A line of cleavage divides social science thinking on "ethnicity," defined as the genetic and cultural features such as skin color, language, religion, and homeland by which a person tends to anchor his or her sense of self. On the one hand are scholars who stress the utility of ethnic identifications in achieving political goals (the instrumentalists); on the other are those who view ethnicity much more as an inherent part of individual identity (the primordialists). The primordialist view would suggest that people join ethnically based political parties largely for psychological reasons while, for instrumentalists, the decision to join turns on how efficiently the organization appears to pursue its economic or political objectives. Employing a mailed questionnaire, this doctoral dissertation research project tests hypotheses issuing from the theory of social identity, a theory that promises to provide a superior grasp of ethnicity's primordial aspect and its relationship to ethnically based political participation in Germany, Britain and France. If the hypotheses are borne out, this research will offer empirical evidence in favor of the primordialist perspective, suggesting that instrumentalists might have to revise their accounts of the rise and decline of ethnically based political parties and of ethnic group behavior in general. The research will indicate the value of the theory of social identity for explaining why people join ethnically based political parties.
