Political underrepresentation of ethnic minorities is a significant problem in many rich and diverse democratic nations. In Britain, as in Europe and North America, ethnic minorities are substantially underrepresented in elected office, relative to the general population (Bloemraad 2013). Underrepresentation has important negative consequences for minority groups and for societies as a whole. A lack of descriptive representation reduces responsiveness to constituents (Costa 2017), and also may reduce substantive representation, as minorities’ interests and perspectives become more easily overlooked if they are underrepresented in legislatures and policy-making processes (Mansbridge 1999). Underrepresentation may also create broader problems by signaling identity-based exclusion, thereby undermining political integration, engagement, and efficacy (Merolla et al. 2013; Street 2014), and increasing political alienation (Pantoja and Segura 2003). Further, lack of representation can contribute to mass protest and even riots (Dancygier 2010).

Underrepresentation is clearly a persistent problem, but the causes remain uncertain. Some evidence suggests that one cause may be “electoral discrimination,” i.e., voters’ biases against minority candidates (Portmann and Stojanović 2018). This study explores this question further, examining the extent and nature of biases against minority candidates, using data collected from a representative sample of the British electorate. We leverage a new dataset and research design that allows us to test not only for direct discrimination, but also for a range of subtler forms of opposition both descriptive and substantive representation of ethnic minority groups.

Most simply, we examine the possibility of direct categorical discrimination, asking whether a candidate’s ethnic minority status leads to reduced electoral support. We also examine the possibility of several subtler biases that could pose additional barriers to both descriptive and substantive representation of ethnic minority population. We ask whether voters directly challenge efforts to enhance descriptive representation through affirmative action recruitment of candidates, and likewise whether they oppose enhanced substantive representation in the form of candidates taking pro-minority positions in two policy areas. Further still, we explore the possibility of conditional discrimination: do voters impose additional penalties on pro-minority candidates if the candidate herself has a minority group identity? Finally, we also address the opposite end of the spectrum of prejudice. Here, we ask whether some white British voters are so concerned with opposing prejudice that they actually favor minority candidates over similar majority-group candidates.

We investigate these questions using a conjoint experimental design, a methodology ideally suited to testing the independent impact of multiple factors on a single decision, in this case the choice between two candidates in a hypothetical election. We find clear evidence of both direct and conditional electoral discrimination. Pakistani candidates suffer an electoral penalty on the basis of ethnicity alone. In contrast, black Caribbean candidates suffer discrimination if and only if they take pro-minority policy positions—these stances are generally unpopular, but are penalized even more when offered by a black Caribbean candidate. On the other hand, we also find that some voters are positively motivated by anti-prejudice principles to vote for ethnic minority candidates, even in conditions where they could opt out of choosing altogether.

Our study makes several key contributions to emerging scholarly literatures. First, we provide the most clear-cut evidence to date about the existence and degree of discrimination against ethnic minority candidates in Britain. Second, we advance beyond studies of direct discrimination by showing how voters’ preferences hinder equal descriptive and substantive representation of minority populations, even for groups that do not suffer direct electoral discrimination in the aggregate. Although our study focuses on a single country, we identify mechanisms of direct and conditional discrimination that may apply more broadly—minority underrepresentation is a common issue in Western European democracies and electoral discrimination is a poorly understood potential cause. Finally, we add to the emerging literature on the increasingly important divide in British politics based on a “cosmopolitan-backwater” dimension (Jennings and Stoker 2016).

Discrimination at the Ballot Box?

Our initial question is, simply, do British voters discriminate against ethnic minority candidates at the ballot box? While it would be easy to assume that they do, the prior literature is equivocal. Analysis of observational data suggests substantial levels of discrimination. For example, Fisher et al. (2015) estimate from survey data that ethnic minority candidates—especially Muslim candidates—suffered a penalty of about four percentage points among white British voters relative to white British candidates in the 2010 general election. Stegmaier and colleagues (Stegmaier et al. 2013), using 2010 general election returns, find that incumbency advantage increased by two percentage points if the challenger was a member of a racial or ethnic minority group. Thrasher et al. (2017) find an advantage for local election “candidates whose surnames suggest a British ethnic origin,” while those with non-European names had the largest disadvantage.

On the other hand, even careful observational studies are vulnerable to confounds, and experimental work finds no evidence of anti-Muslim electoral discrimination. Campbell and Cowley’s (2014) survey experiment randomly varies several characteristics of hypothetical candidates for office. They do not find bias against the Muslim candidate; holding other attributes constant, a candidate named “Muhammad” fares just as well as “George.” However, reanalysis of their experimental data (available from authors upon request) shows heterogeneous effects; some Labour partisans actually appear to prefer a Muslim candidate, while other groups increase rates of non-response or support for the non-Muslim candidate. Lacking more information about the identity and preferences of these respondents, we cannot explain these patterns.

