ethnicity and political participation: Competing models and contrasting explanations Race

While various models have been developed to account for differences in participation levels between African-Americans and Anglos, the empirical evidence for these models is rather limited; fails to include ethnic minority groups other than African-Americans; and assumes that the models are equally effective in explaining the behavior of all individuals regardless of race or ethnicity. This paper addresses these limitations by evaluating five models of participation to determine whether factors associated with Anglo and African-American participation are also associated with Mexican-American and Asian-American participation. We find that although the models apply differentially to each of the four groups, they nonetheless account for participation differences across racial/ethnic groups.

Race, ethnicity and political participation: Competing models and contrasting explanations Academic Article