Political Participation Among Ethnic Groups in the United States: A Preliminary Reconnaissance

Religioethnic background is a meaningful predictor of political participation in American society. Its impact does not go away when social class is held constant, and it has an independent explanatory power that compares favorably with social class. Different causal models for political participation seem to apply for different ethnic collectivities, and the diversity among such collectivities is of similar magnitude to the diversity found in various nations in cross-national studies. Irish Catholics and Jews are the most active groups; Irish Protestants and blacks, the least active. The importance of ethnicity as a predictor variable can no longer be ignored by American social research.