With the growing diversity of the population in European democracies, the potential relevance of an immigrant origin for political representation became an issue of interest for electoral, representational and parliamentary research (Phillips 1995; Mansbridge 2003; Bird et al. 2011). While several scholars have dealt with immigrant-origin candidates, their nomination (Dancygier et al. 2021; Ceyhan 2021; Debus and Himmelrath 2024), the candidate-voter relationship (Wüst 2016; Geese 2020), substantive representation (Saalfeld and Bischof 2012; Wüst 2014; Blätte and Wüst 2017; Bailer et al. 2022), a broader and comparative view on immigrant-origin candidates with respect to their campaigning, issue preferences and representational foci is missing.
The paper will take a closer look at these three crucial elements for political representation by analyzing parliamentary candidates of immigrant origin compared to native candidates. The analysis is based on data of the third wave of the Comparative Candidates Study (CCS) released in 2024 (2nd release), covering 9 countries. So far, information on the immigrant-origin has not been used for a broader comparative analysis on the impact of the personal background for the chain of representation from nomination to parliamentary representation (De Lieven et al. 2021). While several difference between immigrant-origin and native candidates pertaining to campaigning, issues and foci of representation are expected, it is an open question whether these differences hold if control variables are introduced for belonging to different parties, personal characteristics (intersectionality) and stages of career are introduced.
