Research Expertise and Interest

immigrant integration, intergroup relations, causal inference, race and ethnic politics, political behavior

Research Description

Stephanie Zonszein is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science.  She studies the politics of immigration in advanced industrial societies, with a focus on the behavior of immigrants and native-born, the policies which aim to shape immigrant integration, and the reactions to those policies. One strand of her research considers what can be achieved by non-assimilationist policies — that is, policies that either remove structural barriers to integration without imposing cultural ones or that make specific accommodations for cultural diversity. These are some of the research questions that motivate this strand of work: Can immigrants enter mainstream society (including proficiency in the host societal language, and economic and political participation) without eliminating their cultural distinctiveness? Can institutional accommodation of cultural diversity promote political participation? A second strand of my research considers reactions from the native-born to immigrants' successful integration, examining both electoral and social responses to the accession of members of ethnic minority immigrant groups to political office.