Declining Ethnic Dominance and Democratic Quality Across Six Decades and 90 Countries
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Does diversity strengthen democracy or weaken it? And what kind of diversity matters? In the past 80 years, nations have become, on average, both more ethnically diverse and more democratic, suggesting a positive relationship between diversity and democracy. However, diversity creates the potential for intergroup conflict, which can weaken democracy. Consistent with this, resurgent ethnic nationalism featuring opposition to immigration and concerns about the status of dominant groups has accompanied democratic backsliding. Here we examine the relationship between diversity and democracy by combining complementary data from six historical data sets covering 90 countries from 1950 to 2010. We use multiple measures of democratic quality and track diversity using a conventional measure (fractionalization) as well as a measure of ethnic polarization and, critically, the historically dominant group’s share of the population. Using dynamic panel models, we show that declines in ethnic dominance predict significant reductions in electoral, liberal, egalitarian, and participatory democracy. Crucially, we find that these declines are typically followed by periods of democratic resilience, suggesting that democratic backsliding is reversible and that declining ethnic dominance may lead to stronger democratic institutions over time. These findings may provide insights for fortifying democratic institutions in increasingly diverse societies.
Authors: Lucas Woodley, Joshua D. Greene
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7164332753