Bridging and Bonding Ethnic Ties in Voluntary Organizations a Multilevel “Schools of Democracy" Model

Scholars of political disaffection have recently argued that ethnically bridging and bonding non-profit associations may have diverging effects on members’ likelihood of political engagement. However, both theoretical and empirical assessments of such effects remain inconclusive by predicting different scenarios. In this article, I contribute to this literature by relying on a novel design, which does not focus on individuals (as in previous research), but instead samples ethnically homogeneous and heterogeneous organisations and their participants. This allows partitioning variance in political engagement at these two levels of analysis, and admits a more direct test of the link between ethnic composition of an organisation and political engagement. This sampling strategy also allows controlling for the effects of previously ignored organisational characteristics, which may enhance political engagement. A multilevel analysis suggests existing studies tend to overestimate the importance of an ethnically heterogeneous organisational context. Findings suggest that both types of voluntary organisations attract politically engaged individuals (self-selection). Moreover, other organisational characteristics—such as providing political information or receiving (local) government grants—have a stronger effect on members’ political engagement than an organisation’s ethnic composition.