Group Threat at the Ground Level: Support for Ethnically Radical Parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly

Abstract

Ethnic settlement patterns and other forms of everyday interethnic social contact have the potential to influence voter preferences for ethnic tribune parties who position themselves as the most strident protectors of, and flagbearers for, their respective ethnic groups. Previous studies on this topic have come to rival conclusions, with some finding that increased intergroup contact and residential mixing produce a corresponding increase in support for tribune parties and others finding the opposite. This study uses a combination of data from elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly from 1998 to 2017 and survey data from 2016 to evaluate these rival arguments and assess the extent to which the broader institutional and demographic context in which political competition takes place condition responses to intergroup contact. Our findings indicate that voters in both declining and ascending demographic groups respond similarly to intergroup contact, expressing less support for tribune parties in contexts where residential patterns and social networks provide more opportunities for intergroup contact. These results highlight the conditional nature of the effectiveness of consensus-based institutions in divided societies: they can create incentives for moderation, but those incentives are most likely to be realized in contexts where rival groups experience a high level of integration.