10 Summary Who prefers politicians with whom they share the same religion, migration background and/or gender and why? Many voters and political observers assume that minority voters tend to favor politicians from their own minority groups, but this phenomenon has rarely been investigated in the European context. In this dissertation, I employ a theoretical framework that integrates concepts from representation theory, social identity theory, and heuristics theory to study in-group voting patterns among both minority and majority citizens in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. I ran a meta-analysis, subsequently gathered original data by sampling 3,049 respondents, the majority of whom belong to minority groups and ran an array of conjoint experiments presenting respondents with politicians and asking them about their preferences. The analysis reveals that shared migration background and gender have minimal effects on voter choices, while shared religious identity significantly influences voter preferences. Notably, self-identifying Muslim voters display a clear preference for politicians who share their religious identity, with Muslims in the Netherlands showing the most significant preference for in-group politicians, followed by Germany and France. Focusing on the Dutch case, I investigate why Dutch Muslims vote for DENK, a Dutch political party predominantly led by Muslim politicians who claim to represent Muslims in the Netherlands. I find that political issues and experiences with discrimination do not drive voting for DENK as much as Muslim in-group favoritism does. Additionally, non-religious voters exhibit in-group preferences similar to those of Muslim voters. To understand why non-religious voters prefer their in-group, particularly over the Muslim out-group, I explore the dynamics of stereotyping and projection onto Muslim politicians. Both mechanisms play a role in shaping expectations of Muslim politicians among the mostly non-Muslim electorate, and I call for further research on heuristics to understand in- and out-group voting dynamics. These findings provide insights into the complexities of achieving diverse descriptive and substantive representation and underscore the urgent need to improve the representation of Muslims in European politics. Keywords Descriptive representation, gender, heuristics, migration background, Muslim politicians, projection, religion, social identity, stereotyping, substantive representation.
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