Understanding the legacy of settler colonialism requires understanding the nature and scope of anti-Indigenous attitudes. But what, exactly, are the political consequences of anti-Indigenous attitudes? Answering this question requires recognizing that attitudes toward Indigenous peoples are distinct from White racial attitudes toward other disempowered groups. In this paper, I introduce a novel measure of Indigenous resentment. I then show that Indigenous resentment is an important predictor of policy attitudes using data collected from an original survey of White settlers. I estimate the effect of both Indigenous resentment and negative affect on policy attitudes—opposition to welfare and support for pipeline developments—to make the case that Indigenous resentment is a better measure of anti-Indigenous attitudes than affective prejudice, and that Indigenous resentment is an important omitted variable in the study of public opinion in settler societies.

Research into the impact of a politician's sociodemographic profile on vote choice in Westminster-style systems has been hindered by the relative sociodemographic homogeneity of party leaders. Past research has focused mainly on the evaluation of local candidates in the American context, but given that elections in plurality systems are far less candidate-oriented , the evaluation of local candidates tells us little about the prevalence of affinity or discrimination in other contexts. This article investigates the effect of political leaders' ethnicity on political behavior by looking at the case of Jagmeet Singh in Canada, the first federal party leader of color in the country's history. While the literature has shown that the gender of leaders in Canada can matter, little is known about the attitudes of Canadians toward party leaders of color specifically. We are interested in the evaluations of Singh and his party, as well as the shifts in voting intentions between elections in 2015 and 2019. We uncover affinity-based behaviors from individuals who identify as Sikh, as well as a negative reception of Singh's candidacy in Quebec.

Racial fluidity and mixed phenotype have been posited as critical barriers to politicized black identity in the region. Using an original, survey experiment in Panama, this paper finds that racial fluidity and phenotype significantly affect who identifies as black, but have relatively little impact on the strength of measures of black group consciousness. Rather than reducing the strength of group consciousness all together, racial fluidity and phenotype influence the salience of different measures of group consciousness. Afro-Panamanians with phenotypic features that stably predict black self-identification express stronger beliefs that racial discrimination is a problem in Panama (perceived discrimination) and greater dissatisfaction with the social standing of their in-group (polar power). In contrast, Afro-Panamanians with mixed phenotypic features express stronger in-group affect (pride), stronger belief in the efficacy of black collective mobilization (collective efficacy), and stronger linked fate.

Harsh, highly intrusive, personal contact with the criminal justice system has been shown to politically demobilize, but it is unclear whether less intrusive forms of police contact have any political effects. As the modal type of involuntary police–citizen contact is less invasive and more routine (e.g., a traffic stop), it is critical to understand the ramifications of lighter forms of contact. We argue that, unlike harsh police contact, light, personal, police contact can mobilize individuals, under certain circumstances. When a negative encounter with the police—even if it is minor—runs counter to prior expectations, people experiencing the contact are mobilized to take political action. Using 3 years of observational data and an original survey experiment, we demonstrate that individuals who receive tickets or are stopped by the police are more likely to participate in politics. These effects are most pronounced for individuals with positive evaluations of the police, often White respondents.

Academics, practitioners, and community activists have hotly debated the effects, both positive and negative, of gentrification. Still, political scientists have yet to fully weigh in on the phenomenon. Here, we assess how gentrification affects descriptive minority representation. We find evidence that gentrification negatively impacts minority descriptive representation, specifically black descriptive representation. Gentrification that results in a growing white population negatively affects the election of black councilmembers, and the effect is particularly pronounced when the black population is close to losing its dominance (i.e., it comprises roughly half of the area's population). In contrast, the election of Latino councilmembers is not affected by a growing white population. This suggests that gentrification resulting in demographic shifts has varying effects on descriptive representation, depending on the race and ethnicity of the councilmember and neighborhood, and thus warrants greater attention from political scientists.

