Critical Race Theory (CRT) has become a flashpoint of elite political discord, yet how Americans actually perceive CRT is unclear. We theorize that Republican elites utilized a strong framing strategy to re-define CRT as an “empty signifier” representing broader racial and cultural grievances. Using a survey and a pre-registered experiment among U.S. adults (N = 19,060), we find that this strategy worked. Republicans exhibit more familiarity with CRT and hold more negatively valenced (and wide ranging) sentiments toward CRT, relative to Democrats. Moreover, compared to teaching the legacy of racism in schools, Republicans are significantly more opposed to teaching CRT while Democrats express greater uncertainty. Our findings suggest that by framing CRT as a broad term that envelopes many grievances (including those beyond the scope of CRT), Republican elites have shaped a subset of Americans’ understanding of and attitudes toward CRT.

The question of how partisanship is influenced by exogenous factors has been vigorously debated, yet this debate is less frequently noted in the literature on Latino partisanship. This study analyzes the 2006 Latino National Survey with geographic identifiers to explore how the political context of a county influences Latino partisan self-identification. There are a variety of reasons why the political environment might influence Latinos’ partisan choice. First, a substantial proportion of the adult Latino population in the United States is foreign-born, potentially lessening the influence of parental partisan socialization. Second, increased migration to areas outside the Southwest has exposed Latinos to new and different social, political, and economic environments. Using subgroup analysis, interactive logit models, and regression discontinuity, we find that the local political context influences the party attachment of Latino immigrants in predictable ways. However, for Latinos born in the United States, our analysis does not provide evidence of a causal connection between partisan environment and an individual's partisan identification.

Despite the longstanding underrepresentation of blacks in Congress, political science research has not settled on the cause. While there is increasing evidence that racial attitudes affect vote choice in today's congressional elections, how this effect interacts with the race of the candidates is unknown. This study addresses this debate by analyzing novel survey, census, and candidate data from the Obama era of congressional elections (2010–2016) to test whether racially prejudiced attitudes held by whites decrease their likelihood of supporting black Democratic candidates and Democratic candidates as a whole. In line with theoretical predictions, this paper finds that Democratic House candidates are less likely to receive votes among white voters with strong racial resentment toward blacks, and black Democratic candidates fare even worse. These findings help to explain the persistence of black legislative underrepresentation and contribute to theories of partisan racial realignment.

In this paper, we consider the changing nature of today's protest–election connection by looking back to the Blue Wave of the 2018 midterm elections that led to Republicans losing control of the House of Representatives. We ask whether White voters' participation in the Blue Wave of the 2018 elections is related to the multi-racial participation in the #BlackLivesMatter protests of 2020. Could it be that White participation in both is symptomatic of a larger resurgence of racial liberalism that is likely to continue to play a significant role in our politics going forward starting with the 2020 election?

Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and the Tea Party are among the many movements that have reignited media attention to protest activity. Yet, there is much to learn about what this media coverage conveys. In particular, how much does who is protesting matter for how the media portray protesters and their objectives? In this paper, we draw on an extensive content analysis of cable and broadcast news media coverage of protest activities to demonstrate substantial differences in how protests are covered depending on the race and objective of the protesters. We find that media are much more likely to depict protests by people of color using language that evokes a sense of threat by using anger- and fear-laden language than comparable coverage of protest activity involving mostly White individuals. Our results demonstrate that racial biases in news coverage are much broader than previously thought. In doing so, our work highlights the powerful role that a protester’s race plays in whether the media will condone or challenge their political voice.

We fielded an experiment on a sample of approximately 400 Black state legislators to test whether they would be more responsive to an email that mentioned the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) relative to an email that mentioned Black Lives Matter (BLM). The experiment tested Cohen's theory of secondary marginalization (1999), whereby relatively advantaged members of a marginalized group regulate the behavior, attitudes, and access to resources of less advantaged members of the group. We expected that Black legislators would be less responsive to an email that referenced BLM, an organization that is associated with more marginalized members of the Black community. Contrary to our hypothesis, Black legislators were as responsive to emails referencing inspiration from BLM as they were to emails referencing inspiration from the NAACP. Thus, we do not find any evidence of intragroup discrimination by Black state legislators. To our knowledge, this is the first field experiment to test Cohen's theory of secondary marginalization.1

