Perceived discrimination and support for democracy among immigrants

Does perceived discrimination and exclusion promote or hinder support for democracy among immigrants? While many studies investigate the drivers of prejudice and discrimination toward immigrants, relatively less is known about the impact of discrimination on immigrants' political attitudes. In this paper, we assess whether perceived discrimination is associated with higher levels of support for democracy among Muslim immigrants using the EURISLAM survey dataset, which includes data from immigrants from Muslim-majority countries residing in four European countries. We find that in particular, perceived discrimination toward the ethnic or religious in-group is associated with increased support for democracy. These results are robust to alternative control variables, model specification, matching procedures and coefficient stability analysis. Our findings make an important contribution to understanding the implications of discriminatory experiences for immigrants.