Race and Political Science
Race and Political Science
Although controversies surrounding race have arisen in a variety of nations since at least the sixteenth century, it has only been since the mid-twentieth century that these issues have generated serious attention in the discipline of political science. Beginning primarily in the aftermath of such watershed events as the civil rights movement in the United States, the rise of Fidel Castro in Cuba, and the demise of the apartheid system in South Africa, political scientists have slowly begun to focus on the impact of race in politics. In particular, scholars have examined issues such as the impact of racial group membership and racial attitudes on public opinion and voting behavior, partisanship, and political incorporation.
The literature on race and politics is perhaps most developed in the United States, where race plays a role in the level of support garnered by black candidates. There is little doubt that African Americans represent a small percentage of elected officials nationwide and that self-identified black candidates are rarely elected in majority-white political jurisdictions. It is not at all clear, however, that blacks fare poorly among white voters because of their race. Scholars have sought to get a better grasp on this question by relying upon experimental designs as a way of isolating the effects of candidate race. When white voters are randomly assigned to experimental conditions wherein otherwise identical candidates differ only in their racial background, some studies have found that black candidates are evaluated less favorably relative to white candidates.
Racial considerations do not just figure prominently in biracial contests. Some political scientists argue that the contemporary American party system is primarily based on racial cleavages. According to this view, after the 1964 presidential contest pitting racial liberal Lyndon Johnson (1908–1973) against racial conservative Barry Goldwater (1909–1998), voters began to view the political parties as primarily distinctive on matters of race. This view became solidified with the War on Poverty, which seemed to link the Democratic Party with the aspirations of racial minorities. There is some support for this controversial claim. Although African Americans have been part of the Democratic coalition since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s (1882–1945) second term, blacks have supported Democratic presidential candidates—and identified with the party—by increasingly lopsided margins since the mid-1960s. Many whites, on the other hand, are now firmly attached to the Republican Party, and since the late 1960s have consistently supported Republican presidential candidates over their Democratic opponents.
Much of this “realignment” of partisan loyalties has occurred in the American South. Although solidly Democratic since the end of Reconstruction, the South began to abandon the Democratic Party in the 1970s and 1980s. The political science literature has not reached consensus as to whether this is primarily due to racial considerations. For example, some scholars would argue that social issues such as abortion, gay rights, and prayer in the schools are more important as explanations for the contemporary embrace of the Republican Party among white southerners. However this debate is resolved, there is no doubt that the South remains the most racially conservative region in the United States. Whether the issue is school integration, enforcement of antidiscrimination laws, or increased spending on race-targeted programs, national surveys conducted as recently as the 1990s have consistently shown that white southerners are more conservative than their northern counterparts.
Regional differences have not only emerged from standard survey data but also using experimental methods. James Kuklinski, Michael Cobb, and Martin Gilens (1997), for example, developed an unobtrusive method for gauging racial attitudes. In short, they provide a nationally representative group of respondents with an opportunity to indicate how angry they are at a list of four items, one of which (the experimental condition) includes a specific reference to African Americans, as well as three topics not related to race. A randomly selected half of the sample is asked only about the three nonracial topics (the control condition), and all respondents are assured that no one will be able to determine which specific item makes them angry. However, because of random assignment, if levels of racial resentment are higher in the experimental condition relative to the control, then the differences can only be attributed to racial concerns. With this technique, Kuklinski and his colleagues show that white southerners are far more racially resentful toward blacks than their northern counterparts. This difference is also much greater than the results from traditional surveys.
RACIAL ATTITUDES
Racial schisms and the influence of racial attitudes do not just occur in the United States. Although some scholars have argued that Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean are mostly free from the racial strife associated with the United States, more recent work has called this Latin American exceptionalism thesis into question. For example, Mark Sawyer, Yesilernis Peña, and Jim Sidanius (2004) fielded surveys in Cuba, the Dominican Republican, and Puerto Rico and found that respondents perceived racial hierarchies in their respective countries that were very similar to those in the United States. Whites were consistently perceived as having greater social status, followed by “mulattos” and finally blacks. Similarly, in follow-up work, Sawyer has found that Cubans who identify as white are much more likely than their darker-skinned counterparts to perceive other races as less intelligent and moral.
Another area where scholars are beginning to examine the impact of racial identity and attitudes on public opinion is South Africa. This country has, of course, been wracked with racial divisions since its founding and has only been a multiracial democracy since 1994. James Gibson conducted the first systematic nationwide survey of attitudes on racial identity, national identity, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. His 2001 survey included a large number of whites, blacks, “colored,” and South Africans of Asian ancestry. Gibson finds that race relations in South Africa are far more complicated than many often assume, with considerable variation on public opinion within racial groups. Nevertheless, whites are far more likely to not identify with blacks than are blacks to reject identification with whites. On a more optimistic note, he finds that white South Africans who have greater contact with other races are also more likely to embrace the results from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
In the United States, the empirical study of the impact of racial attitudes on policy opinion can be traced to David Sears and Donald Kinder, and their subsequent development of the theory of symbolic racism (also sometimes referred to as modern racism or racial resentment ). According to this theory, a new form of racial attitude emerged in the waning days of the civil rights movement. Support for the biological inferiority of African Americans was discredited, but antipathy directed at blacks remained a powerful force among whites. This anti-black affect would, in the aftermath of the urban riots in the late 1960s, merge with the widespread perception that blacks were making unfair demands on the system and not working hard enough to get ahead. According to Sears and Kinder, it is this new form of racism—which blends negative attitudes about blacks with the perception that they violate cherished values such as hard work—that accounts for white opposition to various policies designed to achieve racial equality.