The United States is in a time of reckoning with whiteness. Despite white people benefiting from a disproportionate amount of power at every level of government, a significant racial wealth gap, preferential treatment in the legal system, and a rise in white supremacy, “colorblind” critics continue to argue against the relevance of race in a purportedly post-racial society. We assert that parents’ ethnic-racial socialization (ERS) of their children shapes how children view their racial identity and thus influence important political attitudes. ERS is a process by which individuals are taught values, beliefs, and attitudes about ethnicity and race. Most existing research among families of color suggests ERS is strongly linked to a variety of adult political attitudes. However, less is known about the impact of ERS on political attitudes for white young adults. Drawing on survey data from a national U.S. sample of 944 white, young adults (18–25 years old), we find that white ERS is linked with political attitudes. Specifically, we find that increased cultural socialization, preparation for bias, and egalitarianism are positively related to politically conservative ideology, while anti-racism is positively related to politically liberal ideology. Preparation for bias and egalitarianism are positively related to Republican party identification. Promotion of mistrust, silent racial socialization, and anti-racism are positively related to Democratic party affiliation. We suggest ERS impacts the way a person conceptualizes ethnicity and race and is inextricably linked to political outcomes.

Theories concerning the adoption of punitive policies at the state level often cite two dynamics: conservative ideology and racial threat, that punitive policies are more likely in states with Republican politicians and a higher proportion of Black residents. I argue these theories lose their explanatory power in the post-Civil Rights era, and suggest Black political incorporation acts as a powerful antidote to the punitive impulses of government officials. I test my hypotheses on a dataset of state corrections spending from 1983 to 2011 and find evidence for the counterbalancing argument. States with increasing percentages of Black state legislators spend .36 fewer dollars per capita on corrections, suggesting Black political incorporation is an important mediator in the relationship between racial threat and corrections budgets. This paper has implications for the application of the social control theory as descriptive representation grows, but also for the study of the effect of minority politicians on budgets and policy more broadly. The adoption of policies deleterious to certain communities can be mitigated by the presence of representatives who legislate on behalf of those communities.

This article situates the 2020 presidential election within the context of U.S. history, specifically the longstanding relationship between white supremacist views and what types of U.S. citizens were considered capable of exercising democratic citizenship. I argue that President Trump's use of racialized, nativist tropes must be understood within that context and the ongoing backlash to the advancement of civil rights in the United States. White resistance to racial progress is not new, nor is the violence associated with it. Only by looking at the intersection of white racial resentment and modern sexism can we fully understand the durability of the Trump coalition. The article closes by considering what political scientists should be learning from this moment in order to better explain American political dynamics moving forward.

This research utilizes a valuable data source to explain voter registration and political knowledge by Native Americans, testing theories of the political engagement of minority populations. After taking account of socio-economic resources, American Indians exhibit lower rates of voter registration and political knowledge compared to Caucasians but similar to that of Hispanics. Relative to other racial groups, military service greatly enhances American Indian political knowledge and voter registration. This finding is especially noteworthy given American Indians' high rate of military service.

Prior research has shown that racial minority groups are more likely than Whites to hold negative views of Jews. We discuss several theories that may explain this phenomenon, including group competition, anti-White attitudes manifesting as antisemitism, spillover from anti-Israel attitudes, and more. Some theories, especially those developed in the mid-20th century, may be less applicable today, particularly to young adults. Through an original survey of 3,500 Americans, including an oversample of 18–30 year olds, we discover that antisemitic views remain far more common among minorities than Whites, especially among young people. However, the racial differences do not seem to be explained by common theories cited and explored in prior literature. But with Black and Hispanic Americans agreeing with antisemitic statements at similar levels as White alt-right identifiers in our sample, our findings call for renewed interest in the topic of race and antisemitism.

This study examined the effect of perceived ethnic marginalization, perception towards Nigerian democracy, and socioeconomic condition on support for secession among members of the Igbo ethnic group. Perceived ethnic marginalization and negative perceptions toward Nigerian democracy were found to positively correlate with support for secession. Socioeconomic condition was measured at the household and communal levels. The household measure had no effect on support for secession, but the communal measure did: socioeconomic condition at the communal level positively correlated with support for secession. Igbo ethnicity increased the likelihood of supporting secession, while belonging to the Hausa/Fulani and Yoruba ethnic groups reduced the likelihood of supporting secession.

Existing accounts of ethnic mobilization have focused on the role of group size or state policy. This paper suggests that narrow identity activism was also non-linearly related to education since poorly-educated groups are unlikely to have an educated elite to participate in activism, while in very educated groups this elite existed but participated in the colonial state or anti-colonial nationalism. This theory is tested using a historical panel dataset of Indian caste groups, with petitions to the colonial census authorities being used as an index of caste activism.

