In this article we address the question whether or not the votes for anti-immigrant parties can be considered as protest votes. We define protest votes by the motives underlying electoral choices, building on earlier research done by Tillie (1995) and . That research showed that ideological proximity and party size are the best predictors of party preference. On this basis we designed a typology of motives for party choice and how these motives would manifest themselves empirically. Analyzing the 1994 elections for the European Parliament for seven political systems we show that anti-immigrant parties attract no more protest votes than other parties do, with only one exception: the Dutch Centrumdemocraten. Voting for anti-immigrant parties is largely motivated by ideological and pragmatic considerations, just like voting for other parties. In addition, (negative) attitudes towards immigrants have a stronger effect on preferences for anti-immigrant parties than on preference for other parties. Social cleavages and attitudes towards European unification are of minor importance as determinants of preferences for anti-immigrant parties. The overall conclusion is that a rational choice model of electoral behavior has strong explanatory power for party preferences in general, but also for the support for anti-immigrant parties in particular.

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This paper studies determinants of the political participation of immigrants in Amsterdam. A distinction is made between determinants on the individual level and determinants on the group level. On the individual level gender, ethnic membership, cross-ethnic membership and social activities inthe network of the respondent are of relevance. On the group level the amount of social capital in the ethnic community is important. To explain individual political participation, the paper suggests an explanatory model, which entails an interaction effect between individual determinants (i.e. organisational membership and the social network of the individual citizen) and the structure of the ethnic civic community as it is reflected in the structure of the network of ethnic organisations.

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