The theory of symbolic racism has sparked a spirited and longstanding debate in the literature as to the manner and the extent to which racial attitudes influence whites’ policy preferences. None of the critics insist that racism is nonexistent, or that it has no influence on the policy preferences of white Americans. Instead, controversy has arisen with regard to the ambiguity in the conceptual definition and the measurement of the theory. These criticisms have on occasion hit their mark, as the symbolic racism theorists have modified their measures and sought to specify their model more carefully. Some of the more recent work in this literature has, however, generally supported the theory (see, for example, Sears and Henry 2003).
An emerging literature on the influence of race-based campaign communications also highlights the enduring linkage between race and politics. This work suggests that these communications can be effective, provided they do not rely on overtly racist messages. Specifically, Tali Mendelberg (2001) has shown that subtle racial cues, such as pairing pictures of African Americans with a standard conservative narrative condemning welfare, increased the role of racial considerations in candidate evaluations. Although this literature is both provocative and promising, scholars have yet to explore the frequency or impact of candidate appeals that invoke race explicitly but in a way that could not be interpreted as “racist.”
RACE AND RACIAL MINORITIES
Although most of the racial attitudes literature focuses on the United States and white attitudes about African Americans, an emerging literature has begun to examine the role that race-based political perceptions have on black public opinion. Much of this research can be traced back to the pioneering work of Patricia Gurin, Shirley Hatchett, and James Jackson’s 1989 book, Hope and Independence. These authors argued that black attitudes about prominent political figures, such as Jesse Jackson and Ronald Reagan (1911–2004), are influenced strongly by race-based perceptions of group solidarity and group consciousness. This work, and much of the literature inspired by it, finds that African Americans’ racial attitudes and policy preferences seem to be driven more by their in-group bias rather than out-group animus. Additionally, high levels of in-group identity appear to account for the unprecedented levels of black political unity.
Unlike the study of African American political behavior, there has been comparatively little attention devoted to other racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, such as Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. This has begun to change, however, as these groups have become an increasingly large share of the American population. Of these groups, the most attention has been devoted to Latino politics. One of the central questions in this emerging field is whether theoretical models designed to explain the broader electorate, or subgroups such as African Americans, can also be applied to Latinos (de la Garza 2004). This comparison with blacks is a common one since both groups are socially and economically disadvantaged relative to whites and both groups tend to support the Democratic Party. One question researchers have asked is: Are Latinos more likely to participate in politics when Latinos seek or have already achieved elective office in the local jurisdiction? This pattern holds for blacks, and some research finds similar effects among Latinos in California. It remains to be seen whether this applies elsewhere in the country. Another issue that arises frequently in this literature is whether Latinos should be treated as a single ethnic group or if national origin is the more salient identity. There is not yet a consensus on this question, although it is clear that Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans tend to have different partisan and political preferences compared to Cuban Americans.
With the 2000–2001 Pilot National Asian American Political Study (PNAAPS), scholars have taken their first steps toward understanding the political views of this rapidly growing demographic group. Relying on this groundbreaking dataset, The Politics of Asian Americans (Lien et al. 2004) provides a wealth of descriptive information on this diverse population. For example, it reports that most Asian Americans identify with their country of origin rather than with pan-ethnic labels. Additionally, more Asian Americans identify with the Democratic Party than with the Republicans, although about half do not identify with either major party. Although this work is largely descriptive, it represents an important first step in mapping the contours and variations present among this largely foreign-born population. At a minimum, it is clear from the PNAAPS that many of the political theories and hypotheses developed for the larger electorate must be modified when applied to Asian Americans.
SEE ALSO Affirmative Action; African Americans; Apartheid; Attitudes, Racial; Blackness; Civil Rights Movement, U.S.; Democratic Party, U.S.; Identification, Racial; Japanese Americans; Latinos; Native Americans; Political Science; Politics, Asian American; Politics, Black; Politics, Latino; Race; Racial Classification; Racism; Reagan, Ronald; Reconstruction Era (U.S.); Reparations; Republican Party; Segregation; Southern Strategy; Terror; Truth and Reconciliation Commissions; Violence; Voting Patterns; Whiteness
BIBLIOGRAPHY
de la Garza, Rudolpho O. 2004. Latino Politics. Annual Review of Political Science 7: 91–123.
Gibson, James L. 2004. Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation? New York: Sage Foundation.
Gurin Patricia, Shirley Hatchett, and James J. Jackson. 1989. Hope and Independence: Blacks’ Response to Electoral and Party Politics. New York: Sage Foundation.
Kinder, Donald R., and David O. Sears. 1981. Prejudice and Politics: Symbolic Racism Versus Racial Threats to the Good Life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 40: 414–431.
Kuklinski, James H., Michael D. Cobb, and Martin Gilens. 1997. Racial Attitudes and the “New South.” Journal of Politics 59 (2): 323–349.
Lien, Pei-Te, M. Margaret Conway, and Janelle Wong. 2004. The Politics of Asian Americans: Diversity and Community. New York and London: Routledge.
Mendelberg, Tali. 2001. The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages, and the Norm of Equality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sawyer, Mark Q., Yesilernis Peña, and Jim Sidanius. 2004. Cuban Exceptionalism: Group-based Hierarchy and the Dynamics of Patriotism in Puerto Rico, the Dominican-Republic, and Cuba. Du Bois Review 1 (1): 93–114.
Sears, David O., and P. J. Henry. 2003. The Origins of Symbolic Racism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85 (2): 259–275.
Vincent L. Hutchings