Previous research on the voting propensity of young Americans has largely treated the effects of state electoral laws as homogenous, despite today’s youth belonging to the most racially and ethnically diverse age cohort to date. Research has documented differences in participatory resources across racial, ethnic, and age groups, with recent work also suggesting differences in racial and ethnic identity influences across age groups. These factors may lead to significant differences in voter turnout under different state electoral environments. Using the Current Population Survey (2000–2016), national voter rolls (2012), and the Cost of Voting Index, this study investigates how the intersectionality of age and racial/ethnic identification affect voting decisions across state electoral environments. Whether comparing young voters across racial/ethnic identifications or comparing young voters to their older racial/ethnic counterparts, results strongly support the assertion that young voters are affected to differing degrees by increased costs to vote along racial/ethnic lines.

We analyze the prevalence and framing of references to equality and inequality in presidential state of the union addresses (SOTUs) delivered between 1960 and 2018. Despite rising income inequality and increased attention among political elites to structural inequalities of race and gender in recent years, we find very few direct or indirect references to inequality as a social problem and surprisingly few references even to the ostensibly consensual and primary values of equal opportunity and political equality. References to racial inequality have been few and far between since the height of the civil rights era. By contrast, another primary value in the American political tradition—economic individualism are a major focus in these SOTUs. We trace the scant presence of equality talk in these speeches to the ambiguous scope of egalitarian goals and principles and their close tie-in with race in America. We rely on automated text analysis and systematic hand-coding of these speeches to identify broad thematic emphases as well as on close reading to interpret the patterns that these techniques reveal.

I examine perceptions of Barack Obama's ideological positioning from 2006 to 2016. White Americans perceived Barack Obama to be significantly more liberal than respondents from other racial groups, and whites scoring higher on measures of racial resentment saw Obama as more liberal than those scoring lower. Perceptions of Barack Obama's ideological positioning shifted leftward early in his presidency but shifted rightward after 2010. This rightward shift notwithstanding, Obama was perceived to be quite liberal from the start of his presidency, and perceptions of his ideological positioning were racialized from the beginning. There is some evidence that citizens' perceptions of Barack Obama's ideological positioning became more racialized between 2012 and 2014. Placements of Hillary Clinton were racialized in 2016, suggesting that the Obama presidency may have lasting effects on the ideological stereotyping of Democratic candidates. I discuss these findings in light of recent research on social sorting, affective polarization, and negative partisanship.

In settler societies like Canada, United States, and Australia, the bourgeoning discourse that frames colonial violence against Indigenous people as genocide has been controversial, specifically because there is much debate about the meaning and applicability of genocide. Through an analysis of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, this paper analyzes what is revealed about settler colonialism in the nexus of difficult knowledge, curatorial decisions, and political debates about the label of genocide. I specifically examine competing definitions of genocide, the primacy of the Holocaust, the regulatory role of the settler state, and the limits of a human rights framework. My argument is that genocide debates related to Indigenous experiences operationalize a range of governing techniques that extend settler colonialism, even as Indigenous peoples confront existing hegemonies. These techniques include: interpretative denial; promoting an Oppression Olympics and a politics of distancing; regulating difference through state-based recognition and interference; and depoliticizing claims that overshadow continuing practices of assimilation, extermination, criminalization, containment, and forced movement of Indigenous peoples. By pinpointing these techniques, this paper seeks to build on Indigenous critiques of colonialism, challenge settler national narratives of peaceful and lawful origins, and foster ways to build more just relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

How do White Americans evaluate the politics of belonging in the United States across different ethnoreligious identity categories? This paper examines this question through two competing frameworks. On the one hand, given the salience of anti-Muslim attitudes in the United States, we consider whether White Americans penalize Muslim immigrants to the United States regardless of their ethnoracial background. On the other hand, Muslim identity is often conflated by the general public with Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) ethnoracial identity. We argue MENA-Muslim identity should be understood through the lens of intersectionality. In this case, White Americans may penalize MENA-Muslims immigrants to the United States more than Muslims from other ethnoracial groups. We test these two frameworks through a conjoint experimental design wherein respondents are asked to evaluate immigrants and indicate to whom the United States should give a green card—signaling legal belonging—and how likely the immigrant is to assimilate into America—signaling cultural belonging. Although White Americans believe White Muslims may assimilate better to the United States relative to MENA-Muslims, race does not moderate how White Americans evaluate who should be allowed to belong in the United States.