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Bringing Immigrants to the Polls? Voter Mobilization Through the Kaikkien Vaalit Thematic Live Debates in the 2017 Finnish Municipal Elections

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Bringing Immigrants to the Polls? Voter Mobilization Through the Kaikkien Vaalit Thematic Live Debates in the 2017 Finnish Municipal Elections Bringing immigrants to the polls? Voter mobilization through the Kaikkien Vaalit thematic live debates in the 2017 Finnish municipal elections. Julie Breton Faculty of Social Sciences Political Science (Politics), MDP in Ethnic Relations, Cultural Diversity and Integration (ERI) Master’s thesis May 2017 Tiedekunta – Fakultet – Faculty Laitos – Institution– Department Faculty of Social Sciences Department of Political Science Tekijä – Författare – Author Julie Breton Työn nimi – Arbetets titel – Title Bringing immigrants to the polls? Voter mobilization through the Kaikkien Vaalit thematic live debates in the 2017 Finnish municipal elections. Oppiaine – Läroämne – Subject Political Science (Politics) Työn laji – Arbetets art – Level Aika – Datum – Month and year Sivumäärä – Sidoantal – Number of pages Master’s thesis May 2017 112 Tiivistelmä – Referat – Abstract Voting turnout has decreased in most Western democracies since the post-war period. In Finland, low turnout at elections affects significantly more certain groups, such as the youth and immigrants enfranchised to vote in local elections. At the occasion of the 2017 Finnish municipal elections, a series of 21 debates between local candidates and with a thematic focus on issues related to the increasing diversity of the Finnish society was organised by the Network of Multicultural Associations Moniheli under the name Kaikkien Vaalit (Our Election). One of the goals of the debates was to increase the interest in and participation to elections of immigrant-background residents. Considering the gap in participation between native Finnish citizens and immigrants, does attending a thematic debate affect attendees differently depending on their migrant background? The objective of this study is to build a frame of reference based on existing get-out-the-vote (GOTV) literature to determine what effects can be expected, analyse the reported effects of the panels on migrant background categories derived from practice in non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and evaluate the relevance of the categories for events designed for corresponding target groups in the NGO field. The data used in this quantitative analysis are feedback questionnaires (n = 225) collected at the end of 18 Kaikkien Vaalit events for project reporting, as well as a complementary post-election phone survey. The three outcome variables derived from the survey results are whether the respondent reported an increase in voting interest, found the predefined issues discussed during the panel personally relevant, and obtained information useful to a choice between candidates or parties. The independent variable is a six- group migrant background variable based on the respondents’ provided information about mother tongue and migration to Finland, adjusted for citizenship and time spent in Finland. Socio-economic and participation indicators are used as secondary variables to refine observations. The study uses crosstabulation to examine the distribution of answers between groups, and Kruskal-Wallis H tests and Mann-Whitney U tests to evaluate the relevance and suitability of migrant background categories. The debates are found to reach an audience in line with both GOTV research and with the objectives of the Kaikkien Vaalit project. A statistically significantly different distribution of answers is found between migrant background groups for the interest and information variable, but not for the importance variable. Further tests show that the effect on interest differs between groups both by migration experience and by foreign mother tongue, and only by foreign mother tongue for the information variable, while categories were not relevant for the differentiated distribution of the scores for the importance of issues. Findings suggest that the direct effect on turnout is structurally limited due to the attendees’ high voting propensity, but indicate the possibility for corollary positive effects. The complementary nature of debates as GOTV efforts is confirmed, and the function of debates as informative events is put into question. Avainsanat – Nyckelord – Keywords Immigration, democracy, political participation, voter mobilization, election debates Ohjaaja tai ohjaajat – Handledare – Supervisor or supervisors Anne Maria Holli Säilytyspaikka – Förvaringställe – Where deposited Muita tietoja – Övriga uppgifter – Additional information TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 2 Voting rights in search of users ...................................................................................... 5 2.1 Municipal elections and low turnout of foreign residents ....................................... 5 2.1.1 What it implies for fair representation .............................................................. 5 2.1.2 Why don’t immigrants vote? ............................................................................ 8 2.1.3 Beyond the statistic, a nuanced situation ........................................................ 11 2.2 iCount and Kaikkien Vaalit: “activating” foreign residents .................................. 12 2.2.1 Moniheli .......................................................................................................... 13 2.2.2 The iCount projects, 2012-2015 ..................................................................... 14 2.2.3 Kaikkien Vaalit as part of the iCount 3 project .............................................. 15 2.3 Building on the evaluation of the first Kaikkien Vaalit panels ............................. 17 2.3.1 Evaluating the 2015 KV tour .......................................................................... 17 2.3.2 Relevance of the study and research question ................................................ 19 3 Getting Out the Vote .................................................................................................... 22 3.1 Getting out the vote in the light of different models of voter turnout ................... 22 3.2 Do events, and debates, increase turnout? ............................................................. 24 3.3 Getting out the vote of specific groups ................................................................. 29 3.3.1 Women and voter mobilization....................................................................... 29 3.3.2 Getting out the youth vote .............................................................................. 32 3.3.3 Where do immigrants fit in this picture? ........................................................ 35 3.3.4 Kaikkien Vaalit in light of GOTV research .................................................... 38 4 Research methodology ................................................................................................. 42 4.1 Research design ..................................................................................................... 42 4.1.1 From research question to data collection ...................................................... 42 4.1.2 Limitations of sample self-selection and self-reported data ........................... 44 4.2 Questionnaire design and data collection .............................................................. 47 4.2.1 Questionnaire design and review .................................................................... 47 4.2.2 Other sources of data ...................................................................................... 49 4.2.3 Data collection procedure ............................................................................... 50 4.3 Preparing the data for analysis .............................................................................. 52 4.3.1 Migrant background as a composite independent variable ............................. 52 4.3.2 Reported effect of the panel as dependent variables....................................... 54 4.3.3 Socio-economic categories and participation as secondary explanatory variables ................................................................................................................... 55 i 4.3.4 Exploring the phone survey data .................................................................... 56 5 Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 58 5.1 Description of the sample ...................................................................................... 58 5.1.1 Migrant background descriptives.................................................................... 59 5.1.2 Socio-economic indicators .............................................................................. 63 5.1.3 Outcome variables .......................................................................................... 69 5.1.4 Other elements from data ................................................................................ 71 5.2 Variation in the effect between migrant background categories ........................... 72 5.3.1 Interest variable............................................................................................... 73 5.2.2 Importance variable ........................................................................................ 75 5.2.3 Information variable ....................................................................................... 77 5.3 Relevance of categorization .................................................................................. 79 5.3.1 Kruskal-Wallis
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