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Assessing the Causes and Effects of Political Trust Among U.S. Latinos
Abstract
This article examines why Latinos are more trusting of the federal government than Anglos and Blacks. We address this puzzle by turning to previous research on racial politics and political trust. Consistent with previous research, discrimination and generational status are important predictors of Latinos’ political trust, with first-generation Latinos more trusting than later-generation Latinos. Encounters with racial discrimination also make Latinos and Blacks less trusting of government. In contrast, Anglos’ political trust can be explained by their economic evaluations as well as their partisanship. Although these findings are insightful, they do not directly address why intergroup differences arise when it comes to their trust in government. We argue that combined with generational distinctions among Latinos in their trust of government, the heavy flow of Latino immigration in the past 30 years has changed the Latino population in such a way that the views of the foreign-born are disproportionately represented in survey questions related to trust in government. This is producing a Latino population that is more inclined to trust government than Anglos or Blacks. We then examine the impact of political trust on individuals’ opinions toward redistributive policies. Political trust has a strong and positive effect on Latinos’ attitudes toward such policies.
... Since political trust promotes political engagement, unequal levels of such trust across social groups is a longstanding concern across democracies, in addition to general decline in political trust levels (Alford, 2001;Hetherington, 1998;Verba & Nie, 1972). Over several decades, studies in the U.S. have generally found black Americans to hold lower levels of political trust than white Americans (with some variation however; see Citrin & Luks, 2001), and findings comparing political trust levels among Latinos to those among black and white Americans have been mixed (Abrajano & Alvarez, 2010;Avery, 2008;de la Garza et al., 1992;Emig et al., 1996;Michelson, 2001). ...
... A growing literature has investigated how differential treatment in society, policy and politics affects political trust among different groups of citizens. Studies among U.S. Latinos have found those with experiences of workplace discrimination to have less political trust than those who have not experienced such discrimination (Abrajano & Alvarez, 2010;Schildkraut, 2005). In addition, both U.S. and U.K.based studies have found that political trust among immigrant-background minorities is lower among those who have been in a country longer, whether comparing between individual immigrants or immigrant generations (Maxwell, 2010;Michelson, 2003). ...
... In addition, both U.S. and U.K.based studies have found that political trust among immigrant-background minorities is lower among those who have been in a country longer, whether comparing between individual immigrants or immigrant generations (Maxwell, 2010;Michelson, 2003). This may help us to understand why average levels of political trust are often found to be higher among U.S. Latinos than blacks and whites, since the first group includes many more immigrants than the others (Abrajano & Alvarez, 2010). Concerning the effects of actual policy on trust, Rocha et al. (2015) found that stricter enforcement of immigration rules in some areas of Texas brought higher levels of political trust among Anglos, but lower levels among Latinos (both foreign-and native-born). ...
This article uses two survey experiments to examine how political rhetoric about ethnic and religious minorities influences diffuse and specific political trust among Latino and white Americans. Specifically, it tests whether negative and positive political messages about Latinos and Muslims affect political trust differently depending on audience ethnicity and degree of ethnic self-identification. It finds that negative or conflicting rhetoric about Latinos damages Latinos’, but not whites’, trust in political institutions, while positive messages have little effect on such trust. More immediately, both Latino and whites express much greater trust in, and report more willingness to vote for, a politician who speaks positively about minorities, than one who bashes them. That gap is consistently larger among Latinos than whites, however—even when Muslims are targeted. Further, people’s responses vary with their degree of identification with their ethnic ingroup, but this occurs more markedly among whites than Latinos: while Latinos’ degree of Latino identity only somewhat moderates their responses to an anti- or pro-Latino politician, whites’ trust and support for race-baiting politicians is sharply higher among high-white-identifiers than those low in white identity.
... Trust in government has attracted attention by scholars for many years (Citrin, 1974;Easton, 1965;Fukuyama, 1995;Herreros, 2004;Hetherington & Husser, 2012;Miller, 1974a;Nye et al., 1997). However, few works have studied trust in government among Latinos (Abrajano & Alvarez, 2010;Michelson, 2001Michelson, , 2003Michelson, , 2007Wenzel, 2006). In addition, this prior research has tended to examine populations that are located in areas with a substantial and longstanding Latino presence, such as South Texas or the Central Valley of California. ...
... Other studies, however, found that Latinos trust the federal government at a higher level than both Anglos and African Americans (Bonner, 2009;Jackson, 2009). Abrajano and Alvarez (2010) argued that this finding is the result of the overrepresentation of younger Latinos in research samples. According to the same authors, younger Latinos have more optimistic expectations about the United States. ...
... Perceptions about the existence of discrimination and personal experiences with discrimination (Abrajano & Alvarez, 2010;Schildkraut, 2005) can also reduce Latinos' trust in government. For example, those who consider discrimination to be widespread in the United States may trust the government less. ...
Trust in government is essential to democratic practice. This article analyzed the factors shaping trust in the federal government using a survey of 260 Mexican immigrants living in rural Illinois and in-depth interviews with 32 participants. To analyze these data, we drew a distinction between support for the regime (system of government that is relatively stable in a political system) and support for authorities (those who temporarily occupy positions of power) to test whether regime or authorities’ considerations shaped respondents’ political trust. The results showed that both considerations influenced trust in the federal government. We also found that a perception of current leaders as being concerned with issues affecting Latinos and an increased optimism about the economic situation were key determinants in explaining trust in the federal government. Further, our in-depth interviews showed that respondents thought about economic issues, immigration, and overall assessments of the Obama administration when determining their level of trust in the federal government.
... The literature has identified several determinants of political trust, including gender (Cook & Gronke, 2005;Du et al., 2021), marital status (Abrajano & Alvarez, 2010), class and occupation (Christensen & Laegreid, 2005), religious affiliation (Hwang, 2017), income, and other SES indicators (Jiang & Zhang, 2021a;Rice, 2001). Of these, education is one of the most frequently mentioned, as it directly affects ideology and beliefs (Du et al., 2021;Fitzgerald & Wolak, 2016). ...
... From a sociological perspective, ageing entails major life-course events (e.g., marriage, having children) that may affect attitudes. Ageing is also associated with an established social status and lifestyle, which, in turn, encourages people to defend the status quo (Abrajano & Alvarez, 2010;Gelepithis & Giani, 2020). It is more so in East and Southeast Asia, where ageing associates with established social status, more respect from the younger cohorts, and more resources and power from the social network and the community (Chan, 1999); in return, seniors in Asian would have more incentive to support the paternalistic and authoritarian rule, as they are beneficiaries themselves. ...
Previous studies on political trust found ageing leads to support for authority, while education encourages a critical view of governments. We speculated the two effects would moderate each other and complicate the story. By applying Hierarchical age-period-cohort (HAPC) modelling to the Asian Barometer Survey (2001–2016) data, we found significant interaction effects of age and education in shaping political trust. During the transition from youth to middle age, ageing reinforces people’s original disposition formed in the early years. From middle to old age, ageing mainly plays a conservatizing role. Ageing also conditions the educational gap in political trust: people with little education’s political trust increases as they age; well-educated individuals’ political trust decline until middle age and conservatize later. In sum, ageing has a variant effect during the life course; we found evidence of ageing’s radicalizing and conservatizing effects on political trust in the context of Asia.
