The Impact of Race on Political Behaviour in Britain

In contrast to the United States, where analyses of the political behaviour of blacks number in the hundreds, if not more, substantial studies of the political attitudes and behaviour of Britain's non-white minority are fairly scarce. As non-whites have become more visible in the political arena, however, attention by academics has increased. But as yet there have been few countrywide, empirical, and systematic investigations of the political behaviour and attitudes of this population. Our Note uses multivariate methods to investigate the extent of political participation of Britain's non-white minorities in the 1979 election. We focus on a wide variety of political activities and a few selected issue concerns. We attempt to place our findings in the context of some theories of ethnic politics that have developed to explain black political behaviour in Britain and in the United States.