Europe won’t have its own Obama soon

As Barack Obama begins his presidency, many Europeans are wondering when a non-white immigrant-origin politician will become head of state in their country.

“Hope”-mongers point to possible candidates such as Paul Boateng (of mixed Ghanaian and Scottish heritage), who has held numerous high-level posts in Britain, including member of Parliament and chief secretary to the Treasury, and is currently British high commissioner to South Africa. In France, Rachida Dati is the North African-origin justice minister and a close associate of President Nicolas Sarkozy. Turkish-origin Cem Ozdemir was just promoted to chairman of the German Green Party. In the Netherlands, Moroccan-origin Ahmed Aboutaleb was recently elected mayor of Rotterdam.

Beyond this short list, the number of non-white parliamentary representatives is steadily increasing in all European countries.

While the list of potential candidates may be growing every year, a non-white head of state in Europe is unlikely anytime soon. Boateng and Dati hold prominent positions, but government ministers can easily be fired and lapse into obscurity. Ozdemir may be the highest-ranking member of his party but the German Greens are a coalition joiner, not coalition former, and are unlikely to have their leader become chancellor.

Beyond the specifics of these situations, there are larger demographic and cultural issues at play. More generally, non-white communities in Europe are smaller and newer than in the United States, so one should not expect parallel political developments.

In the U.S., non-whites make up 25 percent of the population and form a sizeable voting bloc. In Europe, non-whites are usually well below 10 percent of the population and have less electoral leverage. Europe’s minorities also arrived later than those in the U.S. The United States population always has included a mixture of races and ethnicities. European countries did not receive significant non-white migrants until after World War II, and in some cases not until the 1980s or 1990s.

Members of the smaller and newer minorities in Europe are generally viewed as foreign outsiders, even if they were born in the country. Also, many minorities in Europe do not have citizenship or voting rights even after living in the country for several generations. This is because in Europe, identity and citizenship are often linked to ethnic roots. A recent survey on transatlantic trends conducted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States found that Europeans were much less likely than Americans to list citizenship and a sense of belonging as criteria for accepting immigrants as part of society. All of this reduces the likelihood of seeing a European non-white head of state anytime soon.

Boateng, Dati, Ozdemir, Aboutaleb and others are an encouraging "first wave" of minority politicians in Europe. That does not mean they are likely to become heads of state. Most are descended from the unskilled and uneducated workers who migrated to fill labor shortages in Europe after World War II. These new politicians are inspirational examples of social mobility much like the African-American mayors elected in the U.S. during the 1970s and 1980s. But while Obama had access to elite American universities, Europe’s smaller and newer non-white groups have fewer politicians with the social and political connections necessary to access the highest offices.

None of this means that a non-white candidate of immigrant origin cannot become head of state in western Europe. Obama was an underdog in the Democratic primary, and one year ago few thought his election would be possible.

If the American experience is an example, however, European nations are a decade or two behind when it comes to minorities’ access to power. Obama boosted himself on the shoulders of those who came before him. The current crop of non-white European politicians are the ones whose shoulders will be used for leverage.

Rahsaan Maxwell is a Fellow at the Transatlantic Academy and Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.