’s response has been late and lax provoking divergent reactions among the public, and especially ethnic minorities seem more dissatisfied with the Dutch government’s response. Altogether, the Dutch case will likely hold great diversity in terms of representation and of pandemic experiences, which we will exploit empirically to study how socio-demographic differences in experiences of both descriptive and substantive representation among ethnic-minority citizens have been affected by the Covid-pandemic. References De Vroome, T., Hooghe, M. & Marien, S. (2013). The origins of generalized and political trust among immigrant minorities and the majority population in the Netherlands. European Sociological Review, 29(6):1336-1350. Jacobs, K., & Spierings, N. (2016). Social media, parties, and political inequalities. Springer. Lubbers, Prof. M. (Utrecht University); Sipma, Dr. T. (University of Tilburg); Spierings, Dr. N. (Radboud University) (2021): DUTCH ETHNIC MINORITY ELECTION STUDY 2021 (DEMES 2021). DANS. https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-26b-xrqu Verba, S., Burns, N., & Schlozman, K. L. (2003). Unequal at the starting line: Creating participatory inequalities across generations and among groups. The American Sociologist, 34(1-2), 45-69.