96 3 Discrimination Dutch citizens of Turkish or Moroccan origin experience exceptionally high levels of discrimination in their daily lives (FRA, 2017: 30). Indeed, racism and Islamophobia are widespread (Awan, 2014; Fernández-Reino et al., 2023; Mansouri and Vergani, 2018), mobilized electorally (Schmuck and Matthes, 2019: 739) and, in turn, predictive of voting behaviour (Jardina and Stephens-Dougan, 2021; Weller and Junn, 2018). Even those with more positive attitudes towards immigrants are far more critical towards Muslims (Helbling and Traunmüller, 2018), suggesting that discrimination based on religion is much more accepted than discrimination based on ethnicity. The feeling of being discriminated against based on a group membership helps voters “gravitate to one of their own” (Goodyear-Grant and Tolley, 2019: 143). In line with this, the effect of descriptive representation increases when discrimination becomes salient in an election (Sullivan and Johnson, 2008: 60). Feelings of discrimination drive Muslim affinity voting (Azabar et al., 2020: 8), above and beyond religious participation: Muslims who practice their faith more actively do not necessarily vote for Muslim candidates more often (idem), but Muslims who feel excluded based on their religion are significantly more likely to vote for a fellow Muslim (idem). Indeed, experiences with discrimination shape political views (Nandi and Platt, 2020), also amongst Muslims (Grewal and Hamid, 2022; Phalet et al., 2010). Therefore, Dutch Muslims may be more likely to vote for DENK as this party addresses discrimination and Islamophobia in national politics. In-group favouritism According to Social Identity Theory, humans strive towards a positive self-image, and a central strategy to achieve this is in-group favouritism, which is the tendency to prefer members of one’s own group (Tajfel and Turner, 1979). The context in which voting for DENK takes place is an optimal environment for in-group favouritism according to Social Identity Theory: DENK propagates ethnic and religious group differences as “illegitimate” and “unstable,” providing a context in which minority individuals are more likely to choose “social competition” leading to “direct and open in-group favouritism” (Haslam, 2001: 25). This mechanism is evocative of the description of DENK as “politically emancipating” (Vermeulen and Kranendonk, 2019: 197–198) and “fighting fire with fire” (Loukili, 2021b: 21). Voters with high ethnic favouritism are much more likely to practice affinity voting (Pérez, 2015; Schildkraut, 2013), so we expect that in-group favouritism will drive support for DENK amongst Turkish/Moroccan and/ or Muslim voters. Initially, voters with a background in Turkey were more inclined to vote for DENK (Vermeulen et al., 2020; Vermeulen and Kranendonk, 2019), but in the last national elections the number of these voters reduced, replaced by voters with a Moroccan background (Lubbers and Spierings, 2021: 135). A possible factor contributing to this
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