Are Immigrant-Origin Candidates Penalized Due to Ingroup Favoritism or Outgroup Hostility?

• Author: Nenad Stojanović,Lea Portmann
• DOI: 10.1177/00104140211024293
• Published date: 01 January 2022
• Date: 01 January 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Comparative Political Studies

2022, Vol. 55(1) 154–186

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/00104140211024293

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Are Immigrant-Origin

Candidates Penalized

Due to Ingroup

Favoritism or Outgroup

Hostility?

Lea Portmann

1

and Nenad Stojanovi´

c

2



Abstract

An influential explanation for the persistent political underrepresentation of

minorities in elected office is that minority candidates are discriminated

against by voters of the dominant ethnic group. We argue, however, for the

need to distinguish between two forms of discrimination: ingroup favoritism

and outgroup hostility. We measure the impact of each by using an extensive

data set drawn from Swiss elections, where voters can cast both positive and

negative preference votes for candidates. Our results show that immigrant-

origin candidates with non-Swiss names incur an electoral disadvantage be-

cause they receive more negative preference votes than candidates with

typically Swiss names. But we also find that minority candidates face a second

disadvantage: voters discriminate in favor of majority candidates by allocating

them more positive preference votes. These two forms of electoral dis-

crimination are critically related to a candidate’s party, whereas the impact of

the specific outgroup to which a minority candidate belongs is less pro-

nounced than expected.

1

University of Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland

2

University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

Corresponding Author:

Nenad Stojanovi´

c, University of Geneva, 40 boulevard du Pont d’Arve, Geneva 1211, Switzerland.

Email: nenad.stojanovic@unige.ch

Keywords

electoral behavior, electoral system design, discrimination, immigrant-origin

minorities, ingroup favoritism

Introduction

Equal rights among citizens to vote and run for office are at the core of

democratic theory and practice (Dahl, 2006). Yet neither of these principles

prevent the problem of the political underrepresentation of citizens belonging

to minority groups that haunts most contemporary democracies (Bird et al.,

2011;Bloemraad, 2013;Dancygier et al., 2015). One fundamental assumption

has been that while there are potential obstacles along any candidate’s path to

victory, electoral discrimination may be a decisive factor in disfavor of

minority candidates (see, e.g., Fisher et al., 2015;Highton, 2004;Thrasher

et al., 2017). According to this thesis, a considerable number of voters of the

majority group penalize minority candidates at the ballot box.

While the focus in the Americas has been on Black candidates and other

“visible”minorities (e.g., Boudreau et al., 2019;Highton, 2004), studies in

European countries have mostly examined the electoral (mis)fortunes of

immigrant-origin citizens, that is, individuals who have either immigrated

themselves or who are linked to immigration via their parents (Fisher et al.,

2015;Martin & Blinder, 2020;Portmann & Stojanovi´

c, 2019;Street, 2014;

Thrasher et al., 2017). Most of these studies reveal evidence of discrimination

(for exceptions, see Black & Erickson, 2006;Highton, 2004), but offer

different explanations for the phenomenon. Common to these studies,

however,is that—implicitly or explicitly—theytreat discriminationin elections

as a behavior directed against minority candidates (e.g., Moskowitz & Stroh,

1994;Sears & Kinder, 1971;Tesler & Sears, 2010).

The core argument of the present article is that by combining social

psychological literature with research on electoral behavior we can get closer

to the nature of electoral discrimination. Specifically, we focus on one aspect

highlighted in social psychology but largely ignored in research on voter

behavior: the role of ingroup favoritism and discrimination in favor of ma-

jority candidates. More than 60 years of research in social psychology has

established that the problem of discrimination is not simply hostility or re-

sentment toward outgroups. It is often rooted as well in peoples’“favorable

feelings, judgments and actions”toward members of their own group

(Greenwald & Pettigrew, 2014: 669; for an overview, see Brewer, 2017;

Greenwald & Pettigrew, 2014; for meta-analyses, see Balliet et al., 2014;

Fischer & Derham, 2016). According to this literature, ingroup favoritism and

outgroup hostility are distinct concepts that are not simply inversely related.

They are rooted in different underlying motivations and tend to exist

Portmann and Stojanovi´

c155

independently from one another (Brewer, 2017;Hewstone et al., 2002). For

instance, when people can choose between an option that benefits their in-

group (e.g., by providing monetary endowments) and one that, in addition,

harms an outgroup (e.g., by withdrawing such endowments), a notable

majority of individuals choose the first option (Halevy et al., 2008).

In the electoral arena, this analytical distinction suggests that minority

candidates start with a disadvantage even in the absence of hostility from

voters of the majority group; a pervasive preference for ingroup candidates is

sufficient to hinder their success. This said, in most countries voters cannot

express through their ballots both explicit support and disapproval of indi-

vidual candidates. A notable exception is Switzerland. The key feature of its

free-list PR electoral system is that it allows voters to allocate to individual

candidates positive preference votes and negative preference votes (see

Selb & Lutz, 2015). This provides us with the unique opportunity to dis-

tinguish the behavioral expression of ingroup favoritism from that of outgroup

hostility; that is to say, we can observe the allocation of both positive and

negative “resources”to ingroup majority and outgroup minority candidates

(Greenwald & Pettigrew, 2014;Hewstone et al., 2002;Mummendey & Otten,

1998;Portmann, 2021).

1

In fact, Switzerland presents the ideal setting for

which social psychology literature has advocated to explore the two biases

separately (Greenwald & Pettigrew, 2014: 676). The advantages of Switzerland

as a setting are further amplified by the fact that it contains a great degree of

cultural diversity, both domestic and immigration-driven, with a large number

of minority groups (Helbling & Traunmüller, 2016;Strijbis, 2014).

Our study extends a small but growing body of literature which considers

ingroup favoritism in the explanation of electoral behavior (Jardina, 2019;

2020;Petrow et al., 2018). This recent work suggests that a common ingroup

identity among white majority voters in the US plays an important role in the

evaluation of candidates and thus has an impact on vote choice. Our con-

tribution to this literature is that we can disentangle the behavioral expression

of ingroup favoritism (“discrimination in favor of”) from the one of outgroup

hostility (“discrimination against”).

2

To empirically distinguish these forms of discrimination, we analyze the

results of the 2015 elections to the Swiss National Council, the first chamber

of the parliament, and focus on immigrant-origin candidates. Our analysis is

based on an original data set that has not been explored by researchers to date,

due to bureaucratic obstacles and inaccessibility of raw data. It stems from the

electoral software of Swiss municipalities and cantons and provides an un-

paralleled opportunity to observe, for each ballot that voters modified by hand,

which candidates were added to and/or crossed off the respective party list.

The data includes about 687,000 modified ballots, which we collected from

nearly all Swiss cantons.

3

It includes more than 1000 municipalities and 3500

candidates.

156 Comparative Political Studies 55(1)