Racial integration, ethnic diversity, and prejudice: empirical evidence from a study of the British National Party

Does contact with ethnic minorities exacerbate or lower the racial prejudice of whites? To provide empirical evidence on this question, I examine the recruitment of members by the British National Party (BNP), which has a long history of supplying hate-creating stories about ethnic minorities. I find that the BNP recruits fewer white members from communities in which: (i) whites interact more frequently with nonwhites, (ii) whites are exposed to greater racial diversity within the nonwhite population, and (iii) there are more mixed-race offspring from white and nonwhite parents. Further tests suggest that these results are not attributable to self-segregation or economic conditions. Overall, there is compelling evidence that contact with ethnic minorities reduces the racial prejudice of whites.