Migration has become an important and polarising issue on the
political agenda, in particular since the migration movements to
Europe in 2015. What attitudes migrants bring to the host
societies is relevant for the stability of modern democracies in
general and for political representation in particular. Several
studies investigate differences in attitudes and preferences
between migrants and non-migrants, on the one side, and within
the heterogeneous group of migrants on the other. These
(differences in) attitudes among migrants are often related to the
dominant patterns of political attitudes in the countries of origin.
We contribute new insights to this literature using novel survey
data from Germany covering subsamples of respondents with an
Italian, Russian and Turkish migrant background. We argue and
show empirically that migrants’ positions on contentious issues
like migration, the order of society, and welfare state policy are
shaped not only by the cultural background of the migrant’s
society of origin, but also by personal characteristics like the
status of a first- or second-generation migrant and their religious
orientation in terms of denomination and religiosity.
