The Role of Resource and Blame Models in Immigrant v. Citizen Collective Action.

Immigrants comprise growing populations in advanced democracies, and engage in a range of political activities. However, it is unknown whether the same mechanisms that mobilize native citizens into different types of collective action also hold for more recent immigrants. This paper compares mobilization into various forms of collective action between two distinct populations: immigrants versus native citizens of democracies. Using World Values Survey data, two models of collective action are tested for each group: the resource model (developed by Brady, Verba, and Schlozman, 1995), and the more recent blame attribution model (developed by Javeline, 2003). The results suggest that although both immigrants and citizens are mobilized by resources and blame attribution, the specific sets of resources and targets of blame systematically vary across groups. This results in substantially different patterns of collective action by immigrants compared to citizens, suggesting the need to refine existing models. Moreover, the evidence presents a variegated pattern of political participation stratified along the lines of socio-economic status, reflecting substantial differences between immigrants and citizens in access to the resources that foster democratic participatory values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]