Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status as Sources of Participation: The Case for Ethnic Political Culture

Many studies undertaken in recent decades have documented the effects of socioeconomic status (SES) on political participation. As consensus has grown on the role of socioeconomic status, other factors, like ethnicity, have been relegated to secondary importance. However, variations in levels of participation can be traced, in part, to differences in ethnic political culture. Furthermore, the findings presented in this article indicate that holding socioeconomic status constant does not eliminate the independent impact of ethnicity on political attitudes that affect participation. Ethnicity is shown to have a greater effect than socioeconomic status on levels of participant political culture. How these findings might influence our understanding of social and political inequality is discussed, and students of participation are urged to give more serious attention to the ethnic factor.