95 3 Theoretical Framework Why do ethnic (Turkish and Moroccan-origin) and religious (Muslim) minorities vote for DENK? Although the literature suggests ethnic (Vermeulen et al., 2018) and religious (Otjes and Krouwel, 2018) minority citizens of the Netherlands tend to vote DENK, we do not know much about the mechanisms that underlie this trend. In order to outline possible explanations, we turn to three distinct but related literatures: 1) the role of issues in voting behaviour of ethnic minority citizens, 2) the role of discrimination and feelings of belonging, and 3) social identity theory. Issues Some researchers have attributed the tendency of ethnic minority citizens to vote for left-wing parties to their attitudes towards economic redistribution (Bird et al., 2010: 10–11), though many have questioned this claim (Baysu and Swyngedouw, 2020; Bergh and Bjørklund, 2011; Sobolewska, 2006: 206–207). Given the growing salience of cultural issues, such as immigration and Islam (Abou-Chadi and Helbling, 2018; Abou-Chadi and Wagner, 2019; van der Brug and van Spanje, 2009), it comes as no surprise that these issues play a much larger role in explaining voters’ choice for DENK than economic issues do (Otjes and Krouwel, 2019: 1159, 1152; Vermeulen et al., 2020: 445, 448). Many of these issues directly influence the way citizens with a Turkish, Moroccan and/or Muslim background see their place in society (Loukili, 2021a, 2021b). Immigration policy determines chances of family reunification, while Islamophobia and anti-discrimination measures influence inclusion on the labour market, and so on. It makes sense that these issues would impact voters with a Turkish, Moroccan and/or Muslim background. In the literature on affinity voting, researchers often argue that voters assume descriptive representatives will represent them substantively (Bird et al., 2010: 10; Cutler, 2002; Lee, 2008: 469). Especially in low-information elections, voters use heuristics based on ethnicity to fill in which policy they expect from politicians (Arnesen et al., 2019; Lau and Redlawsk, 2001; McDermott, 1998), especially when they share the same background characteristics with these politicians (Lerman and Sadin, 2016). This could also impact voting for DENK amongst Turkish-/Moroccanorigin and/or Muslim voters: since the representatives of DENK share their background characteristics, they assume they will also stand for their individual interests. All in all, the literature offers plenty of reasons to believe that issues might mediate voting for DENK, although extant research tells us issues do not explain all of it (Otjes and Krouwel, 2019; Vermeulen et al., 2020). That is why we also turn to discrimination and in-group favouritism as possible explanatory factors.
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