... Interestingly, however, there have been surprisingly mixed results on the question of whether descriptive representation improves attitudes toward governing institutions. This is important because rates of perceived government responsiveness and trustworthiness are disturbingly low among racial and ethnic minorities (Hetherington 2005;Hetherington and Husser 2012;Wolak 2018;Abramson 1977Abramson , 1983Miller 1974;Hero and Tolbert 2004;Tate 1991;Abrajano and Alvarez 2010;Michelson 2003;de la Garza et al. 1992). The significance of this dynamic is magnified by the fact that racial and ethnic minorities-those least likely to perceive the government to be responsive to their needs and interests-constitute a rapidly growing share of the U.S. population. ...
... In addition, the relatively short period of time that elapsed between the announcement of Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination and her confirmation meant that there was less time for awareness to spread relative to Obama's long campaign and eventual election. Further, the relatively high regard for government found among many Latinos-particularly foreign-born Latinos-limits their potential for improvement (Abrajano and Alvarez 2010;Michelson 2001). ...
What effect does seeing a member of a historically marginalized group in high-level office have on attitudes toward government among those who identify with that group? We hypothesize that, when salient, increased descriptive representation will increase feelings of government responsiveness among members of historically marginalized groups. Moreover, we hypothesize that this effect will persist even when substantive representation is not expected, that is, when the official is viewed as unlikely to represent the individual's own political interests. We explore this theory by taking advantage of two exogenous changes in descriptive representation: the election of the first African–American president, Barack Obama, and the confirmation of the first Latino on the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor. Using panel data and a difference-in-differences design, we analyze within-person changes in attitudes toward government among African–Americans and Latinos, from before to after these events. In doing so, we attempt to separate descriptive from anticipated substantive representation.
... Research on perceived discrimination conceptualizes this phenomenon as a potential factor related to the perceived illegitimacy of authorities and violent radicalization (Doosje et al. 2013). In the political domain, research has documented the impact of perceived discrimination on the level of satisfaction with democracy (Ekman and Linde 2003;Ruiz-Rufino 2013) or on levels of political trust (Abrajano and Alvarez 2010). However, research on the impact of perceived discrimination, specifically in the context of school and daily life, is scarce. ...
... Most studies document the relationship between perceived discrimination and voting behavior or trust in official institutions. They show a negative relationship between perceived discrimination and voting (Schildkraut 2005), trust in government (Abrajano and Alvarez 2010;Maxwell 2009;Michelson 2003) or a positive relationship between perceived discrimination and non-electoral political activities (Heath et al. 2013). In 2014, the data from the European Social Survey (ESS) showed a negative relationship between perceived discrimination and the level of satisfaction with democracy among second and later generations of ethnic minority migrants (Rood 2018). ...
Perceived discrimination, the perception of systematic exclusion due to background characteristics, has been studied extensively in general. The political consequences of this perception remain underexplored for adolescents. Discrimination may engender a rejection of common political values such as the support for democratic politics. Using the data of 1789 pupils with an average age of 16 years (grade 10) from 24 schools in Brussels, we focus on the consequences of perceived discrimination in attitudes towards violence, as well as on a rejection of representative democracy. The outcomes of a multilevel analysis suggest that high levels of self-reported perceived discrimination are significantly associated with an anti-democratic attitude (rejection of the current form of representative democracy) and the willingness to use violence. In a context in which 75% of pupils have a non-native background, these findings reveal the challenges for future forms of civic education.
... In a study about public attitudes to nuclear power, He et al. (2014) find village cadres had more trust in information coming from the government and the nuclear industry than ordinary villagers. Experience seems to have considerable influence on public attitude toward the government (Shi 2001): people generate their attitudes (trust) toward risk managers or authorities based on prior experience (Trettin and Musham 2000;Hupcey et al. 2001;Poortinga and Pidgeon 2003;Abrajano and Alvarez 2010). This is exemplified in the work undertaken by Abrajano and Alvarez (2010), who report that Latino people in the United States, who have experienced racial or ethnic discrimination in their lives, have relatively little trust in the government. ...
... Experience seems to have considerable influence on public attitude toward the government (Shi 2001): people generate their attitudes (trust) toward risk managers or authorities based on prior experience (Trettin and Musham 2000;Hupcey et al. 2001;Poortinga and Pidgeon 2003;Abrajano and Alvarez 2010). This is exemplified in the work undertaken by Abrajano and Alvarez (2010), who report that Latino people in the United States, who have experienced racial or ethnic discrimination in their lives, have relatively little trust in the government. ...
Trust in natural resource managers and planners is recognized as a crucial component of the public’s perception of environmental risks, including the risk of consuming water in cities. Although China is famous for its dubious water quality, public perception of the performance of water suppliers in China has scarcely been considered. Yet this is important, not least because improvements in urban water quality are most likely if the public perceives that there is a risk, which is a function of their levels of trust. We, therefore, examine the Shanghai public’s trust in urban water authorities through analysis of the results from a face-to-face questionnaire that 5007 residents responded to. We find that although respondents show a moderate level of overall trust in water suppliers, they have less trust in the honesty and fairness of these organizations. In addition, we find that hukou status and education help explain the differences in people’s trust in Shanghai’s water authorities, and that these are more influential than factors such as gender and age. For water managers in Shanghai, this implies trust can be improved through a greater effort at public relations and increased transparency about decision making and levels of pollution.
... Research has consistently shown in multiple country contexts that second-(and in some cases even later-) generation descendants of immigrants hold more liberal political ideologies and exhibit lower trust in political institutions than their first-generation counterparts. In the United States, later generations are more politically liberal than first generation Latinos (Barreto and Pedraza 2009;Bejarano 2014), and second-generation Latinos hold lower levels of political trust than first generation (Abrajano and Alvarez 2010), simply because, as the authors put it "first-generation immigrants are generally more optimistic and enthusiastic about the economic opportunities that await them in their host country" (137). Similarly, in a review of political trust across FIGURE 2. Violence against Women and Men with and without an Immigrant Background Note: The figure displays the size of the difference in exposure to violence between politicians with and without an immigrant background, with 95% confidence intervals. ...
Politicians are increasingly subjected to violence, both online and offline. Recent studies highlight a gendered pattern to this violence. But, as societies diversify and minorities increasingly hold political office, we have yet to assess whether members of these groups face disproportionate levels of violence. Our research investigates levels and types of violence against immigrant background politicians in Sweden, where over one-third is either foreign-born or has a foreign-born parent, using a unique three-wave survey ( N=23,000 ) on Swedish elected officials. Across every form of violence examined, politicians with immigrant backgrounds report experiencing significantly more physical and psychological violence than their counterparts. These experiences are not without political consequence: immigrant background politicians, and among them especially women, are significantly more likely than their counterparts to consider exiting politics due to harassment. Together, these findings suggest that violence may be driving this already underrepresented group of immigrant background politicians out of office.
... Ethnic outsiderness re-emphasizes the distinctive but unaccepted social and cultural characteristics of the ethnic minority group compared with the dominant majority. Such a divide might lead minority group members to feel less politically represented, empowered and efficacious (Abrajano and Alvarez, 2010). According to this argument, people who do not feel represented and respected as full citizens may not only lose faith in political authorities, but may also judge them as dishonest, immoral and superior (cf. ...
Introduction
This study examines how intergroup dynamics shape political cynicism among Belgians of Turkish and Moroccan descent. Concretely, we examine whether perceptions of discrimination, feelings of ethnic outsiderness and social capital (in terms of associational membership) can explain minorities’ belief that political elites are selfish, incompetent, and immoral.
Methods
We analyse data from the Belgian Ethnic Minorities Election Study 2014.
