Ethnic Hostility among Ethnic Majority and Minority Groups

another. Ethnic Competition Theory and Contact Theory should be incorporated into one formal
theoretical framework. Note that an integration of the propositions of Contact Theory and Ethnic
Competition Theory is not new. Stephan and Stephan integrated contact experiences and threat
in their Integrated Threat Theory (Stephan & Stephan, 2000); positive contact diminishes threat.
And Robert Park already recognised and explicated within his assimilation theory that for actual
competition between ethnic groups to exist there has to be (negative) contact between members
of these groups (Park, 1950). 8 It may be clear that residential mobility should also be taken into
account within this new integrated and formalised theoretical framework.
Thus following Chapters 3 and 4, I would argue that future research should investigate
when (depending on ethnic outgroup sizes within the locale), for whom (the rich and the poor,
the higher educated and the lower educated), to what extent and why the threat mechanisms
and contact mechanisms come to the fore – ideally, guided by hypotheses deduced from a formal
theoretical model that incorporates Ethnic Competition Theory, Contact Theory and selective
residential mobility.
8.3.2 Theoretical implications for Ethnic Competition Theory and Contact Theory from Part 2
In Chapter 7, I did not fi nd corroborative evidence for the expectation derived from Ethnic
Competition Theory that ethnic minorities who perceive group discrimination would be more
opposed to ethnically mixed relationships and would more strongly identify with their country of
origin. One could argue that perceptions of group discrimination are empirically and theoretically
distinct from perceptions of ethnic-group threat measured by more traditional survey items such
as ‘They take away our jobs’. I admit that future research should try to replicate my fi ndings
with these traditional operationalisations of perceptions of group threat. If these more classical
measurements of group threat do lead to more ethnic hostility among ethnic minorities, the
question becomes: why are perceptions of group discrimination not perceptions of ethnic group
threat? And yet, I cannot see how discrimination could not lead to perceptions of ethnic group
threat. I therefore want to propose a refi nement of Ethnic Competition Theory instead.
Initially, the general proposition of Ethnic Competition Theory read: ‘The stronger the
actual competition between ethnic groups – induced by socio-economic, socio-cultural or sociohistorical
circumstances, whether at the individual or the contextual level – the stronger the perceived
ethnic threat, that in turn reinforces the mechanisms of social (contra-) identifi cation, leading to
stronger nationalistic and ethic exclusionistic attitudes.’ (Coenders, 2001, pp. 42-43). The ethnic
outgroup poses a threat to the social position of the ethnic ingroup as a whole, but the outgroup
is a stronger threat for individuals who hold similar social positions as the majority of outgroup
members, since these individuals are more directly in competition with members of outgroups for
scarce resources, according to Ethnic Competition Theory. The explandum has been generalised in
subsequent publications, and Ethnic Competition Theory should in principle be able to explain all
indicators of ethnic hostility and not only nationalistic and exclusionistic attitudes. 9
Ethnic Competition Theory however implicitly equates the ingroup with society’s dominant
ethnic group. The social positions that are most directly in competition with members of outgroups
were considered to be members with few resources (the lower educated, the unemployed and
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