In Europe ethnic diversity has traditionally been one of the main challenges to state-formation. It is commonly assumed that the way in which states accommodate ethnic diversity has a strong impact on state survival and democratic consolidation. Peaceful ethnopolitical protest, in particular, is often seen as a way to accommodate the challenging demands of ethnic diversity. In this paper we study the presence and absence of ethnopolitical protest based on a comprehensive sample of twenty-nine ethnic groups in nineteen European countries. We ask why some ethnic groups are engaged in protest, whereas others are not. Our argument is that protest needs to be understood from the context in which it takes place or is absent, as well as from group-specific factors. We look at contextual factors as levels of democracy and ethnic fractionalization and, with regard to groups-in-context, at political discrimination, geographical concentration, and national pride. We use data from the “Minorities at Risk” project and the European Values Survey and apply fuzzy-set techniques to analyze necessary and sufficient conditions for the presence and absence of ethnopolitical protest.
