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​ The identity-to-politics link ○​ A process of distinct steps: ​ 1. Definition: what are the defining characteristics of the group? (who belongs in the group and who does not) ​ 2. Identification: do individuals defined by a category identify...

​ The identity-to-politics link ○​ A process of distinct steps: ​ 1. Definition: what are the defining characteristics of the group? (who belongs in the group and who does not) ​ 2. Identification: do individuals defined by a category identify themselves with it? ​ 3. Consciousness: what are the group’s common beliefs and interests? (what are the shared interests→ what do they want to engage in → politics to pursue) ​ 4. Venue selection: political or nonpolitical? national, local, transnational? ​ 5. Choice: do group members agree on what actions to take? (what actions to take) ​ Racial group consciousness (Miller et al.) ○​ 1. Group identification (ID) → who is part of the group ○​ 2. Polar affect (PA) → difference in feeling towards the in-group and the out-group ○​ 3. Polar power (PP) → awareness of the group status ○​ 4. System blame (SB) → recognizing the unfairness of the system ​ The Black utility heuristic (Dawson) ○​ Self-interest vs group-interest ○​ Dawson’s puzzle: why don’t Black voters show the same class divisions that white Americans do? ○​ Theory: ​ 1. Black individuals’ life chances have tended to be “overdetermined” by race ​ 2. Political and economic subjugation are historically linked ​ 3. External information sources lower the cognitive cost of determining what is good for Blacks as a group ○​ “As long race remains dominant in determining the lives of individual blacks, it is ‘rational’ for African Americans to follow group cues in interpreting and acting in the political world” (Dawson 1994, 57-58). ○​ “As long as African-Americans’ life chances are powerfully shaped by race, it is efficient for individual African Americans to use their perceptions of interests of African Americans as a group as a proxy for their own interests”(Dawson 1994, 61). ○​ How do we measure the extent to which individuals use the Black utility heuristic? ○​ Dawson develops two items later in the book: ​ 1. Do you think what happens to Black people in this country will have something to do with what happens in your life? (Yes, No) ​ 2. (IF YES) How much will it affect you? (Not very much at all, Some, A lot) ○​ Together, these items measure linked fate ​ Linked fate  ○​ Linked fate is common ○​ But does the measure capture the concept? ○​ Gay, Hochschild and White (2016) find that linked fate is not consistently associated with: ​ Party ID ​ Political ideology ​ Voter registration ​ Involvement in the community ○​...yikes ​ When a study uses the linked fate items to measure racial group consciousness, beware! ​ Linked fate ≠ ingroup altruism ​ Pan-ethnic identity formation ○​ Pan-ethnic group consciousness (Stokes 2003) ​ Recall, pan-ethnic groups are racialized categories that contain multiple ethnic groups, e.g., Latinos, Asian Americans ​ Research question: does identification with a pan-ethnic group (in this case, Latinos) predict greater political participation? ​ Miller et al.’s measures for consciousness components ​ Combines electoral and non-electoral political participation into one index ​ Pan-ethnic group consciousness ○​ ​ POC ID (Pérez) ○​ The majority-minority shift ​ Recall: white Americans tend to react with racial threat ​ But what about non-white groups? ​ No group is approaching majority status on its own ​ Two possibilities: ​ Heightened inter-group competition ​ Growing interracial solidarity ​ Maybe even pan-racial identification? ○​ Theorizing POC ID ​ POC ID and racial ID are complements rather than substitutes ​ POC ID is a form of identity management (SIT) ​ Individual mobility usually not possible for racial minority groups ​ POC ID can be a site for social creativity ​ POC ID can also be a resource for social competition ​ As such, POC identification will be context-dependent ○​ Pérez’s hypotheses ​ 1. Nested identity hypothesis ​ 2. Affirmation hypothesis ​ 3. Solidarity hypothesis ​ 4. Racial uniqueness hypothesis ○​ Measuring POC ID ○​ The nested identity hypothesis ○​ The affirmation/solidarity