The Impact of Ethnic Diversity on Participation in European Voluntary Organizations

Abstract

In this study, we test whether Putnam’s general claim of a negative effect of ethnic diversity holds for (active and passive) involvement in three types of voluntary organizations: leisure, interest, and activist organizations. Using data from the European Social Survey (wave 1), we applied multilevel analyses distinguishing individuals, regions, and countries. Only at the regional level, did we find that ethnic diversity reduced involvement in interest organizations. Yet, ethnic diversity induced passive involvement in activist organizations. Subsequently, we included mechanisms derived from conflict and contact theory to disentangle the indirect effects of ethnic diversity. Ethnic threat perceptions influenced participation in all voluntary associations negatively, while intergroup contact turned out to have positive influences. Our findings stress the necessity of distinguishing different types of voluntary organizations and modes of involvement and underline the importance of incorporating indirect effects of ethnic diversity.

Associational Involvement in Dutch Municipalities and Neighbourhoods: Does Ethnic Diversity Influence Bonding and Bridging Involvement?

“…Contradictory to what we expected and at odds with earlier European findings [16], perceptions of ethnic threat are unrelated to associational involvement, which refutes our hypotheses derived from conflict theory [11,12,25]. Apparently, perceptions of ethnic threat do not translate into higher levels of out-group derogation and in-group solidarity reflected in less involvement in bridging associations and more involvement in bonding associations, respectively.…”

“…Having interethnic contact, in turn, is negatively related to the odds of involvement in bonding associations, but only for leisure associations (Table 3, Model 5a). Additionally, having interethnic contact is positively related to the likelihood to be involved in bridging as compared to bonding associations for those respondents who are involved in leisure associations (Table 3, Models 5c) 16 . For interest associations, the effects of interethnic contact are in the same direction, though, they do not reach the boundary of significance.…”

“…Earlier research pointed at the importance of adequately controlling for the socioeconomic status of the context when addressing the influence of ethnic diversity on social capital (e.g., [22,39]). In line with previous studies (e.g., [8,9,16]), we control for the unemployment rate at the contextual level. We use the number of unemployment benefit recipients per 1,000 inhabitants aged 15-64 in 2012 at the municipality and neighbourhood level [36].…”

“…In that case, we derive an opposite expectation for the relationship between ethnic threat perceptions and bonding associational involvement: the more people perceive ethnic threat, the less likely they will be involved in any voluntary association, either bridging or bonding. Earlier cross-national European research provided some initial evidence for this line of thought, showing that people, who perceive more ethnic threat, are less likely to be involved in different types of voluntary associations [16]. Note, however, that the ethnic composition of the voluntary associations was not considered.…”

“…Until now, it remains largely unclear how ethnic diversity affects associational involvement. Based on conflict theory (e.g., [10][11][12]) and contact theory (e.g., [13][14][15]) we derive two contrary sets of expectations on underlying mechanisms, just like Savelkoul et al [16], who failed, however, to consider the ethnic composition of these associations. As such contradictory indirect effects might cancel each other out, this might be an alternative explanation why studies only addressing direct relationships between ethnic diversity and formal social capital hardly found evidence for a detrimental impact of ethnic diversity [5].…”