This study explores how American Indians use interest group strategies to block federal legislation. Unlike other disadvantaged groups, who have influenced public policymaking through descriptive representation, American Indians have turned to interest group strategies to protect their interests in Congress. Using original data collected from American Indian testimony at congressional hearings on 266 bills during five Congresses, this study tests interest group hypotheses about how and when active opposition affects bill enactment. It finds that American Indians can block federal legislation harmful to their interests when they unify against a bill and that members of Congress frequently respond to American Indian opposition by amending bills to alleviate American Indian concerns.

In this essay, we place Black women's electoral challenges and opportunities in context. We situate this year of “Black Women Candidates” as an anomaly, but one that has been a long in the making. We also point to the appeal of Black women lawmakers among voters to mirror Alberder Gillespie's claims in this epigraph. We note that Black women have long been the backbone of the Democratic Party and are willing to use their clout for their own political means. Furthermore, given the unique ways that Black women represent their constituents, an influx of Black women into governing bodies may have a substantial, lasting impact on policy-making. We conclude with insights from our own research and that of other scholars on Black women to demonstrate future avenues of scholarly research.

Adoration for fair skin color and bias against dark skin color are strong in Indian society. The theory of colorism suggests that, irrespective of a voter’s own phenotype, voters prefer lighter- to darker-skinned candidates. And yet, a substantial number of dark-skinned politicians get elected into office in India. In the first systematic study of voter preferences for candidate skin color in India, we conducted a survey experiment in which respondents were randomly administered one of three treatments based upon candidate skin tone: fair, wheatish (medium-brown), and dark. We find only weak evidence for colorism in the sample as a whole—the fair candidate is supported more than the dark and wheatish candidates, but at only marginal significance levels. This is because color preferences are heterogeneous amongst respondent groups. Dalits and the poor, groups that are darker relative to other groups and have been politically mobilized, exhibit much stronger support for dark candidates than other groups, consistent with a desire for descriptive representation. Amongst those who do not belong to these two groups, including dark respondents, the fair candidate finds more support than the dark candidate. This shows that even in the absence of skin color-based electoral appeals, skin color can emerge as an implicit marker of politically mobilized identities, and that this mobilization can undercut colorism.

The following study investigates the causal impact of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) language minority provisions, which mandate multilingual election assistance if certain population thresholds are met. While lower rates of Latino and Asian American political participation are often attributed to language barriers, scholars have yet to establish a direct impact of the provisions on electoral behavior. Building off of previous state- and county-level analyses, we leverage an individual-level voter file database to focus on participation by Latino and Asian American citizens in 1,465 counties and municipalities nationwide. Utilizing a regression discontinuity design, we examine rates of voter registration and turnout in the 2012 election, comparing individual participation rates in jurisdictions just above and just below the threshold for coverage. Our analysis attributes a significant increase in Latino voter registration and Asian American turnout to coverage under the VRA.

This paper incorporates the role of race into our understanding of the hidden welfare state by exploring the implications of racialization of hidden welfare state programs for mass attitudes. We explain how traditional welfare programs have been racialized historically and the implications of that racialization on attitudes towards welfare programs. We then discuss how the same fate could befall hidden programs for the poor if “unearthed” as hidden welfare state scholars have suggested. Finally, we carry out an experiment racializing a hidden welfare state program in the same way that traditional welfare state programs have been racialized historically. Our analysis finds that only when the hidden welfare state program is described using traditional racial stereotypes, support for the program drops significantly among racially resentful. Our findings suggest that the inclusion of race into the hidden welfare state narrative alters our understanding of attitudes towards some of these programs.

Election skepticism has become a persistent feature of American politics since the Obama era. Such beliefs are most prevalent among White Americans and especially Republicans, and they are resistant to change. Conspiracy theory studies have shown that such beliefs are linked to feelings of ingroup victimization, at times associated with election loss. We draw on theories of White ingroup processes to argue that White grievance—the belief that Whites are victims of discrimination—is a key correlate of election skepticism among White Americans. White grievance was employed in the Obama era, but it was weaponized by Trump in the 2020 election. Our results based on four national datasets (2012–2020 ANES, 2021 YouGov) show that controlling for negative outgroup attitudes and other factors, White grievance is a significant predictor of election skepticism in all four studies. In 2020, the effect is stronger among White Republicans and independents. We also show that White identity/consciousness has the opposite effect, generally boosting trust in elections. Furthermore, a lagged dependent variable model using the 2016–2020 ANES panel shows that White grievance remains significant even after an LDV is included in the model.

