ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses an open-ended question placed in the Ethnic Diversity and Collective Action (EDCA)-Survey. It offers novel insight on the ethnic folk classifications native Germans apply in organizing responsibility for problems in their neighbourhood. Germany is an interesting case for such an analysis, since Brubaker described it as a nearly ideal-typical case of a country with an ethnic conception of nationhood, which also characterizes its public discourse. The chapter shows that members of the lower classes, drinkers, the elderly and especially teenagers are more frequently blamed for neighbourhood problems than any ethnic minority. It aims to identify contextual factors that might explain why people characterize problem groups in ethnic rather than other terms. The chapter analyses how out-group size and conditions of economic decline are associated with the likelihood that respondents use ethnic categories to characterize problem groups in their neighbourhood, by relying on implications of group threat theory and the disintegration approach.
