112 3 Conclusion Why do ethnic and religious minorities vote for DENK? We outlined three possible explanations: issues, discrimination and in-group favouritism. Our findings reveal that Muslim in-group favouritism drives the DENK vote the most, followed by immigration attitudes and experiencing discrimination for being Muslim, while other issues only offer a very limited explanation for voting for the party. We find that religious background explains much of the effect of ethnic background. Dutch citizens of Turkish or Moroccan descent tend to vote DENK mostly because of being Muslim, not because of their migration background. Relatedly, only religious discrimination explains voting for DENK, while ancestral or racial discrimination do not. Indeed, Muslim ingroup favouritism is what is driving results: even when controlling for experiences with religious discrimination and the effect of a lack of feeling accepted as belonging in the Netherlands, Muslim in-group favouritism persists above and beyond any other explanatory variable. The outcomes of this research provide an addition to existing scholarship on the voting behaviour of minority citizens by indicating the importance of Muslim in-group favouritism over favouring of the ethnic in-group. This research also consolidates existing research pointing towards experiences with discrimination as a reason why Muslims tend to vote for Muslims (Azabar et al., 2020). All of this suggests the primacy of being Muslim in shaping voting behaviour. Future research needs to take voter religiosity into account more, while remaining attentive to the importance of alternate identities, as the salience of each identity depends on contextual factors. In the case of DENK voters, the context of widespread Islamophobic rhetoric has undoubtedly shaped the dynamics leading to the outcomes we find in this research. DENK’s origin story underlines the importance of understanding the party as a reaction to widespread Islamophobia underpinning the conditions under which the founders of DENK were forced to leave the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA). As far as we know there is no other political party in Europe like DENK: no other party in Europe has mostly Muslim politicians, maintains a sustained presence in parliament and voices otherwise unheard policy positions in favour of Muslims and in reaction to Islamophobic narratives. The fact that DENK was able to emerge in the Netherlands could be characterized as a perfect storm: an unlikely consequence of structure (election system, prerogative to leave party and keep seats, proportional representation) and agency (the Dutch Labour Party minister of Social Affairs presenting themselves as an immigration-hardliner, the founders of DENK’s criticism of their turn to the right, their refusal to back down when being threatened to be ousted from the Labour Party and their choice to remain in parliament under the header of DENK). This does not mean that the Dutch electorate is in any way unique. Across Europe there are Muslims who are likely to react similarly to a party like DENK, if they have the
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