Introduction: Social capital and political integration of migrants

In recent years the social capital approach has been gaining importance in the study of political participation of (ethnic) minorities. Here we follow the research efforts of the Dutch political scientists Fennema and Tillie who claim that differences in political participation of ethnic minorities are linked to differences in 'civic community', primarily seen as the amount of 'ethnic' social capital (participation in ethnic associational life) of the relevant group. It is a challenge to try and test these claims in different national settings. This is the aim of the empirical contributions to this special issue of JEMS, which aims to pave the way for further comparative cross-national research on the link between migrant associational life and political participation.