Racial and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in most Western democracies. This article investigates one potential root cause behind this pattern: minority and majority citizens might expect to feel discriminated against if they enter politics. Using data from three large-scale surveys, we find that minorities in both the United States and Sweden are less likely to expect to feel welcome than the majority population. These discrepancies in expected discrimination persist, even after controlling for other factors. Moreover, expected discrimination is not without political consequences: those who expect to feel less welcome are less likely to indicate an interest in running for political office. Finally, these results do not differ for politically engaged citizens who constitute a more realistic pool of potential candidates. We conclude by discussing what expectations of discrimination can tell us about the fairness of the political system and how these attitudes shape political ambition among minorities.

Studies have documented how ethnic and religious sentiments shape the voting behavior of Indonesian Muslims. However, to date no studies have carefully measured the relative influence of these sentiments. I fill this gap in the literature by taking advantage of the candidacy of a Christian, ethnic Chinese candidate in the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election in Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok). Employing an original survey of Jakartan Muslims, I show through experimental and correlational analyses that Muslim voters are more opposed to Ahok than non-Muslim voters are and that this opposition is driven more by Ahok's ethnicity, as opposed to his religion. I also show that Muslim voters’ feelings toward ethnic Chinese shape their support for Ahok more than their feelings toward Christians. I discuss how these findings inform our understanding of the limits and extent of religious influence on Muslim voting behavior.

Political science research has repeatedly identified a strong correlation between high socio-economic status and political participation, but this finding has not been as robust for racial and ethnic minorities. As a response, the literature on minority political participation has produced a series of different models for different groups by adding group-specific variables to the standard SES model. In assigning a single model per group, however, the literature tends to overlook intra-group differences as well as inter-group commonalities, thereby effectively reifying the concept of race and ethnicity. Using survey data from Los Angeles, this article develops a different approach aimed at detecting intra-group differences as well as inter-group commonalities through a recognition of political “styles.” First, using latent class analysis (LCA), I identify a set of recurring configurations of individual dispositions (education, political knowledge…) and political acts (voting, protest…) that define different political styles. Then I examine the distribution of these political styles across racial and ethnic groups. The results reveal three novel findings that were invisible in the previous studies: 1) all groups feature a considerable degree of intra-group difference in political styles; 2) each group retains other political styles that cannot be captured by a single model; and 3) there are commonalities of political styles that cut across racial and ethnic boundaries. Overall, this article presents a model for quantitative analysis of race and ethnicity that simultaneously captures intra-group differences and inter-group commonalities.

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.

Do voters in white districts systematically obstruct minority representation? Despite a great deal of public and scholarly attention, this question remains largely unresolved. We demonstrate that the narrow focus on the relationship between white voters and minority representation is inadequate to understand why we do not see more minority-elected officials in the United States. We use a matching technique to investigate three theoretical perspectives of descriptive representation using a unique dataset from the 2012 general elections for state legislative seats in 14 states, the first elections after the 2010 redistricting process. Our findings challenge the venerable notion that minority candidates consistently underperform in white districts, and complicate our understanding of the political expression of bigotry in the voting booth.

This paper examines a less researched aspect of East European party politics: change within ethnic parties, which are conventionally regarded as stable or intransigent political actors. The main argument of the paper is that the decreasing relevance of a bipolar model of political competition has affected the relative positioning of ethnic parties. Their programmatic outlook, role in the party system, and mobilization strategies are being mainstreamed. Ethnic parties are no longer regarded as inevitable participants in power sharing and informal elite accommodation. They are increasingly treated by voters and the party system alike as national-level parties and national-level competitors. The paper applies the concept of mainstreaming to explain the long-term evolution of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms in Bulgarian party politics as a critical case study of ethnic party repositioning from proximity to government to parliamentary opposition. It builds an argument about the MRF's continued relevance to the party system, ensuring minority representation beyond ethnicity, as a liberal-centrist party representing distinct economic interests and political orientations within the Bulgarian electorate.