Results
Arguing that political cynicism includes blame attribution towards the political establishment, we distinguish between perceived group discrimination by the government, on the labor market, and in everyday life. As expected, political cynicism is closely related to perceptions of government discrimination, with no observed correlation with discrimination in the other domains. Next, we show that perceived ethnic outsiderness is also strongly related to increased feelings of political cynicism, further reinforcing the argument that cynics are concerned with their ethnic group’s excluded status and position in society. Finally, associational membership is only related to lower political cynicism when it is generated exclusively within ethnic boundaries; there was no relationship with cross-ethnic social capital.
Discussion
Our findings show that intergroup indicators are highly relevant for understanding minorities’ political cynicism, but that the intergroup dynamics operate in complex and nuanced ways.
... Research has consistently shown in multiple country contexts that second-(and in some cases even later-) generation descendants of immigrants hold more liberal political ideologies and exhibit lower trust in political institutions than their first-generation counterparts. In the United States, later generations are more politically liberal than first generation Latinos identification (Barreto and Pedraza, 2009;Bejarano, 2014), and second generation Latinos hold lower levels of political trust than first generation (Abrajano and Alvarez, 2010), simply because, as the authors put it "first-generation immigrants are generally more optimistic and enthusiastic about the economic opportunities that await them in their host country" (p. 137). ...
Politicians are increasingly subjected to violence, both online and offline. Recent studies highlight a gendered pattern to this violence. But, as societies diversify and minorities increasingly hold political office, we have yet to assess whether members of these groups face disproportionate levels of violence. Our research investigates levels and types of violence against immigrant background politicians in Sweden, where over one-third is either foreign-born or has a foreign-born parent, using a unique three-wave survey (N=23,000) on Swedish elected officials. Across every form of violence examined, politicians with immigrant backgrounds report experiencing significantly more physical and psychological violence than their counterparts. These experiences are not without political consequence: immigrant background politicians, and among them especially women, are significantly more likely than their counterparts to consider exiting politics due to harassment. Together , these findings suggest that violence may be driving this already underrepresented group of immigrant background politicians out of office.
... For first generation migrants, it is also possible in the ESS to explore the extent to which the above attitudes and outcomes in the two groups change over time according to the Native-born/both parents native Native-born/1 parent EU-born Native-born/1 parent Non-EU-born EU-born years they have been in the host country. There is evidence indicating that over time, migrants tend to resemble the native-born population for instance acquiring a more critical view of institutions (Abrajano & Alvarez, 2010;Wenzel, 2006;Portes & Zhou, 1993). Although the reasons for this are not fully understood, they have mostly been linked to the acculturation process Mühlau 2010, 2012;Wenzel, 2006;Michelson, 2003). ...
This Research Note is divided into two parts. The first part examines the income of migrants relative to the native-born population and how it changed over 2007-2013, a period in which economic recession was followed by at best low growth in most parts of the EU. It considers, in particular, those on low income and the potential reasons why more of them are both in the bottom income quintile and at risk of poverty than the native-born, specifically with regard to their age structure, their employment situation, their education level and their household circumstances. It examines also their access to social protection, in specific, to unemployment benefits and healthcare, and their housing conditions, in both cases in relation to the native-born population and how the situation has changed over recent years. The main focus is on whether there is any evidence of their income and living conditions converging towards those of the native-born since 2007. The second part examines social attitudes of migrants, again in relation to those of the native-born population, including their trust in institutions and people; their social values, their voting patterns and other forms of civic and political participation, the extent to which they feel part of society and their perception of the extent of discrimination; and social belonging. The analysis is based on data from the European Social Survey (ESS). As in the first part, a particular interest is in the way that these aspects have changed in recent years and the extent to which they have come closer to the native-born in these respects.
... For Iranian migrants, feeling part of the system might depend on how long they have lived in the host country. Research on political trust, for example, shows that Mexican Americans (Abrajano & Alvarez, 2010;Michelson, 2003) and immigrants from non-democratic countries in Canada (Bilodeau & Nevitte, 2003) initially have high levels of political trust which decreases over time. Due to contrasting with the Iranian system, we expect recent Iranian migrants to endorse the new system more strongly compared to Iranian migrants who have lived in Western-Europe longer. ...
Seeing the sociopolitical system as fair and legitimate is important for people’s participation in civic duties, political action, and the functioning of society in general. However, little is known about when migrants, without life-long socialization in a certain system, justify the sociopolitical system of their host country and how system justification influences their political participation. We examined antecedents of system justification using a survey among Iranian migrants in eight European countries (N = 935). Subsequently, we examined the relationship between system justification and political participation intentions. We found that system justification beliefs are generally high in our sample, mainly stemming from an assessment of opportunity to achieve changes in intergroup relations. Stronger social identity threat, feeling disadvantaged, a longer residence in Europe, and perceived intergroup stability all relate to less system justification. Conversely, stronger efficacy beliefs bolster system justification. Furthermore, we found some support for a curvilinear relationship between system justification and political participation intentions, but the size of this effect is small. The results show that the high levels of system justification of Iranian migrants are at risk when discrimination and disadvantage are perceived to be stable facets of society. Surprisingly, political participation to better Iranian migrants’ societal position is barely affected by system justification. We discuss implications and further research that can increase understanding of system justification among migrants.
... Trust has been considered an important factor that influences news media consumption [18,19]. However, media trust has increasingly become an issue of concern as surveys and polls reveal that Americans' trust in news is at historically low levels [8,20]. ...
While the literature on infectious disease outbreaks has examined the extent to which communication inequalities during public health emergencies exacerbate negative outcomes among disadvantaged individuals, the implications of ethnic media consumption among minority groups during these crises are underexplored. Making use of the first nationally representative survey of US Latinos (N = 1200) on the impact and reactions to COVID-19, this study examines the implications of Spanish-language news media consumption on source credibility and attitude formation during the COVID-19 pandemic among Latinos and immigrants from Latin America. Through a series of statistical analyses, this study finds that ethnic news consumption is strongly associated with trust in Spanish-language journalists, whereas mainstream media consumption is not associated with trust in English-language journalists. More importantly, this study finds that source credibility, particularly in Spanish-language journalists, matters for Latinos as it is associated with more positive assessments of state and local officials providing adequate information about COVID-19. This study illuminates the importance of non-traditional media among racial minorities, who account for almost 40% of the US population, and highlights the importance of shared backgrounds in source credibility among linguistically diverse groups in the United States during a public health crisis.
... Political trust is generally defined as citizens' belief or confidence that the government will work to produce outcomes consistent with their expectations (Citrin, 1974;Hetherington, 1998). High levels of political trust relate to higher compliance and cooperative attitudes of citizens and support of government policies (Abrajano & Alvarez, 2010;Marien & Werner, 2019). Low political trust, on the other hand, can undermine the legitimacy of government decisions and the willingness to obey legislation (Lindström, 2008). ...
This study examines the relationship between social media use, disease risk perception, social and political trust, and out-group stereotyping and prejudice during a social upheaval. Analyses of primary data collected during the COVID-19 outbreak in Singapore found that disease risk perception is positively related to stereotyping and prejudice against Chinese immigrants. Individuals who used social media for news were more likely to stereotype and express prejudice. However, those who engaged in frequent heterogenous discussions, and had more extensive social networks, were less likely to stereotype and express prejudice. Higher social and political trust was also associated with lower stereotyping and prejudice. Finally, moderation effects of network characteristics on the relationship between risk perception, social trust, and prejudice were observed.
... People are also likely to abide by the law if political institutions are perceived as legitimate (Tyler & Huo, 2002). When citizens have high levels of political trust, they are more likely to support government policies (Abrajano & Alvarez, 2010) and comply with rules and regulations (Marien & Werner, 2019). On the other hand, low political trust has been shown to undermine governance and the willingness to adhere to laws and legislation (Lindström, 2008). ...
