Political involvement and intra-European migration in the European Union

Abstract

This study examines the political participation of intra-European migrants (i.e. mobile Europeans) in comparison to non-mobile Europeans on European level. As much research has been done on migrants’ political participation in the host country and their country of origin, this study focusses on participation on the European level. For the analysis the European Election Voter study 2014 is used, which includes respondents from all 28 European Union member states. The predictors of political participation included in this research encompass: migrant status, political trust, conventional participation and EU identity. The chi-square tests show that migrant status has a significant effect on political trust, however there is no significant effect on EU identity and conventional participation. A binary logistic regression is used to assess if the anticipated models of political participation on the European level fit. The results indicate that migrant status, political trust and conventional participation have a significant effect on voting in the European Parliament elections. EU identity is however not in all the models significant. Intra-European migrants thus participate more on European level than non-mobile Europeans. However, the expected moderating effect between migrant status and political trust, EU identity and conventional participation is not supported. Further research is therefore needed to examine the underlying mechanisms.