Role of Ethnicity in Elections

Cavaioli (1992) indicates that group voting has come to dominate American politics and that a definite relationship exists between ethnicity and group voting practices. Group political activity, such as engaged in by interest groups, reaps several advantages to member participants. For example, interest groups perform many of the functions formerly assumed by political parties, such as raising money to support candidates, setting policy, educating voters on the issues, and providing representation for their membership. Clearly, group politics play a vital role in American government. Members of interest groups tend to exhibit similar political attitudes and voting behavior. A recent development in politics is the study of the ethnocultural determinants of voting behavior: "According to this view, nationality, race, and religion form the foundation for political attitudes" (Cavaiol

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social organizations and institutions. During the behavioral assimilation period, the immigrant could be expected to vote along ethnic lines. Once structural assimilation is achieved, the incidence of ethnic voting patterns would be expected to decline. Ethnic voting patterns that persist are evidence that ethnics are "accommodating themselves to American customs and styles, but they (are) not entering the structural group relations of the dominant society" (p. 65). Again using the 1860 presidential campaign of Abraham Lincoln as an example, one social scientist contends that German immigrants had sufficiently assimilated themselves into the dominant culture, and did not vote along ethnic lines. Kleppner (1971) argues that the German voters responded to the appeal of the Republican party, and that the Republicans targeted their campaign to attract these voters. The Republicans used three, distinct strategies to target the German vote. First, the party platform included a resolution opposing strict immigration laws. Second, the Republicans chose Abraham Lincoln as their candidate. Although Lincoln was not the first choice of the German Americans, his opposition to anti-foreign sentiment was well-known. The Republicans' t
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Approximate Word count = 2097
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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