Minorities And Representation In American Politics

Minorities and Representation in American Politics is the first book of its kind to examine underrepresented minorities with a framework based on four types of representation—descriptive, formalistic, symbolic, and substantive. Through this lens, author Rebekah Herrick looks at race, ethnic, gender, and sexual minorities not in isolation but synthesized within every chapter. This enables readers to better recognize both the similarities and differences of groups’ underrepresentation. Herrick also applies her unique and constructive approach to intergroup cooperation and intersectionality, highlighting the impact that groups can have on one another.

As the racial and ethnic minority populations of the United States grow past 30 percent, candidates cannot afford to ignore the minority vote. The studies collected in Diversity and Democracy show that political scientists, too, must fully recognize the significance of minority-representation studies for our understanding of the electoral process in general. If anything has limited such inquiry in the past, it has been the tendency for researchers to address only a single group or problem, yielding little that can be applied to other contexts. Diversity in Democracy avoids this limitation by examining several aspects of representation, including both Latino and African American perspectives, and a wide range of topics, ranging from the dynamics of partisanship to various groups' perceptions of the political system. The result is a work that pulls together decades of disparate work into a broad and cohesive overview of minority representation. The most significant conclusion to emerge from this multifaceted examination is the overwhelming importance of context. There is no single strategic key, but taken together, these studies begin to map the strategies, institutions, and contexts that enhance or limit minority representation. In navigating the complexities of minority politics, moreover, the book reveals much about American representative democracy that pertains to all of us. Contributors Susan A. Banducci, Texas Tech University * Matt A. Barreto, University of California, Irvine * Shaun Bowler, University of California, Riverside * Todd Donovan, Western Washington University * Luis Ricardo Fraga, Stanford University * F. Chris Garcia, University of New Mexico * Elisabeth R. Gerber, University of Michigan * Stacy B. Gordon, University of Nevada, Reno * Bernard Grofman, University of California, Irvine * Zoltan L. Hajnal, University of California, San Diego * Sarah Harsh, Fleishman Hillard * Rodney E. Hero, University of Notre Dame * Martin Johnson, University of California, Riverside * Jeffrey A. Karp, Texas Tech University * Hugh Louch, Cambridge Systematics * Stephen P. Nicholson, Georgia State University * Adrian D. Pantoja, Arizona State University * Gary M. Segura, University of Iowa * Katherine Tate, University of California, Irvine * Caroline J. Tolbert, Kent State University * Carole J. Uhlaner, University of California, Irvine * Nathan D. Woods, Welch Consulting

Today's demographic reality is a "majority-minority" America wherein racial and ethnic minorities comprise a growing share of the U.S. population and electorate, and are themselves becoming more diverse and representing more decisive votes. How America evolves as a society and a polity depends on whether and how these new Americans access and are accommodated by existing institutions. The Future is Ours offers a data-based examination of whether (and exactly how) minority citizens differ from members of the white majority—in political participation, voting preferences, policy opinions, orientations toward government, and legislative representation. Data analyses are presented in non-technical fashion, but throughout the authors attempt to engage issues of research design that expose students to the logics of social science inquiry. Bowler and Segura argue that demography will, in fact, be destiny. The balance between the two parties is at a tipping point and the outcome depends on how minority Americans engage in politics.

"Who gets elected? Who do they represent? What issues do they prioritize? Does diversity in representation make a difference? Race, Gender, and Political Representation thinks differently about identity politics in the United States. It is not about women's representation or minority representation; it is about how race and gender interact to affect the election, behavior, and impact of all individuals - raced women and gendered minorities alike. By putting women of color at the center of the analysis and re-evaluating traditional, one-at-a-time approaches to studying the politics of race or gender, the authors demonstrate what an intersectional approach to identity politics can reveal. With a wealth of original data on the presence, policy leadership, and policy impact of Black women and men, Latinas and Latinos, and white women and men in state legislative office in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, each chapter shows how the politics of race, gender, and representation are far more complex than recurring "Year of the Woman" frameworks suggest. An array of race-gender similarities and differences are evident in the experiences, activities, and accomplishments of these state legislators. Yet one thing is clear: the representation of those marginalized by multiple, intersecting systems of power and inequality is intricately bound to the representation of women of color"--

