Immigrant inclusion in Norway: An analysis of immigrant adaption and native reaction

Immigrant inclusion is not only a question of how immigrants adapt, but also how natives react. The project falls into four parts. The first introduces Get-Out-the-Vote mobilization campaigns as a potential important tool to foster immigrant inclusion. The second scrutinizes the effects of the two-year introductory program for refugees and the effect of placement policies. The third study whether inclusion of immigrants depends on who they are, where they come from or where they live in Norway. The final part studies the influence of immigration and their integration on citizens' attitudes general attitudes. We show that randomized field experiment increase turnout among immigrants. Three direct mail mobilization appeals among immigrants was tested in the 2015 Local Elections. All three letters increased turnout. In a follow up of the 2015 experiment among naturalized citizens in the 2017 Norwegian Parliamentary Elections the letters again increased turnout. We also find an indirect spillover effect in turnout within two-person households in 2017. Furthermore, being mobilized to vote in the 2015 local elections also contributed to increased turnout four years later in 2019. The results show that creative mobilization initiative can help to increase participation, but to test the effect of mobilization campaigns close cooperation between researchers and public authorities is required. Furthermore, we show that the act of voting is a social act and not only an individual act. Based on data from the 2021 parliamentary election, we find that immigrants vote together with family members more often than others do. In an ongoing work we aim to test if extensive early voting has a detrimental effect to vote among couples. Many European countries have implemented formal integration courses for new immigrants. While evaluations suggest that these programs may be successful in improving short-term economic outcomes, little is known about their effectiveness in fostering social and political integration. We find positive effects on economic integration, but the results suggest that the program did not advance other forms of integration, such as residential patterns, citizenship, and turnout in local and national elections. A growing body of research suggests that refugees’ initial settlement area (placement policies) can have a long-run impact on subsequent integration outcomes. Drawing on administrative data from Statistics Norway and incorporating a set of realistic constraints, we find in ongoing that using a specific allocation algorithm could improve refugees’ monthly earnings. Inclusion of immigrants may depend on where they come from or where they live in Norway. In ongoing work, we study the impact of local context - with whom immigrants are, and how many they are. We find, based on voting records for all refugees in the 2021 elections, that larger contexts with few co-ethnics does not stimulate turnout. Far more important is their level of activity. Immigrants are more likely to vote if other immigrants from the same country as themselves vote, but not if native citizens. Few studies link immigrant participation to democratic experience from their home country. In ongoing work, we find that participation is larger among immigrants arriving from democratic countries compared to immigrants arriving from non-democratic countries. Turning to the impact of immigration on attitudes among the majority population we make several contributions. We adress the scholarly debate on what would be the most viable electoral strategy for Social Democratic parties struggle to maintain their electoral position. Some propose a policy combining social investment and progressive cultural policies, others a policy combining traditional redistribution policy and social conservative cultural policies. We show that neither of the two policy platforms impact Ap’s overall support. Moving to the right on immigration does not attract voters from parties to the right of Ap. Another study of the Norwegian Progress Party, find that the most beneficial time-periods for the party seem to be those of rising immigration and a booming economy. The effect of rising immigration is, however, halted when the party holds government office. Another ask if the underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in politics is due to ethnic bias. Among politicians we find that ethnic minority candidates receive higher quality scores and better rankings than ethnic majority candidates. The results among voters show that a substantial share of right-wing voters has reservations against voting for a party list with many ethnic minority candidates. The study suggests that while the political elite wants ethnically diverse party lists, such lists might have an electoral cost for some parties. In ongoing work, we study immigration skepticism in 19 countries and the preliminary results indicates that inclusive integration policies soften immigration skepticism.

This project views integration as a two-way process. Inclusion is not only a question of how immigrants adapt, but also how natives react. With regard to immigrant adaption we are concerned with the effects of policy tools to improve inclusion, and how characteristics of 1) the immigrants themselves, 2) their country of origin, and 3) the local community in which they settle affect political and economic incorporation. The project is divided into four interrelated work packages. WP1 introduces Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) mobilization campaigns as a new and potential important tool to foster immigrants inclusion in Norway. WP2 scrutinizes the effects of existing policy tools for the inclusion of newly arrived immigrants: early access to voting rights, the two-year introductory program for refugees and the effect of placement policies in terms of spatial concentration of co-ethnics. WP3 is a study of whether inclusion of immigrants depends on who they are, where they come from or where they live in Norway. Finally, WP4 studies the influence of immigration and their integration on both citizens' attitudes towards welfare recipients and the welfare state. Is unsuccessful integration detrimental to the support for the welfare state as such?