de Rooij, Eline. "Patterns of Immigrant Political Participation: explaining differences in types of political participation between immigrants and the majority population in Western Europe". European Sociological Review, Vol.28, No.4 (2012): 455-481.

de Rooij, Eline. "Patterns of Immigrant Political Participation: explaining differences in types of political participation between immigrants and the majority population in Western Europe". European Sociological Review, Vol.28, No.4 (2012): 455-481.

• Political participation is defined for the purposes of this article as voluntary activities designed to influence political decisions or outcomes. These activities can be low-cost or high-cost depending on the time and effort required, and can be conventional -- calling representatives or voting -- or unconvention, like engaging in protests or boycotts (456-457).
• Dr. Sindey Verba argues that political participation is primarily determined by access to resources, including time, and level of individual engagement with politics. Another key factor is trust in the political system, which often determnes the split between convention and unconventional political participation (457).
• Dr. Verba also argues that beliefs about the political system, including levels of engagement and trust, are set during childhood and adolescence. If this is true, then immigrants should continue to demonstrate different levels and forms of political participation than the general population (457-458).
• Much political participation in developed European countries is determined and partially controlled by interest groups who use pre-existing social networks to mobilize supporters. These networks, which can be familial, work-based, religious, or political, determine the level of an individual's political participation (458-459).
• Based on the general lack of immigrant access to education, language barriers, weak connections to social networks, and a generally high level of trust for the institutions of their adopted government, immigrants should be expected to limit their political participation to low-cost conventional activities, or to not participate at all (458).
• Integration of immigrants suggests equal access to and participation in all important societal institutions and economic and political activities. The political activities of immigrants is thus an important marker of their integration, especially because it requires knowledge of the local language, of civic institutions, and socioeconomic stability (459-460).
• The methodology of this study is available from page 460 to page 469.
• The gap between convention and unconventional methods of political participation cannot be explained by the lower resource base of immigrants, and has to be accounted for by other factors. Limited social networks partially explain this difference, although cultural attitudes cannot be ruled out. However, the differences between immigrants decrease over the length of stay in the country; something true regardless of country of origin (470).
• Immigrants as a whole are much less likely to engage in unconventional political activities regardless of country of origin. The difference between Western immigrants and other immigrants is seen most in higher rates of conventional political participation among Western immigrants, likely reflecting higher levels of trust in the government (470).