Social media has a role to play in shaping the dynamic relations between immigrants and citizens. This study examines the effects of threat perceptions, consumptive and expressive use of social media, and political trust on attitudes against immigrants in Singapore. Study 1, based on a survey analysis (N = 310), suggests that symbolic but not realistic threat perception, is positively associated with anti-immigrant attitudes. The consumptive use of social media and political trust is negatively related to anti-immigrant attitudes. Moderation analyses suggest that consumptive social media use has negative consequences for individuals with increased symbolic threat perception and high political trust. But is there a correspondence between consumptive and expressive use of social media in terms of predicting prejudicial attitudes? Study 2 benchmarks the survey findings against participants’ opinion expression via Facebook posts (N = 146,332) discussing immigrants. Automated linguistic analyses reveal that self-reported survey measures correlate with the expressive use of social media for discussing immigrants. Higher anti-immigrant attitudes are associated with higher negative sentiment, anger, and swear words in discussing immigrants. The findings highlight the need to pay attention to the combined influence of social media use and individual political beliefs when analyzing intergroup relations.
... Although there is a clear theoretical expectation that structural exclusion from power diminishes perceptions of legitimacy among social and political minorities (Lijphart 1999), the empirical results are less clear-cut. For instance, it has been found that when compared with the majority of the population, ethnic minorities have higher, lower or the same levels of perceived legitimacy (Koch 2019; Abrajano and Alvarez 2010a;2010b). Although results from this field can give some insights into the effects of accumulated losses, many additional factors are likely to affect perceptions of legitimacy among minority and disadvantaged groups beyond the repeated confrontation with political decisions that do not align with their interests (Gay 2002;Koch 2019;Pérez 2015). ...
Losers' consent, the idea that citizens accept and comply with political decisions in democracies even if they are the losers of the decision making process, is based on the premise of alternation in losing and winning. But what happens when this premise is violated? To date, we do not know how accumulated losses or wins affect legitimacy beliefs. In this study, we investigate the effect of repeated losses in referendums on legitimacy beliefs. We designed, preregistered and fielded a unique survey experiment simulating repeated losing in a referendum among Irish citizens (n=2146). As expected, satisfaction with the process and decision acceptance decrease significantly with the amount of losses. Nonetheless, we find a within-subject increase in satisfaction with democracy following three votes even among three time losers, although the gain is smallest within this group. Comparing the effects of consecutive and non-consecutive losses, losing consecutively appears to be less problematic.
... Civic engagement among Latinos and Latinas lags far behind White, Asian, and African American counterparts across every form of participation in California and nationally (Garcia Bedolla, 2012;Abrajano & Alvarez, 2010). Latinos in San Diego are disengaged from civic life and have the lowest voter count and rate of voter turnout (Equality Alliance of San Diego County, 2011). ...
This article addresses an innovative approach to connecting an urban university with the surrounding neighborhoods comprised of Latino immigrants, who represent potential new students or current students’ family members. The National Latino Research Center (NLRC) uses popular education, culturally informed, and linguistically relevant strategies to engage diverse Latino communities in the northern region of San Diego County in California. Methods of engaging the Latino community include cultivating long-term relationships, responding to time-sensitive community crises, facilitating inter-generational connections, presenting material in a culturally informed and relevant way, providing hands-on experiences with civic engagement, and growing partnerships within the university and among non-profits. Preliminary findings described a two-year study on civic engagement testing the effectiveness of a Spanish-language curriculum based on popular education offered (free) to members of urban and rural low-resourced Latino communities. The Center statistically correlated Latino community members’ experiential learning, participating in social media, and voting with gains in civic engagement knowledge.
... For example, blacks become more trusting of government when Democrats hold the presidency (Avery 2007, Wilkes 2015, though neither they nor Latinos become more trusting when represented in Congress or locally by someone of their own race or ethnicity (Gay 2002, Fowler et al. 2014; but see Pantoja & Segura 2003). Many scholars are examining whether trust develops according to a different logic depending on a citizen's race, ethnicity, or immigration status (e.g., Abrajano & Alvarez 2010, Avery 2009, Hwang 2017, Maxwell 2010, Nunnally 2012. ...
This article reviews recent survey-based research on citizens’ trust in government, focusing particularly on the United States. It addresses the long-term decline in trust and potential causes for this decline, with an emphasis on the effects of partisanship, polarization, performance, process, and media priming. While dispositions can anchor trust levels, the dominant research findings show that the sources of variation and change in trust are political, if multifaceted, in nature. We discuss new versions of standard measures, call for a renewed look at the distinction between trust in authorities and trust in the regime, review ongoing work on how and why trust matters, and recommend broadening the foci of mistrust to include antiestablishment sentiments and attacks on electoral integrity. How trust intervenes between perceptions of political processes and compliance with authoritative commands is a critical domain for additional research. We conclude with a caveat against confidence that the decline in trust can be quickly or easily reversed. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science Volume 21 is May 11, 2018. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
... Cole (1973) found no direct effect of race on political trust, and Miller's 1974 comparison of mean political trust found that political trust was actually higher for black Americans during the 1960s and then dipped below that of white Americans after 1968 (see also Howell and Fagan 1988 (2006), who not only finds higher trust in both national and local governments among US Latino respondents, but says that these differences are quite striking: "Almost 25% of our Latino respondents say they trust the national government just about all the time, compared to just over 4% of respondents to the 2000 National Election Survey" (ibid.: 2006). Subsequent analyses of two national datasets also confirm that, compared to other groups including white, black, Asian, and other, Latinos have higher political trust (Abrajano and Alvarez 2010). ...
In this chapter we consider the patterns of social and political trust on the basis of ethnoracial identification. Concerning social trust, the vast majority of individuals in ethnoracial minority groups trust less than majority group members. Although a large body of research attributes this to institutional rather than cultural effects, in practice these are very difficult to disentangle. However, in matters of political trust, the findings are more mixed. Whereas black Americans generally have lower political trust, other groups such as immigrants tend to have higher political trust. In the case of black Americans, political trust appears to be low in part because is more diffuse in nature and because of demographic underrepresentation.
... Existing scholarship examines the empowering effect of descriptive representation on minority support for various levels of government and for specific institutions of government. Some find that minority representation increases positive evaluations of government by several measures (Abney and Hutcheson 1981; Abramson 1983; Bobo and Gilliam 1990; Howell and Fagan 1988; Rahn and Rudolph 2005; Pantoja and Segura 2003; Scherer and Curry 2010; Sanchez and Morin 2011), while others do not find such effects or find mixed evidence (Banducci, Donovan, and Karp 2004; Abrajano and Alvarez 2010; Gay 2001; Tate 2003; Kelleher and Wolak 2007; Overby, et al. 2005). ...
Objectives
Few studies have examined the impact of the descriptive representation of Latinos on evaluations of the judiciary. This study helps to fill that gap by examining the effect of the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor on Latinos’ and Anglos’ evaluations of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Methods
Using repeated measures from surveys conducted in Texas in 2006 and 2011, we use ordered logit analysis to estimate the impact of the Sotomayor appointment on approval of the U.S. Supreme Court among Latinos and Anglos.
Results
At all levels of political knowledge, Latinos were more aware of the Sotomayor appointment than Anglos. Moreover, Latinos’ approval of the Court increased dramatically after the appointment, while Anglos’ approval was unchanged.
