Minorities Expect to Be Unwelcome in Politics — and It Lowers Their Ambitions

Why Expectations of Welcome Matter

This article by Kåre Vernby, Nazita Lajevardi, and Moa Mårtensson examines whether anticipated discrimination helps explain why racial and ethnic minorities remain underrepresented in Western politics. If minorities expect they will not be welcomed in political roles, that expectation could reduce their willingness to run for office and thereby shape who becomes a candidate and an elected official.

Cross‑Cultural Survey Evidence

The authors analyze data from three large-scale surveys conducted in the United States and Sweden to compare how minority and majority citizens feel about entering politics. The surveys ask respondents whether they would expect to feel welcome if they pursued political office and whether they express interest in running.

How the Analysis Works

• The study tests differences in expected welcome between minority and majority groups across both countries.
• Models control for observable factors (such as demographics and measures of political engagement) to isolate the association between group status and expectations.
• The authors also examine whether expected discrimination predicts lower political ambition and whether these patterns hold among politically engaged respondents who are more realistic potential candidates.

Key Findings

• In both the United States and Sweden, racial and ethnic minorities report lower expectations of feeling welcome in politics compared with the majority population.
• These gaps remain after accounting for other individual characteristics.
• Respondents who expect to feel less welcome are less likely to express interest in running for office.
• The association between expected welcome and lower political ambition persists even within the subset of politically engaged citizens.

What This Means for Representation

The results suggest that subjective expectations about discrimination are an important barrier to minority entry into political life. Expectations of being unwelcome help explain lower political ambition among minorities, adding a psychological and perceptual dimension to structural explanations for underrepresentation. The authors discuss how these attitudes bear on assessments of fairness in democratic recruitment and on efforts to broaden the pool of potential candidates.