ABSTRACT

This study discusses whether party selectors’ stereotypes about ethnic minority aspirants help to explain the political under-representation of ethnic minorities. Specific attention goes to the question of how the social stereotype of ethnic minorities as low socioeconomic status citizens affects political stereotypes about ethnic minority aspirants. This innovative intersectionality research is built on an original survey experiment conducted among Flemish party selectors. Ethnic minority aspirants are perceived as more leftist than majority aspirants, but not as less competent or trustworthy. Furthermore, the effects of aspirants’ ethnicity are not moderated by their socioeconomic status. The implications are twofold. First, discrimination against ethnic minority aspirants based on their ethnic background is only likely to occur among rightist party selectors. Second, that ethnic minority aspirants with a high socioeconomic status are perceived as equally competent than their ethnic majority counterparts contradicts previous assumptions that ethnic minority aspirants need to be better qualified than ethnic majority aspirants. In sum, this study nuances previous concerns that party selector discrimination is an important barrier for the representation of ethnic minorities.

摘要

本研究讨论政党选择者对少数民族候选人的刻板印象是否有助于解释少数民族的政治代表性不足。特别关注少数民族作为低社会经济地位公民的社会刻板印象如何影响对少数民族抱负者的政治刻板印象。这项创新的交叉性研究建立在对佛兰芒政党选择者进行的一项原始调查实验的基础上。少数族裔有抱负者被认为比多数有抱负者更左，但并不缺乏能力或不值得信赖。此外，有抱负的人种族的影响不受他们的社会经济地位的影响。其含义是双重的。第一的，基于种族背景对少数民族候选人的歧视只可能发生在右翼政党选举人中。其次，具有较高社会经济地位的少数民族志向者被认为与他们的多数族裔对应者具有同等能力，这与先前的假设相矛盾，即少数民族志向者需要比多数族裔志向者更有资格。总而言之，这项研究细微地改变了之前的担忧，即政党选择者歧视是少数民族代表的重要障碍。