140 C Who prefers politicians with whom they share the same religion, migration background, and gender, and why? This dissertation did not find evidence that women prefer women politicians, or people with a migration background prefer politicians with their same migration background, in France, Germany and the Netherlands. In this dissertation, I did, however, find that mostly US-based racial minority groups prefer their in-group, and that Muslims prefer Muslims in the Netherlands and Germany, though in Germany to a lesser extent. I argue that Muslim in-group preferences are influenced by the existence of politicians who combine descriptive and substantive representation. The lack of in-group minority voting in France, Germany and the Netherlands might be influenced by perceptions of social status. Moreover, the non-religious majority exhibits the strongest in-group preference, or reluctance towards Muslim politicians. This reluctance can be attributed to heuristics driven by stereotypes of conservatism, although some voting citizens exhibit a tendency to project their own views onto Muslim politicians based on their egalitarian worldview. Chapter 1 explores the impact of race and ethnicity on voting citizens’ perceptions of political candidates. This chapter asks the question: “Does race/ethnicity affect how voters assess political candidates?” The chapter investigates the existing data on the role of race/ethnicity in shaping voter preferences in a meta-analysis. The chapter distinguishes between unjust stereotypes, useful stereotypes, and shared identification as potential explanatory frameworks existing in the literature. Results reveal that racial/ ethnic minority candidates are not assessed differently than their majority counterparts, except for Asian candidates in the US, who receive slightly more positive evaluations. Shared identification emerges as a significant driver, indicating that voter assessments are notably higher when they share the same minority race/ethnicity as a candidate. Chapter 2 scrutinizes both majority and minority voting citizens, asking: “Who favor in-group politicians?” The chapter uncovers the impact of shared identity on voter preferences. While shared religion emerges as a potent factor influencing voter preferences, the same migration background or gender show negligible effects. Intriguingly, non-religious voting citizens exhibit an in-group preference comparable to, and at times surpassing, that of Muslim voting citizens for in-group politicians. However, policy positions preferred by Muslim voting citizens turn out to be the most off putting to the general population, pointing towards the difficulties of descriptive and substantive representation of Muslims. Chapter 3 turns to a specific case by asking “What explains voting for DENK: Issues, discrimination, or in-group favoritism?” The chapter probes the factors driving voter support for DENK, a party composed of members of Turkish or Moroccan descent and/ or Muslims. By analyzing the roles of policy issues, experiences of discrimination, and in-group favoritism, this chapter further investigates the causes of Muslim in-group voting. The investigation extends to ethnicity and religion and offers the possibility to disentangle the two factors. The original survey specifically oversamples those with
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