Electoral Participation among Immigrants in Ethnic Enclaves: Some Evidence from Australia

This paper investigates whether immigrants in Australia residing in ethnic enclaves, electoral constituencies with high concentrations of ethnic minorities, participate more in electoral politics than other immigrants. The results indicate that not only immigrants participate more when living in ethnic enclaves, but also feel politically more efficacious and show greater homogeneity in their partisan preferences. The analysis also indicates that not all groups of immigrants benefit from living in ethnic enclaves; the benefits are observed among immigrants from ethnic minority background such as those from South East Asia and Southern and South East Europe but not among those from British origin.