Categorical Discrimination and Barriers to Descriptive Representation

We begin with the most straightforward hypothesis, which we label the Categorical Discrimination Hypothesis. Majority-group voters may be less likely to vote for a minority candidate, all else being equal. Several theoretical traditions converge on this prediction. Categorical discrimination may reflect taste-based prejudice or “antipathy” toward other groups “based on faulty and inflexible generalization” (Allport 1954). Outright prejudice—measured as desired social distance from other groups—has declined over time in Britain, but remains fairly widespread, particularly toward Muslims, who bear the brunt of negative attitudes from other minority groups as well as from the majority ethnic group (Storm et al. 2017). A subtly different explanation is in-group favoritism, where discriminatory behavior stems from a preference for one’s own group instead of or alongside prejudice against other groups (LeVine and Campbell 1972).

In the context of representation, there might be a third, related, explanation for direct discrimination in vote choice: a desire for descriptive representation among majority-ethnicity voters. Descriptive representation is usually discussed as having value for underrepresented groups such as women and minorities (Mansbridge 1999), but some evidence shows that members of majority groups have even stronger preferences for in-group representatives (Gay 2002). In the US case, a substantial proportion of white voters seem to fear the consequences of descriptive representation of minority groups (Parker and Barreto 2014), whilst some working class white Americans and Britons explicitly characterize themselves as minority group members and believe that they face discrimination and lack representation (Gest 2016). For such individuals, the racial or ethnic identity of their representatives may be important symbolically (Tate 2001).

All of these underlying mechanisms lead to one essential result: a decreased likelihood of voting for a candidate simply due to their membership in an ethnic minority category. This discrimination may stem from prejudice, in-group trust and favoritism, or beliefs about the value of descriptive representation (in a society in which race and ethnicity are salient identities), or some combination thereof, but in our context these are observationally equivalent, and therefore can be combined into a single hypothesis predicting categorical discrimination, or, again, simply that ethnic minority candidates will draw less support than otherwise identical white British candidates.

Substantive Representation and Conditional Ethnic Penalties

Although most prior work on electoral discrimination in Britain and elsewhere looks for categorical discrimination, voters’ biases and preferences can contribute to the underrepresentation of ethnic minority groups in other ways. We suggest that ethnic minority candidates may face several forms of conditional discrimination, in which voters’ discrimination depends on the candidates’ policy positions or other characteristics.

First, we propose the Substantive Representation Hypothesis: majority-group voters may oppose the substantive representation of minority interests by any candidate, regardless of that candidate’s own ethnicity. White voters might resist substantive representation of minority voters’ preferences in line with divergent issue opinions. For example, data from the Ethnic Minority British Election Study and the main British Election Study show marked differences in support for affirmative action between ethnic minority and white British groups: 70% of ethnic minority respondents favored improving opportunities for black and Asian people, compared to 20% of white British (Heath et al. 2013). On immigration, 50% of minorities opposed sending most asylum seekers home immediately, compared to 39% of the white British—not as stark a difference, but still a significant one. If candidates cannot succeed when promoting policies that are preferred by more ethnic minority voters, there may be a deficit of substantive representation regardless of whether minority candidates are elected. The phenomenon of symbolic inclusion—where minority candidates are selected primarily for their appeal to white voters as a symbol of liberalism and not for their strong ties to minority voters and interests—illustrates parties’ awareness of this dilemma (Dancygier 2017, p. 28).

The Substantive Representation Hypothesis does not entail direct disadvantages for ethnic minority candidates. In practice, however, opposition to substantive representation would likely disadvantage such candidates, as empirically they are more likely to seek to represent minority constituents’ substantive interests (Sobolewska et al. 2018). For example, ethnic minority MPs are more likely to ask official Parliamentary Questions about minority rights and about immigration (Saalfeld and Bischof 2013). Thus, substantive representation may well go hand in hand with descriptive representation.

In addition, we suggest a potential interaction effect, in which minority candidates may pay a larger price at the ballot box for taking pro-minority policy positions than white candidates pay for holding the same view. This possibility—the Conditional Ethnic Penalty Hypothesis—draws on a “group-centric” view of voters (e.g., Huddy 2018). Candidates’ issue views may convey information not only about the policies they pursue but also about group loyalties, i.e., whose interests they will tend to represent if elected. As noted above, white voters often fear minority leaders will prioritize minority interests at their expense (Fulton and Gershon 2018). This perception of minority candidates is particularly difficult to dispel, even with contrary information about candidate ideology (Karl et al. 2016). If minority candidates promise to promote minority groups’ interests, white voters may assess a conditional ethnic penalty above and beyond what a white candidate would face for taking an unpopular policy position.