Conclusions
We find a political empowerment effect among Latinos, but find no evidence that Anglos considered the appointment a threat. Additionally, given that the Latinos in our sample are overwhelmingly of Mexican origin and Justice Sotomayor is Puerto Rican, we find evidence of pan‐ethnic effects.
... Research on citizen satisfaction with urban services (Lyons, Lowery, and DeHoog 1993;Sharp 1986), including studies of attitudes toward financing public education (Berkman and Plutzer 2005), emphasizes individuals' vested interests in the services that public organizations deliver. Also relevant is research on Latino policy attitudes (Abrajano and Singh 2009;Branton 2007;Michelson 2007;Sanchez 2006) and general views toward government (Abrajano and Alvarez 2010;Michelson 2007;Wals 2011). These literatures remain largely unconnected. ...
There is consensus among scholars, policy experts, and ordinary Latinos that a Latino education crisis exists, and that education is the primary vehicle for achieving the American Dream. Yet we know surprisingly little about what predicts Latinos' views of the bureaucrats and organizations charged with translating their educational hopes into reality. This study links disparate literatures to provide theory and evidence about how group features and elements of citizen-bureaucracy relations explain Latinos' judgments of schools and their assessments of contact with school officials. Using the 2006 Latino National Survey, we find that nativity, acculturation, and discrimination undermine positive evaluations. Our results also indicate that some of these negative associations might be countered with Latino-salient outreach, including providing school-relevant information in Spanish language.
... Hetherington (1998) also finds that being Black had no effect in 1988, but was associated with lower trust in 1996. More recently Nunnally (2012) shows higher trust for Black Americans than for White Americans in 2000, 6 Cook and Gronke (2005) show no race difference in trust in government for 2002, and Abrajano and Alvarez (2010) show that White Americans had higher levels of political trust than Black Americans in 2004. Furthermore, because these studies estimate models of trust in which race is included as a dummy variable, they do not represent a direct test of the short-term satisfaction vs. system discontent argument (except Nunnally, 2012). ...
... Political trust is most often researched in the United States, where the decline in political trust has been found to be profound from the sixties on, with an increase in political trust after 9/11 (Abrajano and Alvarez 2010;Brehm and Rahn 1997;Chanley 2002;Damico et al. 2000;Hetherington 1998;Putnam 2001;Rudolph and Evans 2005). Other one-country studies are, among others, performed in the Netherlands (Brug and Praag 2007), Australia (Papadakis 1999), South-Korea (Kim 2005) and Northern-Ireland (Gormley-Heenan and Devine 2010). ...
Political trust is seen as an important attribute in contemporary representative democracy. Political trust can cause social trust, foster associational life and make the efficient implementation of policy easier. Political trust can also be seen as a measure of political integration of migrants in Europe. However, if we want to measure this, we need to know for sure that we measure the same concept in all countries and among all cultural groups under research. This paper describes and tests four (existing) models of political trust. We find that there are multiple dimensions of political trust that can be modeled in a structural equation model. Furthermore, we research the cross-cultural equivalence of this measurement model in 22 European Union countries among natives, EU-migrants and non-EU migrants in these countries. Our results indicate that we can compare levels of political trust within countries pretty well, however, we should be careful comparing levels of political trust between EU countries since full scalar equivalence could not be reached. On a substantive note, we find quite some differences between the EU countries concerning the political trust natives have and we find diverging results concerning the migrants. In most countries we did not find a significant difference between migrants and natives. However, when the difference was significant, migrants showed higher levels of political trust in most instances.
Recent surveys reveal declines in the U.S. public’s confidence in various institutions. Although some studies link these declines to religious factors, few disaggregate these patterns across racial and ethnic groups. Here, we focus on Latinos—a growing segment of the U.S. population and an increasingly religiously diverse part of the electorate. Using original, nationally representative survey data (N=4,321), we compare Latino evangelicals and Catholics to their white counterparts in their confidence in five institutions (religious organizations, higher education, the scientific community, Congress, and the press). We find that Latino and white Catholics consistently show high levels of confidence across institutions relative to white evangelicals. Our findings suggest that there may be more similarities in institutional confidence among those of different racial and ethnic groups who share a similar religious tradition than those who are of the same race or ethnicity but share different religious traditions. Patterns observed highlight the importance of examining institutional confidence through an intersectional lens that considers religious diversity within and across racial and ethnic groups.
About 292 million rural-to-urban migrants live and work in cities in Mainland China, yet little has been known about the political attitudes of this large number of people. This study aims to address this gap by exploring Chinese rural-to-urban migrants' trust in county government of their new urban places of residence. Utilizing data from the China Family Panel Studies in 2014, we employed ordered logistic regression among rural-to-urban migrants and found that migrants' evaluations of government performance and their interactions with local governments (i.e., having conflicts with officials, being unfairly treated by officials, or having unreasonable delay at government institutions) significantly affect their trust levels. Migrants' socioeconomic status (i.e., income, employment status, and occupational prestige scales) and their experiences of facing discrimination by urban dwellers do not appear to affect migrants' trust in local government. Political trust is an important indicator which signals the quality of government relationships with rural-to-urban migrants and therefore merits additional policy attention, complementing the existing policies mainly focusing on migrants' economic and social improvements.
Indeed, the decline of political trust in parties has become a
common pattern in contemporary political literature. Alongside, most
pioneer scholars in comparative Political trust give negative titles to their
contributions, e.g. “Parties without Partisans”, “Parties are a Necessary
Evil”, “Dealgnment”. Thus, the current research explores the factors
affecting political trust in parties using the approaches of the political
process and culture, by scrutinizing and studying consolidated
democracies and matching their features in emerging ones.
This research also depicts the decline of these features in old�established democracies, e.g. the decay in party membership, party
Identification, the boost of dealignment, the skyrocket support of right�wing parties as well as the inability of parties to build up this trust. This
has been clear in the fluctuating rates of turnout, the plummet in party
membership, the inconsistency of party support and the increasing
dissatisfaction with the democratic system.
Therefore, the current thesis suggests four elements that can help
build this political trust: First, improving the political environment of the
party system together with the constitutional framework and the shape of
the governing system and the performance of the political, party and
electoral systems. Second, enhancing inner party democracy, by
developing the mechanisms of appointing political leaders, the freedom
of expression and criticism, and participation in making the party’s
decisions. Third, party programs should spell out the interests of the
social forces in a harmonious way, and the ruling party or coalition
should be committed to their programs. Fourth, emphasizing the
rectitude of party elites, which ensures financial and moral integrity as
well as political consistency at the same time
En este libro se aborda el estudio de varios fenómenos, tensiones y conflictos políticos, económicos y territoriales actuales, tanto de carácter internacional como nacional, que se plantean desde la perspectiva de diferentes movimientos o grupos sociales. El objetivo general es mostrar el origen y las consecuencias de dichas tensiones políticas, sociales y territoriales, indicar cuáles son los actores implicados en ellas y proponer alternativas para solucionarlas.
Using data from the 2003 Mexican Values Survey and an innovative approach to capture premigration socialization, this article analyzes the impact of political experience before migration and its interaction with acculturation in shaping Latino immigrants’ attitudes toward government in the United States. Findings show that trust in government in the new host nation is shaped by individuals’ premigratory exposure to democracy during preadult socialization in their countries of origin. Immigrants who were socialized under more democratic regimes exhibit less trust in the national government than do their counterparts socialized under authoritarian systems. We also find a negative effect of acculturation on trust in all levels of government, an effect that is moderated by both premigratory exposure to democracy and by income.
