33 intermediate position in the presence of minority citizens in parliament and Germany lags behind the most (Fernandes et al., 2016: 2). Voting systems may impact the nature of minority representation in different ways. Due to having single member districts in France, the district magnitude plays a significant role in determining the effective number of parties that can compete and the strength of minority candidates (Schwindt-Bayer and Mishler, 2005: 411). Constituency competitiveness also affects the willingness of voting citizens to compromise on their preferred party, making candidate ethnicity less important in highly competitive districts (Fisher et al., 2014: 890). In the Netherlands, preferential voting allows minority candidates to be elected even if they are ranked low on the electoral list (Vermeulen, 2018), with Muslim ethnic minority women being increasingly elected in countries with proportional representation (Hughes, 2016: 548). Germany with its mixed proportional and single-member system might benefit from both dynamics, or neither, given their low level of minority representation (Fernandes et al., 2016: 4). Finally, as Ruedin (2009) argues that electoral rules make little difference for ethnic group representation, it is essential to consider the multiple factors, such as organizational infrastructure of an immigrant group and the attitudes of political parties towards ethnic cohesion, in explaining the levels of representation in different contexts, as well as the attitudes of individual citizens, to which I turn next. Attitudes towards immigration and Islam, as well as secularity vary across France, Germany, and the Netherlands. For instance, the percentage of citizens willing to allow some or many Muslim migrants in their respective countries differs, with the Netherlands being the lowest at 53%, while Germany is the highest at 70%, and France falls in between at 63% (Heath and Richards, 2019: 25). The level of secularity, measured through self-identification as non-religious, also varies across the three countries, with France being the most secular (88 percent identifying as non-religious), followed by Germany (84 percent), and the Netherlands being the least secular (75 percent) (Ribberink et al., 2017: 266). These differences can shape the representation of minorities in politics as they affect the willingness of citizens to support minority candidates and policies, making it important to consider when analyzing minority representation in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. In these three countries, I chose minorities who are most minoritized, by having experienced discrimination the most6. In France, the oversample of groups of ethnic minority citizens consists of French citizens with a North-African (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria), Sub-Saharan African (Niger, Mauritania, Ivory Coast, French Sudan, Senegal, Chad, Gabon, Cameroon, Congo) and Turkish background. In Germany, I oversampled German citizens with a Turkish and Former Soviet Union (FSU) background. In the 6 FRA: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2017) Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey (EU-MIDIS II): Main Results. DOI: 10.2811/902610.
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