The Effects of Ethnic Segregation and Ethnic Competition on Political Mobilization in the Basque Country, 1988

Ethnic competition theory and the ethnic segregation model are two approaches to the study of ethnic political mobilization. I discuss these models, evaluate the ways they have been tested in the past, and then empirically determine the relative merits of the two theories in explaining voting behavior in the Basque Country in northern Spain. Previous tests of the ethnic competition and ethnic segregation models have suffered from serious problems. In particular, they have relied on indirect measures of ethnic labor market segregation and have failed to distinguish individual from contextual effects on ethnic political mobilization. I use direct measures of ethnic labor market segregation and rely on data that combines individual and contextual variables. I extend the scope of work on the relationship between levels of ethnic labor market segregation and ethnic political mobilization by focusing on an "over-developed" region of a multinational state. Using logit models, I demonstrate that the ethnic segregation model offers a better explanation of ethnic voting behavior in the Basque Country than does ethnic competition theory.