The main objective of this project is to study the degree of political integration of the foreign immigrant population in several European cities, and therefore to study multicultural democracy at the local level. This project defines the concept of political integration as the combination of the degree of socio-political participation and the level of trust and acceptance of the political values, institutions and elites of the host society.

The questions that guide the whole research are the following:
- To what extent is the immigrant population politically integrated into the local life of their cities?
- Are there significant differences in the degree to which different ethnic, cultural or national groups are politically integrated into the local life?
- If such differences exist, what factors help explain the variations in the degree of political integration from one immigrant group to another?

The analytical approach of the research considers the potential influence of four types of factors:
(1) immigrants' individual characteristics;
(2) the structuring of immigrants' organizations along ethnic, national or geo-cultural cleavages;
(3) the structure of institutional and discursive opportunities; and
(4) the characteristics of the immigrant groups within the host society.

The research will collect the necessary information at three different levels of analysis:
(1) The contextual or macro level, through the use of secondary sources and interviews with political and administrative authorities;
(2) The organizational or meso level, through (a) the study of immigrants' organisational structures and networks, through surveys to immigrants' associations; and (b) the analysis of 'organizational' life histories, through in-depth interviews with the leaders of some of the immigrants' associations.
(3) The individual or micro level, through a survey to immigrant residents of different origins (with a control group of national-born citizens).