Objective. This research analyzes the impact of political trust on Native American electoral participation, using survey responses from roughly 1,500 Native Americans living in South Dakota and Nevada. Method. The in‐person survey taking was conducted at locations in Native communities and with the support of tribal leaders, allowing us to overcome many of the methodological issues that have hampered previous studies. Results. We found much higher levels of electoral participation in tribal elections than in non‐tribal elections. Respondents expressed high levels of distrust in nontribal government and voting methods, and this distrust has a surprisingly powerful impact on the decision to participate in nontribal elections. Conclusion. We suggest that historical trauma and ongoing discrimination are the primary causes of distrust among Native Americans and find support for this in the observed differences in levels of trust between South Dakota and Nevada.
This article examines the effects of the criminalization of immigration control systems on the prevalence of the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) in the United States. This research delineates the relationship between increased carcerality and marginalization. The results confirm existing theory that more intense criminalization is associated with greater marginalization and exploitation of the most vulnerable members of the polity. Controlling for demographic and socio-economic variables prove relevant to CSEC, and models exhibit positive correlations between the variables of interest. I argue that the increase in CSEC rates associated with criminalized immigration policy is a manifestation of changes in exploitation due to an increasingly carceral state. In attempting to exercise control over migrant bodies through state violence, policies that increase criminalization lead to more commodification in precarious communities.
Muslim Americans are increasingly integrated into American life, displaying high socioeconomic status, political participation, and adherence to American values. However, they are evaluated more negatively than many other racial, ethnic, and religious minorities and are frequent targets of discrimination. This article examines the mismatch between the integration of Muslims and their poor reception. Drawing on theories of cultural fluency and cognitive dissonance, we argue that cultural integration can exacerbate, rather than mitigate, perceived discrimination because integrated individuals are socialized to expect fair treatment and can recognize and decode even subtle forms of discrimination due to high levels of cultural and language fluency. Using three nationally representative surveys and an opt‐in, online study of American Muslims between 2007 and 2017, we find that integrated Muslims are consistently more likely than their counterparts to report individual‐ and group‐level societal and political discrimination. The paradox between adopting the host culture and feeling marginalized poses a challenge to the assumption that integration naturally leads to a sense of belonging among minorities, with important implications for liberal democracies.
Terrorism only poses a small risk to people but tends to be a major source of public fear. Through fear, terrorism has far-reaching impli-cations for public governance. ln this paper we look at trust in government as a potential mitigating factor of fear of terrorism. We discern between calculative trust, based on analytical assessment of previous and expected future actions, and relational trust, based on emotions and perceived value similarity with government. We find that relational trust decreases fear of terrorism. A similar but less robust negative relationship exists between calculative trust andfear. However, our regression analyses suggest that relational trust,in fact, may mediate the relationship between calculative trust andfear of terrorism. ln other words, the more citizens think governmentis able to prevent terrorist attack and feel that authorities are doingenough, the more they, in turn, feel that their government shares their values, and the less fearful they are of future terrorist attacks.
Objective
Compare the impact of being a racial minority for influencing political trust as measured by the standard, NES‐developed measures with its impact on assessments of the capacity of decisionmakers to make racially unbiased spending and hiring decisions. Additionally, to examine the political trust of American Indians, an understudied racial minority.
Methods
Bivariate and multivariate analysis of 2004 and 2008 National Annenberg Election Study survey data.
Results
Self‐designation as a racial minority exercises small, inconsistent effects on the standard measures of political trust and external efficacy. When citizens are asked whether Caucasian government officials make decisions on spending and hiring to advantage whites to the disadvantage of blacks and Hispanics, racial minorities state that they expect racial bias. American Indians reveal levels of political trust similar to those held by other racial minorities.
Conclusion
An increasingly multiracial society will experience considerable tensions as minorities distrust government decisionmakers of a different race. These tensions will continue to be exploited by ambitious political elites.
The First Amendment to the United States’ Constitution addresses freedom of religion and the separation of church and state. However, the historical influence of religion in laws, policies, and political representation have left secular individuals feeling excluded. At the same time, levels of confidence in social and political institutions in the United States are at an all-time low. This begs the question: Is there a relationship between secularity and confidence in various social and political institutions (e.g. the armed forces, churches, major companies, government, police, and political parties)? This question is examined using data on the United States from the World Values Survey from 1995–2011. While controlling for a range of key demographics, the findings show a negative relationship between secularity and institutional confidence. More specifically, atheists and nonreligious individuals are less likely than those who are religious to have confidence in all six institutions. Based on previous literature and the empirical evidence presented in this study, we argue that overall lower levels of institutional confidence among secular Americans is an outcome of the exclusion of such individuals from American social life. Thus, it highlights the importance of addressing the stereotypes and prejudice that this minority group faces.
Drawing on Hetherington's idea about political trust and Ajzen's theory of planned behavior, this study investigates Taiwanese people's intention to participate in the national pension program. Questionnaire surveys are collected from 254 part-time workers as they are qualified to join the program. The main results confirm that political trust, attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control have significant effects on the respondents' intention to participate in the national pension program. Very few studies have looked at the role of political trust and theory of planned behavior constructs in the national pension program. This study may contribute to the relevant literature by discussing these issues, while future empirical research needs to be conducted to improve the generalizability of the results.
Voters are often trusting of elections, but distrustful of government. We test whether voter confidence represents a different measure of system support from trust in government and external efficacy. Theoretically, we describe the inherent differences in these measures as one reason to suspect they are so. Empirically, we consider frequency distributions, crosstabs, exploratory factor analysis, reliability tests, and regression analysis to determine the independent validity of each system support measure. We find strong theoretical and empirical evidence to support that voter confidence is different from other system support measures previously studied and examined. As such, it is an important new area of scholarship.
Latinos are the fastest growing population group in the U.S. And have exerted widespread influence in numerous aspects of American culture from entertainment to economics. Unlike Asian, black, white, and Native Americans who are defined by race, Latinos can be of any race and are beginning to shed new light on the meanings and political implications of race. As the Latino population grows, how will Latinos come to define themselves racially given the long standing social order of black and white? What are the political implications of their chosen racial identities? How does Latinos’ racial identity influence their political behavior and motivation for participation.
Objective
In this article, I estimate the conditional effect of racial minorities and women on the relationship between wage reimbursement laws and voter turnout. Scholars have found evidence that voting laws affect demographic segments of the population differently. However, scholars have not considered the theoretical implications of pay incentive structures for different minority groups.
Methods
Using pooled cross‐sectional survey data from the November Supplement Current Population Survey 1996–2012, I test whether paid time off to vote laws increase the likelihood of voting for racial and gender minorities.
Results
The findings indicate that women and Asian Americans are highly responsive to wage reimbursement, Hispanic Americans are relatively unresponsive, and blacks are highly unresponsive relative to whites.
Conclusions
Reimbursing minorities for wages lost while voting decreases the costs of voting and increases turnout for these racial and gender minority groups except for blacks. I suggest the long history of discrimination and mistreatment by economic and political institutions has led to a lower level of blacks willing to engage in wage reimbursement because of mistrust in the delivery system.
Existing research concludes that acculturation converges Latino immigration policy views with those of Anglo-Americans. Yet, polls show few Latinos support restricting immigration. This article reconciles these statements with theory and evidence. I argue acculturation is part of a broader give-and-take process, the two-way street in which the contrast between expected and perceived treatment by the receiving community shapes whether or not Latino acculturation leads to restrictionism and “convergence” with Anglos. Regression analysis of survey data shows that perceived group discrimination, but not perceived individual discrimination or Latino within-group discrimination, moderates the link between acculturation and support for restrictive policy.
