Outsiders No More?: Models of Immigrant Political Incorporation
Jennifer Hochschild, Jacqueline Chattopadhyay, Claudine Gay, and Michael Jones-Correa
Abstract
This book considers pathways by which immigrants may be incorporated into the political processes of western democracies. It builds on a rich tradition of studying immigrant incorporation, but each chapter innovates by moving beyond singular accounts of particular groups and locations toward a general causal model with the scope and breadth to apply across groups, places, and time. The book addresses three key analytic questions: what, if anything, are the distinctive features of immigrants or immigrant groups? How broadly should one define and study politics? What are the initial premises for ... More
This book considers pathways by which immigrants may be incorporated into the political processes of western democracies. It builds on a rich tradition of studying immigrant incorporation, but each chapter innovates by moving beyond singular accounts of particular groups and locations toward a general causal model with the scope and breadth to apply across groups, places, and time. The book addresses three key analytic questions: what, if anything, are the distinctive features of immigrants or immigrant groups? How broadly should one define and study politics? What are the initial premises for analyzing pathways toward incorporation; does one learn more by starting from an assumption of racialization and exclusion or from an assumption of engagement and inclusion? While all models engage with all three key analytic questions, chapters vary in their relative focus on one or another, and in the answers they provide. Most include graphical illustrations of the model, as well as extended examples applying the model to one or more immigrant populations. At a time when research on immigrant political incorporation is rapidly accumulating—and when immigrants are increasingly significant political actors in many democratic polities—this book makes an intervention by pushing researchers to articulate causal dynamics, provide clear definitions and measurable concepts, and develop testable hypotheses. Furthermore, the wide array of frameworks examining how immigrants become part of a polity or are shunted aside ensure that activists and analysts alike will find useful insights.
Keywords:
immigrants,
immigrant groups,
incorporation,
racialization,
exclusion,
engagement,
political actors,
democratic polities
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199311316 |
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2013 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199311316.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Jennifer Hochschild, editor
Harvard University
Jacqueline Chattopadhyay, editor
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Claudine Gay, editor
Harvard University
Michael Jones-Correa, editor
Cornell University
More
Less