Why are some voters less likely to align with their group when group-based voting is both the norm and advantageous? I argue that the answer to this question can be found in the extent to which individuals are apparently consistent with the prototypical individual in their group. I develop a concept of racial distance, which improves upon the in-group out-group focus of the race and ethnic politics literature. Empirically, I investigate this relationship in South Africa using an original panel survey, which brackets the 2014 national elections. I find that those who are not readily identified as members of their group are less likely to vote with their group and more likely to change their vote due to an election campaign. Analyzing data from the South Africa 2016 the US 2012 elections suggests that this relationship holds for racial majorities but only minorities with a relatively weak sense of solidarity.

In the aftermath of the United States’ 2020 presidential election, state legislatures have introduced and passed an unprecedented number of restrictive voting bills. While past research has looked at the state-level drivers of restrictive voting legislation, this project explores what factors predict which legislators within states push for these laws. Specifically, I ask whether district-level characteristics predict when lawmakers use bill sponsorship to send messages about their positions beyond those sent by simple roll-call votes. I use theories of geographical threat and racial resentment to predict where sponsorship of these bills is most likely. My results tie these theoretical expectations to observed legislative activity: the whitest state legislative districts in the least-white states were the most likely to be represented by lawmakers who sponsored restrictive bills, as were districts with the most racially resentful white residents. I conclude that, despite lawmakers justifying these restrictive laws by claiming that fraud is a major problem, race and racism are inherently tied to the introduction and passage of these bills. This raises important questions about commitments to multiracial democracy.

Research has shown that white Americans oppose welfare spending in part due to their racial prejudices. Yet, this conventional wisdom ignores the importance of local geography in determining whether whites are likely to view welfare in racialized terms. This article demonstrates that the effect of prejudice on whites’ welfare preferences depends on the salience of welfare's racialized image in a given geographic context. I present a novel application of the racial threat hypothesis—conceptualizing both prejudice and place as multidimensional—to argue that the racial geography of an area amplifies the effect of traditional racial stereotypes on welfare preferences, whereas economic geography amplifies the effect of symbolically racist attitudes. I test these propositions using geocoded data from the years following the 1996 U.S. welfare policy reforms. My analysis reveals that racial attitudes are more predictive of welfare preferences not simply where the stigmas of welfare are salient due to a large black population or high poverty rate, but more specifically where residential segregation makes black or poor households more visible from the viewpoint of whites. These findings highlight the subjectivity of the white perspective, and call for more scholarship theorizing whites’ agency in seeing racialized issues as threatening to white interests.

Racial disparities in traffic stop outcomes are widespread and well documented. Less well understood is how racial disparities may be amplified or muted in different contexts. Here we focus on one such situational factor: whether the initial traffic stop was related to a traffic safety violation or a (broadly defined) investigatory purpose. This is a salient contextual characteristic as stop type relates to different levels of assumed discretion and purpose. While all traffic stops involve some officer discretion, investigatory stops are more easily used as justifications to conduct a search based on an officer's diffuse suspicion; traffic safety stops are more often just what they seem. Using millions of traffic stops from several states, we show that black male drivers are more likely to be searched and less likely to be found with contraband and that this relationship is amplified where the initial stop purpose is investigatory. One implication of this is that one path to alleviating disparities in traffic stops for agencies is emphasizing traffic safety, rather than using stops as a supplemental investigatory tool.

