Immigrant Political Integration in Finland: The Perspectives of Black African Immigrants at the Municipal Level

Abstract

Research in Finland in municipal/local politics, especially municipal elections, has shown that immigrant participation has been consistently low. Several reasons have been given for this in the existing research such as duration and location of residence, age, education, knowledge of language and society, political party mobilization, previous experience in political participation, availability of information, failure of immigrant candidates at the polls, etc. Most of these are immigrant-/individual-specific. Only a few are societal. But more important is that most of the studies are general in nature. Only a few are empirical.This study investigates the political integration of Black African immigrants¹ at the municipal/local level. This group has never been researched as a comprehensive group in this regard. By political integration, I mean political mobilization, participation, and representation. The aim is to know if any of the above factors apply and to what extent. Specifically, the study aims to examine all the opportunities and barriers to their political integration at the local level, not only in municipal elections/other forms of politics (e.g., protest politics) but also in other elections/politics such as in labor and student unions as well as in various associations. The study draws on qualitative in-depth interviews with 80 of them (men: N=60 and women: N=20) legally residing in the cities of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Jyväskylä, and Tampere where many of them live. It also draws additionally from interviews with some 15 Finnish public officials (men N=5 and women N=10)² whose work/office is related to immigrant civic integration in these cities, during the period 2013 to 2016. Questions that guided the interviews with African immigrants include whether they participate in any of the above-mentioned elections/politics or not. If so, how and to what extent. If not, why? Questions to the Finnish officials include those related to their work and also those with regard to certain claims made by some African immigrants in relation to such work. To examine all the relevant opportunities and barriers to immigrant political integration in Finland especially at the local, the study theoretically draws from the society’s political opportunity structure approach following two main theories of the institutional channeling and the developmental model of intercultural sensitivity (DMIS), as well as a third/support theory of immigrant identity formation. The institutional channeling analyzes the influence of the society’s institutional or political opportunity structures on immigrant opportunities and barriers to participate in the political processes of the host society. In this study, it is used to analyze these structures at the local level in Finland for immigrant political participation. On the other hand, the DMIS is an intercultural theory that analyzes the attitudes of the host society towards immigrants and also vice versa in the latter’s integration journey in the society. In this study, it is used in a similar way between the Finnish society and black African immigrants. The theory distinguishes between two stages in this regard, namely: ethnocentric and ethnorelative. The ethnocentric is the stage where immigrants mainly experience hostility, in the form of xenophobia and racism in the society, usually at the time of arrival but could also be continuous, such that attempts or efforts to integrate become frustrated resulting in lack of integration. On the other hand, the ethnorelative is the stage where the society or some of its members are welcoming and hence immigrants experience little to no hostility/racism, resulting in their integration, and in some cases, some experience assimilation instead, in the society. These experiences are additionally analyzed also from the point of view of immigrant identity formation in which the two distinct groups are grouped according to different identities following their societal experiences. The identities are integrated, assimilated, separated, or marginalized. The integrated and assimilated belong to the ethnorelative, indicating integration (or assimilation) while the separated and marginalized belong to the ethnocentric, indicating a lack of integration. Findings reveal that those at the ethnocentric stage or those with separated and marginalized identities have low and lowest political participation respectively especially in elections due mainly to their high degree of socioeconomic exclusion, or specifically, experiences of racism and discrimination in socioeconomic life. Conversely, those at the ethnorelative stage or those with integrated and assimilated identities have high political participation especially in elections due mainly to their high degree of socioeconomic inclusion, or experiences of little or no racism and discrimination in socioeconomic life. Some factors (in the existing research in Finland) such as duration and location of residence, age, education, and language played little to no role in this. Other factors such as natural (dis) interest in politics, political party mobilization, (lack of) previous experience in political participation, availability of information, and location of residence played some role but not as significant as that of an important new factor - the society attitude - which directly influenced such actors as social relations and job acquisition, and indirectly on some other factors such as (dis)interest in elections/formal politics, interest in protest/informal politics, failure of African candidates at the polls, municipal election not important, racist threats during elections, and translocal mobility. Some factors that seemed independent of the society attitude but nevertheless significant are dislike for politics and politicians, (lack of) previous political participation, political party mobilization, religion (church & mosque), (dis)connection with ethnic and social group, lack of time and problem of laziness. However, some of these are still indirectly linked to the society attitude.Overall, this study contributes through these findings, especially on the society attitude, to the literature on immigrant political participation in Finland. Although the study is not aimed at finding solutions to the issues found, particularly racism and discrimination, some solutions are however proffered at the end. Keywords: Black African immigrants, Finland, society attitude, socioeconomic participation, political integration ¹ Black Africans in this study are those from the south of the Sahara, so-called sub-Saharan Africa. Also, the term Black African or African immigrants is interchangeably used in this study because they virtually mean the same thing. ² The number of women outweighed that of men because, in our area of study, there are more women officials than men.