This article analyzes the impact of ethnic and racial discrimination on political culture in six Latin American countries. Does experiencing discrimination alter a person's attitudes toward politics? If so, how? The analysis assesses the impact of discrimination on citizens' confidence in government - especially their trust in key liberal-democratic institutions such as legislatures and high courts. It finds that victims of discrimination distrust government institutions more than do citizens who have not faced discrimination. This distrust has implications for the quality and stability of democracy in the region. What is more, the site - and thus the perpetrators - of discrimination matters. Unfair treatment by agents of the state had corrosive effects on confidence in political institutions of all sorts, though the impact was particularly strong on trust in congress and high courts. By contrast, the effects of discrimination in private settings, at the hands of other private citizens, were at best indirect. These results support a “procedural justice” approach to theorizing the impact of discrimination on political culture.
An examination of the identity of young Muslims in America
This book presents a journey into the ideas, outlooks and identity of young Muslims in America today. Based on around 400 in-depth interviews with young Muslims from Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York and Virginia, all the richness and nuance of these minority voices can be heard.
Many young Americans cherish an American dream, ‘that all men are created equal’. And the election of America’s first black President in 2008 has shown that America has moved forward. Yet since 9/11 Muslim Americans have faced renewed challenges, with their loyalty and sense of belonging being questioned.
Investigates the identity of ethnic and racial groups such as Iranians, Arab Americans and African Americans
Discusses the impact of the American media on young Muslims
Introduces debates on the Israeli-Palestine issue
Analyses President Obama as a national and world leader
In a post-9/11 America, Muslim Americans have faced intense hostility and scrutiny from segments of the American public and government. How does such an atmosphere impact Muslim Americans' confidence in American government institutions which are charged with protecting their rights and liberties? This study examines the degree to which Muslim Americans have confidence in American government institutions and what factors influence feelings of alienation versus integration into the American system. These propositions are explored using survey data on Muslim Americans (N=475) collected in 2010 by the Gallup Organization. Descriptive fieldwork was conducted April 2011 to July 2012 to further shed light on the topic. This study argues that perceived animosity towards persons of the Islamic faith in and outside the U.S. erodes confidence in American institutions among Muslim Americans. The data confirm that individual religiosity does not prevent Muslims from feeling politically integrated into the American political system; however, threat and perceived discrimination towards Muslims is particularly alienating for those who hold a salient Muslim identity. The findings of the study have important psychological and political implications for the Muslim American community, as well as critical security implications for the U.S.. Muslim Americans have accounted for the single largest information source for assisting the FBI in disrupting terrorism plots. Maintaining the community's confidence will be critical for continued cooperation and assistance.
Drawing from a survey conducted in Los Angeles, we examine perceptions of achievement and optimism about reaching the American dream among racial, ethnic, and nativity groups. We find blacks and Asian Americans less likely than whites to believe they have reached the American dream. Latinos stand out for their upbeat assessments, with naturalized citizens possessing a stronger sense of achievement and noncitizens generally optimistic that they will eventually fulfill the American dream. We discuss patterns of variation between the racial and ethnic groups as well as variation within each group. Notwithstanding interesting differences along lines of race, ethnicity, and nativity, we find no evidence that the nation’s changing ethnic stew has diluted faith in the American dream.
This paper studies whether becoming an American citizen represents a major step toward the inclusion of Latino immigrants in the American polity. It compares the behavior of immigrants who have acquired citizenship with that of immigrants who are not willing or not eligible to become citizens, focusing on non-electoral political activities like contacting government officials and working to solve problems with others informally or through existing groups and organizations. The data analysis is based on recent survey data from the 2006 Latino National Survey (Fraga et al. 2006), and uses matching methods to control for the nonrandom selection of respondents into citizenship status. A sensitivity analysis is conducted to evaluate the robustness of findings to hidden bias. Results suggest that acquiring citizenship is only a small step toward the full inclusion of Latino immigrants in the democratic process.
At the micro-level, political socialization research has emphasized the persistence of political orientations learned prior to adulthood. This emphasis has led to an implicitly conservative bias in macro-level theory--a preoccupation with the continuity of prevailing political values across generations. Results are presented here which address these two issues. These results are based on a two-wave panel study of young adults and their parents for the period 1965-1973. A high degree of persistence in partisan attachments and fairly stable political trust orientations are found for both cohorts. It is also shown, however, that reactions to the Vietnam War and race issues systematically affected political outlooks. Consistent with classical theories of generational succession, the potential impact of major issues upon political orientations appears greatest for young adults. Nevertheless, the evidence indicates that a capacity for life-long political learning exists, and historical occurrences may influence basic political attitudes throughout the life cycle.
Using 1987 national sample survey data that included a large black oversample, we reexamine black-white differences in sociopolitical participation. We hypothesized that increases in black empowerment would affect the level of black sociopolitical participation and change the nature of black-white differences in political behavior. The results show that blacks in high-black-empowerment areas--as indicated by control of the mayor's office--are more active than either blacks living in low-empowerment areas or their white counterparts of comparable socioeconomic status. Furthermore, the results show that empowerment influences black participation by contributing to a more trusting and efficacious orientation to politics and by greatly increasing black attentiveness to political affairs. We discuss the results' implications for theoretical interpretations of when and why black sociopolitical behavior differs from that of whites.
The purpose of this inquiry is to introduce a new variable into the study of congressional elections—constituent trust. Constituent trust is defined as the level of confidence that constituents have in their elected representative. This analysis suggests a strategy for measuring constituent trust and develops a model that relates constituent trust directly and indirectly to electoral support. By pooling cross-sectional data drawn from the University of Michigan's American National Election Studies (1978–84), I demonstrate that when constituent trust is salient in voter cognitions, it has a significant direct influence on electoral support and is a better predictor of electoral support than the incumbent's party identification. In addition to its direct effects, I show that constituent trust indirectly influences electoral support because of its causal relationship to incumbent popularity.
After addressing the meaning of "trust" and "trustworthiness," we review survey-based research on citizens' judgments of trust in governments and politicians, and historical and comparative case study research on political trust and government trustworthiness. We first provide an overview of research in these two traditions, and then take up four topics in more detail: (a) political trust and political participation; (b) political trust, public opinion, and the vote; (c) political trust, trustworthy government, and citizen compliance; and (d) political trust, social trust, and cooperation. We conclude with a discussion of fruitful directions for future research.
“In God We Trust: Everyone Else Pays Cash.” America's political leaders should not pretend to godliness; no one will be fooled. According to prestigious biennial national surveys, the government's credit rating has steadily declined as a result of a disastrous foreign investment and growing consumer resistance to its “line” of products. Neither the country's present management nor its most prominent rivals inspire public confidence. How, then, can the political system rebuild its depleted reserves of political trust, the basis of future growth and stability? Will “one good season,” better advertising, new blood in the boardroom or product innovation be sufficient? Or is a drastic restructuring of the regime's organization and operating procedures the only alternative to liquidation?
Arthur Miller's article, “Political Issues and Trust in Government: 1964–70” makes an important contribution to our understanding of the sharp increase in political cynicism among the American public. Miller evokes the language of the corporation balance-sheet and the imagery of Executive Suite by suggesting that the cumulative outcome of exchanges between political authorities on the one hand and citizens on the other determines the level of public trust in government. Political elites “produce” policies; in exchange, they receive trust from citizens satisfied with these policies and cynicism from those who are disappointed. Since Miller defines both policy satisfaction and political trust in attitudinal terms, the exchange transactions he records are purely psychological in nature. Operationally, dissatisfied respondents are those whose own policy preferences are discrepant with their perceptions of the positions advocated by the party controlling the presidency.