Dialogue about race-based topics is essential to combat prejudice, foster mutual understanding, and improve race relations. This study describes the extent to which political conversations—especially those about race-related topics—are taking place within and across racial and political groups. This national survey with a Black oversample found racially diverse discussion networks to be more likely among Blacks than Whites, but politically diverse networks to be more likely among Whites than Blacks. Blacks were more likely than Whites to talk about race-related topics such as police treatment of Blacks (and less likely about several topics not explicitly tied to race), but by no means did Whites entirely avoid race-related topics, even in their same-race discussions. Moreover, there was evidence that discussion in cross-race dyads affected the mix of topics Whites and Blacks discussed, revealing the potential for cross-race interaction to alter political agendas. Rather than being less likely to talk about police treatment of Blacks with Blacks, Whites were more likely to discuss this topic when in mixed-race dyads, while Blacks talked about it less often with Whites than with other Blacks. Findings are discussed in the context of political disagreement and intergroup contact theory.

The public opinion literature stresses the importance of source cues in determining which types of messages affect attitudes and which types do not. Building upon such research, we seek to determine if messenger ethnicity influences how individuals evaluate candidates speaking on immigration in the context of a campaign. Do Americans (and Anglo Americans in particular) view Latino candidates as more experienced, stronger leaders, more trustworthy, and more qualified on immigration than Anglo candidates? Moreover, do such relationships hold regardless of the valence of the message itself? Through an original survey experiment presenting subjects with immigration talk on the campaign trail, we find Latino candidates are reviewed more positively than Anglo candidates when it comes to the immigration messages they speak (especially when it comes to pro-immigration messages). Such findings give us insight into whether or not Latino candidates have the potential to “own” the issue of immigration, as well as offering another path by which Latino candidates can gain a strong foothold with the public in the context of a campaign.

In April 2019, the Japanese government officially legally recognized the Ainu as Indigenous people. Building on an institutionalist framework, the paper suggests that a phenomenon of institutional layering has taken place, resulting in tensions between the desire to preserve the legitimacy of old institutions and the pressure to develop more progressive policies. To explain this process, policy legacies, and institutional opportunities are relevant. First, the narrative that equality can be attained through assimilation, and the political construction of the “Ainu problem” as a regional one tied to Hokkaido pervade political imaginaries and institutions. Second, institutional opportunities have mediated the ways activists have sought to make their voices heard in the political arena. A focus on key historical segments illuminates the difficulty for activists to penetrate high-level political arenas while indicating the importance of agency, ties and interests in explaining major reforms and their limitations. The ambiguity that characterizes current policy framework points to the potential leverage that this policy configuration represents for the Ainu. At the same time, historical and institutional legacies that have shaped Indigenous politics continue to constrain, to a great extent, the possibilities for meaningful and transformative developments for the Ainu.

Conventional theories of presidential representation suggest that presidents avoid courting African Americans for fear of alienating white voters, leading to the underrepresentation of “black interests.” We argue that presidential representation of black interests is conditional: when (1) African Americans prioritize issues other than economic redistribution and civil rights and (2) when these priorities overlap with those of whites, presidents should provide considerable representation of those interests. We test our theory using two new sources of data: a dataset of black and white perceptions of the US's most important problem between 1968 and 2012; and a quantitative content analysis of over 200 major presidential speeches from 1969-2012. We find that presidents provide substantial representation of black interests, but only when these interests center on non-racialized concerns and overlap with the priorities of whites. We also find that presidential priorities are often independent of the chief concerns of both African Americans and whites.

Ethnonationalist politics have been on the rise in the United States since the 2008 financial crisis, culminating with the rise of Donald Trump. We examine why two seemingly unconnected things—economic crises and prejudice—so often arise simultaneously. Combining theories of economics and emotions, we connect economic crises and prejudice through the role of emotional response to crises, namely anger and anxiety. We use two survey experiments in the United States to test various theories of how emotions might connect economic threat to negative intergroup attitudes. We find that economic concerns increase both anger and anxiety among individuals, but that these emotions have distinct effects on prejudice. Angry individuals show increased prejudice, but only towards groups one is ideologically predisposed to be prejudiced towards. In contrast, anxiety exhibits few consistent effects on prejudice.