The Revival of Group Voting: Explaining the Voting Preferences of Immigrants in Norway
| Author | Tor Bjørklund,Johannes Bergh |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2010.00863.x |
| Date | 01 June 2011 |
| Published date | 01 June 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
P O L I T I C A L S T U D I E S : 2 0 1 1 VO L 5 9 , 3 0 8 – 3 2 7
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2010.00863.x
The Revival of Group Voting: Explaining the
Voting Preferences of Immigrants in Norwaypost_863308..327
Johannes Bergh
Tor Bjørklund
Institute for Social Research, Oslo
University of Oslo
Studies of the electoral behaviour of immigrants in Western Europe and North America have revealed a remarkably
coherent cross-national voting pattern. Immigrants from the non-Western world hold a strong preference for
left-of-centre parties. This unusual expression of group voting is so stable over time that it has been referred to as an
‘iron law’. There is, however, a dearth of scholarly research on this phenomenon. This article tests two explanations
for the left-of-centre preferences of immigrants in Norway. The first is that the ideological and socio-economic
composition of the immigrant electorate explains the preference for left-of-centre parties. If so, these voters’ ethnic or
immigrant background is not in itself decisive on Election Day. The second hypothesis is that immigrant voters engage
in group voting, in which one’s ethnic or immigrant background is significant and trumps other concerns when
voting. This would express itself in a coherent voting pattern that cannot be explained by other factors.We also expect
those who engage in group voting to favour candidates with similar ethnic backgrounds as themselves. The group
voting hypothesis finds the strongest support. The immigrant vote appears to be driven by group adherence, rather
than by ideology or social background.
Norwegian voters with non-Western immigrant backgrounds are strong supporters of
left-of-centre parties. In the 2007 local elections, three out of four immigrant voters
supported a party on the left (see Table 1). More than half of this part of the electorate voted
for the Labour party.
Such massive support for left-of-centre parties among non-Western immigrants is not
unique to Norway or to this election. Previous Norwegian studies, and studies from other
countries, have documented similar patterns (Anwar, 2001; Bjørklund and Kval, 2001; Cain
et al., 1991; De la Garza and Cortina, 2007; Michon et al., 2007; Saggar, 2000; Wüst, 2000).
Immigrants from the non-Western world, who have settled in Western countries, tend to
vote for left-of-centre parties. This article aims to explain why.
Due to a lack of data that compare native voting to that of minority voters, previous
research has rarely tried to explain this phenomenon.We have access to such data from the
2007 Norwegian local elections. The data are analysed through a test of two explanations.
We start with the premise that minorities’ voting choices are not fundamentally different
from those of other voters. The first explanation is based on the idea that immigrant and
native voters are motivated by the same considerations when voting. Immigrant voters, in
this line of thinking, happen to have the typical characteristics of a left-of-centre voter,
which results in a consistent left-wing voting pattern. Perhaps the most convincing part of
that argument is the fact that minorities, on average, have lower socio-economic status than
other voters, and that low socio-economic status is still connected to support for parties on
© 2010 The Authors. Political Studies © 2010 Political Studies Association
T H E R E V I VA L O F G RO U P VOT I N G
309
Table 1: Voting among Immigrants and All Voters in the Norwegian Local Election
of 2007 (%)
Immigrant voters
All voters
Red Electoral Alliance
2.9
1.9
Socialist Left
18.2
6.2
Labour
52.2
29.6
All left-of-centre parties
73.3
37.7
Centre party
1.7
8.0
Christian People’s party
2.8
6.4
Liberals
3.1
5.9
Conservatives
11.2
19.3
Progress party
5.1
17.5
Others
2.7
5.3
Total
99.9
100.1
N
412
2,209,739
Sources: The survey of Norwegian immigrant voters in 2007, and official election results.
the left. We test whether social background can explain at least parts of the voting
differences between natives and immigrants. In the same vein, we test an ‘ideology hypoth-
esis’, which says that immigrant voters are like the average left-of-centre voter in terms of
political ideology.