hypotheses ○​ The affirmation/solidarity hypotheses ○​ The affirmation/solidarity hypotheses ○​ The racial uniqueness hypothesis ​ Is it possible to “knock the wind” out of POC ID? ​ The “distinct experiences” experiment ​ Participants read a baseline, POC-affirming, or ingroup distinctiveness statement ​ Baseline treatment provides Census info about majority- minority shift ​ Then express views on political and policy issues ○​ POC-affirming condition ​ “This increasing diversity rests on a common history shared by all people of color in the United States. For example,despite their differences, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and other people of color still experience social and political exclusion. Indeed, the United States continues to marginalize people of color as outsiders and un-American, even though they were born here or have lived here for most of their adult lives... The various forms of discrimination and prejudice that people of color now face is rooted in this unique legacy of hostility to all racial and ethnic minorities.” ○​ Ingroup distinctiveness conditions ​ “Nevertheless, this increasing diversity blurs the distinct histories each group has in the United States. For example, it is very hard to compare African Americans’ experience with slavery and its aftermath to the social and political exclusion faced by Asian Americans and Latinos. Indeed, the United States continues to marginalize many Blacks as  second-class citizens, even though African Americans have been in this country since its founding... The widespread discrimination and prejudice that Blacks now face is rooted in the unique legacy of slavery. ​ Forms of activism ○​ What is activism? ​ Protest, but also: ​ Community meetings ​ Distributing literature ​ Contacting public officials ​ Mutual aid ​ Broadly, political participation in support of a specific cause above and beyond voting ○​ Typologies of activism ​ High-cost vs. low-cost ​ Time ​ Money ​ Social capital ​ Safety ​ Inside the system vs. outside the system ​ Inside: talking politics, campaigning, lobbying, donating ​ Outside: protests, demonstrations, rallies, community organizing, mutual aid ​ Social movements ○​ Collective participation in action that is: ​ 1. Costly ​ 2. In pursuit of a common political goal ​ 3. Using at least some methods outside the political system ​ Political opportunity structures ○​ Klinkner and Smith’s ingredients for political opportunities: ​ External threat ​ Ideological tension ​ Organized domestic pressure ​ Stages of the "long civil rights movement" ○​ Periodization of the African American CRM ​ 1. 1900s-1920s: Anti-lynching activism ​ 2. 1920s-1950s: Civil rights litigation ​ 3. 1955-1960: First major protest cycle (all about desegregation and accommodation) ​ 4. 1960-1964: Second major protest cycle (fed gov taking action)  ​ 5. 1965-1970s: Fracturing and decline ​ Relationship between insider and outsider tactics in the CRM and IRM ​ The politics of protest (Wasow) ○​ Squaring the circle of ideology and strategy ○​ “An ‘eye for an eye’ in response to violent repression may be moral, but this research suggests it may not be strategic” (Wasow 2020, 657). ○​ Takeaways ​ Movement successes may take decades, with different strategies deployed at different times ​ Protest alone is rarely sufficient ​ Institutional engagement matters ​ Movement discipline is difficult, but critical ○​ ​ Ways of conceptualizing and measuring racial prejudice (Cramer) ​ Old-fashioned racism ○​ Beliefs about the innate inferiority of certain racial groups ○​ “How often do you get disgusted with blacks?” ○​ “How bothered would you be if your son or daughter dated [/married] a black person?” ○​ “Some people think whites tend to differ from blacks in [athletics/drive to succeed/how good they are at math/their tendency to act violently/intelligence]. Do you think their genes have anything to do with this difference?” ○​ ​ Racial resentment ○​ The belief that certain groups do not abide by norms of hard work and patriotism ○​ Irish, Italian, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors. ○​ Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class. ○​ Over the past few years, blacks have gotten less than they deserve. ○​ It’s really a matter of some people just not trying hard enough: if blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites. ○​ ​ Implicit bias ○​ “So when I took the test... it was stunning for me to discover that my hands were literally frozen when I had to associate black with good. It’s like I couldn’t find the key on the keyboard, and doing the other version, the white-good, black-bad version was trivial. So the first thought that I had was: ‘Something’s wrong with this test.’ Three seconds later, it sunk in that this test was telling me something so  important that it would require a re-evaluation of my mind, not of the test.” — psychologist Mahzarin Banaji ​ Explicit racism ○​ Modernized questions used to measure beliefs about group- level inferiority ○​ Rate Black (and white, Latino, and Asian) Americans on a 1-7 scale ○​ Hardworking - lazy ○​ Intelligent - unintelligent ○​ Trustworthy - untrustworthy ○​ Peaceful - violent ​ Racial spillover (Tesler) ○​ Recall: the spillover of racialization occurs when people attach a completely non-race-related object or idea to race ○​ This process can be completely unconscious ○​ But it implies that attitudes about race will influence attitudes about that object ○​ Tesler: Obama was a lightning rod for racial spillover ○​ Policy week: Obamacare attitudes well-predicted by racial resentment ○​ Today: Portuguese water dogs ○​ ​ Polarization in racial attitudes ○​ Potential explanations in the literature ​ Increasing social desirability bias ​ Growing problems with the racial resentment measure specifically ​ Partisan “identity performance” ​ Genuine attitude change ​ If this is the case, what explains this change? ○​ 1. Social desirability? ​ Perhaps racial attitudes haven’t changed, but norms around what is socially acceptable to say out loud have. ​ How can we test this possibility? ​ Look for mode effects ○​ 2. Problems with the measure? ​ Perhaps people today interpret the racial resentment items differently than they did in the 1980s. ​ Different political climate ​ Different generations (who remembers “Irish and Italian Americans working their way up” in 2020??)  ​ How do related measures perform? ○​ 3. Partisan “identity performance”? ​ Has signaling racial liberalism become part of being a “good Democrat”? ​ Could be more about partisan group identity than individual attitudes ​ Have those who identify most strongly with the Democratic party shown the largest shifts? ○​ 4. Genuine attitude change ​ Kind of a residual category — hard to prove dispositively ​ But all evidence points to respondents’ attitudes having genuinely changed ​ Electoral capture (Frymer) ○​ Frymer’s central argument ○​ “The primary reason for African American electoral capture is the worry of national party leaders that public appeals to black voters will produce national electoral defeats” (Frymer 1999, 10). ○​ The theory of electoral capture ​ “Those circumstances when the group has no choice but to remain in the party. The opposing party does not want the group’s vote, so the group cannot threaten its own party’s leaders with defection. The party leadership, then, can take the group for granted” (Frymer 1999, 8). ​ Key assumption: “parties do not seek election to promote policies; they promote policies to win elections” (Frymer 1999, 17). ○​ Ingredients of electoral capture ​ 1. Group cohesion with one party is necessary but not sufficient ​ 2. Is the group large and/or powerful and/or rich? ​ 3. Are its voters in electorally strategic locations? ​ 4. How does the group’s ideology align (or not) with the median voter? ​ 5. What will appeals to the group do to the rest of the coalition? ​ Shifts in Black, Latino, Asian American, and white partisanship (Hopkins et al.) ○​ How to “escape” electoral capture? ​ Electoral reforms (not likely) ​ A social movement generating external pressure ​ Withdrawal from the political system ​...? ○​ Demographics are destiny?  ​ 1999: Frymer publishes Uneasy Alliances ​ 2008: Barack Obama elected president, record Black turnout and Democratic support ​ 2014: U.S. Census projects majority-minority country by 2044 ○​ “Steadfast Democrats” no more? ​ Probably overblown ​ Estimated shift towards Trump among Black swing state voters ~2 percentage points ​ Black voters remain the most solidly Democratic racial group ​ But this shift is noteworthy nonetheless ​ Lower group-level turnout matters too ○​ Not a complete surprise ​ Puzzle: the Democratic party is the party that’s more aligned with Latino Americans in terms of both its policies and its symbolic racial politics. Which drives Latino Democratic identification? ​ Huddy, Mason, and Horwitz 2016: let’s run a horse-race regression to predict Latino partisanship ​ Group identity variables vs. individual self-interest variables ​ Asian American partisanship ○​ Puzzle: Asian Americans have a relatively high median household income, so why does this group generally vote Democratic? ○​ Kuo, Malhotra and Mo 2017: reporting racial discrimination/exclusion is associated with Democratic identification among Asian Americans ​ Group consciousness ​ Racial triangulation ○​ But is this relationship causal? ​ Microaggressions experiment ​ Participants took a survey in a lab setting ​ Treatment: research assistant says, “I’m sorry; I forgot that this study is only for US citizens. Are you a US citizen? I cannot tell.” ○​ Outcomes of interest ​ Perception of Democrats and Republicans as closed- minded, ignorant, representative of people like you ​ Party feeling thermometers  ​ Party identification ○​ What these studies tell us ​ Latino and Asian American support for the Democratic party is linked with group-level concerns ​ Individual-level self-interest matters less strongly ​ Did Trump’s presidency affect Latino and Asian American partisanship? ○​ Three competing hypotheses (Hopkins, Kaiser, and Pérez 2023) ​ 1. Weak partisanship hypothesis ​ 2. Identity threat hypothesis ​ 3. Partisan stability hypothesis ​ Relationship between partisanship and group identity, consciousness ​ Implicit and explicit racial appeals (Valentino et al.) ○​ Campaign ad treatment with the same text, different visuals ○​ Race comparison condition: positive depictions of white people + negative depictions of Black people ○​ Undeserving Blacks condition: negative depictions of Black people ○​ Quantities of interest ○​ Time identifying race-relevant words ○​ Interaction between racial attitudes and treatment on predicting support for Bush ○​ Two shifts 2000-2020ish ​ 1. Partisan sorting on racial attitudes (more on this on Wednesday) ​ 2. Rising status anxiety among white Americans (racial consciousness; Jardina 2019) ○​ Research design ○​ Participants read implicit or explicit version of the news article ○​ Survey measured racial resentment (abbreviated SR for symbolic racism) ○​ Outcomes of interest ○​ Attitudes toward the Affordable Care Act ○​ Attitudes toward welfare more generally ○​ Approval of Democratic vs. Republican leaders ○​ Consequences of racial appeals ○​ Rise in hate crimes (Newman et al. 2020; Williamson and Gelfand 2019) ○​ Withdrawal of targeted groups from public life (Hobbs and Lajevardi 2019) ​ Strategies for countering racial appeals ○​ Your candidate’s interview with the TV station is coming up. ○​ The TV station has advised you that they will ask the candidate about their opponent’s statement. What would you advise the to say?  ○​ Should they focus the rest of the interview on the same issues as the opponent, or focus on other issues instead? ○​ Would your strategy change if the candidate were white, Latino, or Black? ​ Racial realignment ○​ The racial realignment actually started with the New Deal ○​ Recall: Democratic elites didn’t take legislative action on civil rights in the 1960s ○​ Schickler: but mass opinion in the parties shifted long before that ○​ New Deal coalition of voters made Democrats the party of POC at the mass level by the late 1930s ○​ Realigning on racial attitudes ○​ Racial composition has been stable, but racial attitudes have not ○​ Party sorting: racially-resentful voters moving to the Republican party, less-resentful voters moving to the Democratic party ○​ Attitude change: racial attitudes changing at the individual level ○​ What’s in a realignment? ○​ Recall: a realignment entails a significant shift in the parties’ policy priorities ○​ Demographic change without racial attitude change→ not necessarily realigning ○​ Racial ID strength and racial attitudes remain strong predictors of vote choice ​ Sorting by race vs. sorting by racial attitudes (Tesler)