Racial environment and political participation

This research addresses the determinants of mass participation by developing a model of how the racial environment influences mass participation in the United States. Prior literature on this research question presents two competing expectations. The power-threat hypothesis predicts that a larger size of different racial groups in local areas increases citizen participation because of more intensive interracial con- flicts, while the relational goods hypothesis predicts that a larger size of different racial groups decreases participation because of less frequent interaction with other in-group members. Both hypotheses, however, are derived from rather weak theoretical expectations, and neither is consistently supported in empirical analyses. This research offers a solution to this puzzle by arguing that economic and political characteristics of local areas determine how the racial composition influences mass participation. Local economic and political competition is expected to structure the nature of interracial and intraracial relations and therefore influence the utility calculation associated with political participation. I hypothesize that the power-threat effect on citizen participation is observed only when the degree of economic or political competition is high, while the relational goods effect is observed only when the degree of economic or political competition is low. Empirical analysis using Verba, Schlozman, and Brady’s Citizen Participation Study offers supportive evidence for my hypotheses. This research offers the first theoretically-motivated, rigorous analysis and evidence of the impact of immediate racial environment on individuals’ participation