The second explanation states that immigrant voters are unlike other voters, and that they
engage in group voting. This would lead to a coherent voting pattern in which social
background and ideology has a minimal effect on voting. Voters who are most clearly
identified as immigrants should vote most coherently.We also expect group voting to lead
to support for ethnic minority political candidates, and we test for this in our analysis. Most
minority candidates are on left-of-centre party ballots, which could explain why minority
voters support these parties.
The next section is a brief introduction to the Norwegian case. What characterises
Norwegian immigration, in comparison to other countries? This is followed by a literature
review and a more detailed outline of our hypotheses.We then discuss our data and methods
before presenting the results. Finally, we sum up our findings in the concluding section.
Context: Immigration and Voting Rights in Norway
Norway used to be a country of emigration, supplying immigrants mostly to the United
States. In relation to the size of the population, Norway was only exceeded by Ireland as an
emigrant country to the US. However, even in the years of substantial overseas emigration,
some foreigners settled in Norway; first of all they were people from neighbouring Sweden
© 2010 The Authors. Political Studies © 2010 Political Studies Association
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2011, 59(2)
310
J O H A N N E S B E R G H A N D TO R B J Ø R K L U N D
(Kjeldstadli, 2003). At the beginning of the 1960s, the balance between immigration and
emigration tipped towards net immigration for the first time.
Until recent times, Norway was regarded as a homogeneous society as regards ethnicity,
religion and language.With the exception of the indigenous Sami people, Norway has been
a monocultural society. As a consequence of recent immigration, this characterisation no
longer fits.
In order to identify the extent to which Norway has become a heterogeneous society, one
has to measure the size of the minority population, which leads to the issue of definitions.
According to Statistics Norway, whose data we rely on in this article, the immigrant
population is defined as those who are born abroad (first generation), and native-born
Norwegians whose parents immigrated (second generation). Furthermore, we identify
people as minorities in our data if they have a non-Western immigrant background,
meaning a background in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa or Latin America.1
Before 1930, the numbers of non-Western immigrants did not exceed 2,500, and up to
1950 they were below 4,000. At the end of the 1960s the first immigrants from Pakistan,
Turkey and Morocco arrived, but at a modest level. In 1970 there were 9,320 immigrants
from non-Western countries in Norway. The rise of non-Western immigrants paradoxi-
cally started after the 1975 ban on immigration.2 The year 1987 appears to be a tipping
point, and the start of a period of substantial annual immigration. According to our most
recent data, from 2008, the number of immigrants from the non-Western world has risen
to 346,594, which amounts to 7.3 per cent of the population. Oslo, the main place of
residence for immigrants in Norway, has seen the largest growth in the minority popula-
tion. One in five of the inhabitants of Oslo (20.6 per cent in 2008) are now non-Western
immigrants compared with an insignificant proportion in 1970.
If these numbers are to be compared to other countries, one invariably meets the problem
of differing definitions. A report on the foreign-born populations of Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries (Dumont and Lemaître,
2005), however, provides some comparable statistics. In it, Norway is close to the average for
OECD countries in recent years, in terms of both the overall foreign-born population and
the non-Western foreign-born population.3 It seems clear though that the rise in the
immigrant population started at a later point in Norway than in most OECD countries.
Minorities constitute a smaller part of the Norwegian electorate than of the entire
Norwegian population. Immigrants are on average younger than the rest of the population,
leaving a large part of the minority population too young to vote. Second, enfranchisement
in local elections is dependent on naturalisation or three years of legal residence.4 Non-
naturalised immigrants with a shorter period of residence do not have the right to vote. In
sum, 180,968 non-Western immigrants had voting rights in the 2007 local elections, which
is 5.0 per cent of the electorate. The numbers for Oslo are 66,575 immigrants with voting
rights, or 15.1 per cent of the electorate. Electoral participation in this group in the country
as a whole was at 34 per cent in 2007. Most of those who did vote supported a
left-of-centre party.
© 2010 The Authors. Political Studies © 2010 Political Studies Association
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2011, 59(2)
T H E R E V I VA L O F G RO U P VOT I N G
311
An ‘Iron Law’
Studies of the voting behaviour of immigrants have been more prevalent in the United
States than in Europe. Most such studies are descriptive; they document the voting patterns
of the immigrant electorate, but make little or no effort to account for these voting patterns.
We...
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