Political participation for Migrants: The MIPEX Results

Open Access

Abstract

This contribution aims at discussing the strand on political participation of the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX). After having discussed the general topic of political integration of foreigners, we will first focus our attention on the choice of indicators in MIPEX. Subsequently we will analyse some of the results of the MIPEX exercise with regard to political participation of third country nationals (TCNs). It turns out political liberties for TCNs are still not assurend in all EU Member States. Furthermore, there seems to be no trade off between access to nationality and political rights for non-nationals, although this is often assumed. There does, however, seem to be a link between public opinion on diversity in politics and the openness of a state with regard to political participation of immigrants. Overall, it is safe to say there is still quite some room for improvement as far as policies towards political inclusion of TCNs are concerned.