Are the views of Latinos and African Americans underrepresented in our federal government? For that matter, what does it mean to be represented equitably? Rather than taking for granted a single answer to these complex questions, John Griffin and Brian Newman use different measures of political equality to reveal which groups get what they want from government and what factors lead to their successes. One of the first books to compare the representation of both African Americans and Latinos to that of whites, Minority Report shows that congressional decisions and federal policy tend to mirror the preferences of whites as a group and as individuals better than the preferences of either minority group, even after accounting for income disparities. This is far from the whole story, though, and the authors’ multifaceted approach illustrates the surprising degree to which group population size, an issue’s level of importance, the race or ethnicity of an office holder, and electoral turnout can affect how well government action reflects the views of each person or group. Sure to be controversial, Minority Report ultimately goes beyond statistical analyses to address the root question of what equal representation really means.

List of Tables and FiguresPrefaceIntroduction: Race, Redistricting, and Representation in the U.S. House of RepresentativesChapter One: Black Interests, Difference, Commonality, and RepresentationChapter Two: A Legal Primer on Race and RedistrictingChapter Three: The Supply-Side Theory of Racial Redistricting, with Matthew M. Schousen and Patrick J. SellersChapter Four: Race and Representation in the U.S. House of RepresentativesChapter Five: Links to the ConstituencyChapter Six: Black Majority Districts: Failed Experiment or Catalyst for a Politics of Commonality?Appendix A. Data SourcesAppendix B. Procedures for Coding the Newspaper StoriesNotesReferencesIndex Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

In 2005, almost 700,000 immigrants acquired the citizenship of a member state of the European Union; over 600,000 became US citizens; nearly 100,000 became Australians and approximately 200,000 Canadians. 2005 was not an exceptional year. During the past decades, many advanced liberal democracies have become more ethnically diverse societies. This book breaks new ground in the analysis of the political representation of immigrants and visible minorities both theoretically and empirically. It examines the upward trend in migrant and minority representation and demonstrates that there remain crucial differences across liberal democracies in the timing of these developments; in channels of access for minority representatives, in the policy focus and outcomes of minority representation; in the nature of the connections between minority representatives and minority communities, and in the nature of their relationships with constituents at large. Part I analyses immigrants and visible minorities as voters, who must be the starting point of any analysis of political representation. Part II deals with the stage of candidate selection within political parties, a crucial and under-researched stage in the process of political representation. Part III deals with immigrants and members of visible minorities, once elected to parliament and includes analyses of the Canadian Parliament, the German Bundestag, MPs in the United Kingdom and Members of the United States Congress. The book will of interest to students and scholars of migration and ethnicity studies and political science, especially those with an interest in political representation, democratic institutions, voting behaviour, party organisation, legislative behaviour and comparative politics.

In The Paradox of Representation David Lublin offers an unprecedented analysis of a vast range of rigorous, empirical evidence that exposes the central paradox of racial representation: Racial redistricting remains vital to the election of African Americans and Latinos but makes Congress less likely to adopt policies favored by blacks. Lublin's evidence, together with policy recommendations for improving minority representation, will make observers of the political scene reconsider the avenues to fair representation. Using data on all representatives elected to Congress between 1972 and 1994, Lublin examines the link between the racial composition of a congressional district and its representative's race as well as ideology. The author confirms the view that specially drawn districts must exist to ensure the election of African Americans and Latinos. He also shows, however, that a relatively small number of minorities in a district can lead to the election of a representative attentive to their interests. When African Americans and Latinos make up 40 percent of a district, according to Lublin's findings, they have a strong liberalizing influence on representatives of both parties; when they make up 55 percent, the district is almost certain to elect a minority representative. Lublin notes that particularly in the South, the practice of concentrating minority populations into a small number of districts decreases the liberal influence in the remaining areas. Thus, a handful of minority representatives, almost invariably Democrats, win elections, but so do a greater number of conservative Republicans. The author proposes that establishing a balance between majority-minority districts and districts where the minority population would be slightly more dispersed, making up 40 percent of a total district, would allow more African Americans to exercise more influence over their representatives.