Recent research has demonstrated that black Americans are far more politically active than whites of similar socioeconomic status. The difference has been related to black consciousness. Yet the reasons for this relationship have not been adequately explained. Starting with the work of Gurin and Gamson, this article theorizes that black consciousness contributes to political mistrust and a sense of internal political efficacy which in turn encourages policy-related participation. The relationship between the two attitudes and policy-related behavior is demonstrated to be conditional. The conditions favor blacks more than whites. What I shall call the Gamson-Gurin thesis is supported by data from Verba's and Nie's 1967 survey of the American public. The thesis, and its derivations, prove useful in clarifying the scope and nature of black participation in the American political process as well as helping us to understand how individuals in general select one mode of participation over another and how the choice varies by race and social class.
We inquire whether residence in majorityminority districts suppress turnout is flawed and hypothesize that the net effect is empowering. Further, we suggest that residing in multiple overlapping majorityfor state assemblies, senates, and the U.S. House—further enhances turnout. We test our hypotheses using individual-level turnout data for voters in five Southern California counties. Examining three general elections from 1996 to 2000, we demonstrate that residing in a majority-Latino district ultimately has a positive effect on the propensity of Latino voters to turn out, an effect that increases with the number of Latino districts in which the voter resides and is consistent across the individual offices in which a voter might be descriptively represented. In contrast, the probability that non-Hispanic voters turn out decreases as they are subject to increasing layers of majority-Latino districting.
The segmented assimilation theory offers a theoretical framework for understanding the process by which the new second generation – the children of contemporary immigrants – becomes incorporated into the system of stratification in the host society and the different outcomes of this process. This article examines the issues and controversies surrounding the development of the segmented assimilation theory and reviews the state of recent empirical research relevant to this theoretical approach. It also highlights main conclusions from recent research that bear on this theory and their implications for future studies.
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This study examines whether or not attention to campaign news influences political trust. It also explores whether political
trust predicts attention to campaign news, and whether the mechanism of influence between attention to campaign news and political
trust differs across educational levels. Political trust was operationalized as trust in government. The 1992 American National
Election Survey data were used. Results of two-stage least squares analysis show that attention to television campaign coverage
reduced trust in government, while a low level of trust in government increased attention to newspaper campaign coverage.
More importantly, the mechanism of influence between political trust and attention to campaign coverage differed across educational
levels. Among the less educated, attention to campaign coverage on television led to lower levels of trust. Among the more
educated, a low level of trust in government increased attention to campaign coverage. The findings also indicate that the
types of media (television vs. newspapers) matter when it comes to media effects on political trust, Implications of findings
on the relationships between the concepts of political trust, vigilant skepticism, education, and media use are discussed.
Scholars have consistently demonstrated that no link exists between declining political trust and declining turnout, but they have paid less attention to the effect of trust on vote choice. In an era characterized by declining trust, the incumbent party has lost, and third parties have strongly contested, four of the last eight presidential elections. Such outcomes are historically anomalous. This study demonstrates that declining political trust affects vote choice, but the electoral beneficiary differs according to electoral context. In two-candidate races, politically distrustful voters support candidates from the nonincumbent major party. In races with three viable candidates, third-party alternatives benefit from declining political trust at the expense of both major parties.
With the growing levels of political distrust witnessed in the 1960s and 1970s came two distinct and competitive hypotheses attempting to explain this political disillusionment. Miller (1974a, 1974b) argued that distrust resulted from poor performance of the political system as evidenced by policy failures, and Citrin (1974) argued that political distrust as measured by the Center for Political Studies was the result of disapproval of incumbent political officials and was not in any way due to systemic considerations. In this paper an institutional explanation of low levels of political trust is offered that accounts for the high correlation between trust and incumbent approval. The general evaluation of political institutions influences one's trust in the political system and also one's predisposition to approve of an incumbent.
Existing research establishes that political trust is not only an important de- terminant of individual political behavior and government effectiveness, but may also mea- sure the health of civic society. This article presents evidence that assimilation is corrosive of political trust, focusing specifically on the incorporation of Latinos in Chicago. Various strands of assimilation theory predict that as Mexicans naturalize and join the electorate, and as Puerto Ricans migrate to the mainland, they will be increasingly cynical about politics. This theory is tested with data from a recent survey of the Latino population in Chicago. Mexican American citizens are found to be less trusting of government, while Mexican- descent non-citizens remain more idealistic. Puerto Ricans born on the island of Puerto Rico are found to be more trusting than are Puerto Ricans born in the United States.
Scholars have debated the importance of declining political trust to the American political system. By primarily treating trust as a dependent variable, however, scholars have systematically underestimated its relevance. This study establishes the importance of trust by demonstrating that it is simultaneously related to measures of both specific and diffuse support. In fact, trust's effect on feelings about the incumbent president, a measure of specific support, is even stronger than the reverse. This provides a fundamentally different understanding of the importance of declining political trust in recent years. Rather than simply a reflection of dissatisfaction with political leaders, declining trust is a powerful cause of this dissatisfaction. Low trust helps create a political environment in which it is more difficult for leaders to succeed.
National survey data demonstrate that support of the federal government decreased substantially between 1964 and 1970. Policy preference, a lack of perceived difference between the parties, and policy dissatisfaction were hypothesized as correlates of trust and alternative explanations of this decrease. Analysis revealed that the increased distrust in government, or cynicism, was associated with reactions to the issues of racial integration and U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war. A curvilinear relationship was found between policy preference on these and other contemporary social issues and political cynicism. The minority favoring centrist policies was more likely to trust the government than the large proportion who preferred noncentrist policy alternatives. This complex relationship between trust and policy preference is explained by dissatisfaction with the policies of both political parties. The dissatisfied noncentrists formed highly polarized and distinct types: “cynics of the left,” who preferred policies providing social change, and “cynics of the right,” who favored policies of social control.
This third edition of the widely acclaimed classic has been thoroughly expanded and updated to reflect current demographic, economic, and political realities. Drawing on recent census data and other primary sources, Portes and Rumbaut have infused the entire text with new information and added a vivid array of new vignettes and illustrations. Recognized for its superb portrayal of immigration and immigrant lives in the United States, this book probes the dynamics of immigrant politics, examining questions of identity and loyalty among newcomers, and explores the psychological consequences of varying modes of migration and acculturation. The authors look at patterns of settlement in urban America, discuss the problems of English-language acquisition and bilingual education, explain how immigrants incorporate themselves into the American economy, and examine the trajectories of their children from adolescence to early adulthood. With a vital new chapter on religion-and fresh analyses of topics ranging from patterns of incarceration to the mobility of the second generation and the unintended consequences of public policies-this updated edition is indispensable for framing and informing issues that promise to be even more hotly and urgently contested as the subject moves to the center of national debate.
Part 1 National overviews: Latino influence on the 1988 elections - a national view, Louis DeSipio and Gregory Rocha the Democratic and Republican parties' Latino mass-communication strategies during the 1988 elections, Federico A. Subervi-Velez. Part 2 The old reliables - Mexican Americans in small western states: Hispanos and the 1988 general election in New Mexico, Christine Marie Sierra the Latino role in Colorado in the 1988 election, Martin Saiz Latinos and the 1988 elections - Arizona, Rodney Hero. Part 3 The "must-wins" - key states with large, long-term Latino electorates: Texas Mexicans in the 1988 Election, Henry Flores and Robert Brischetto Latinos and the 1988 election in Calfornia, Fernando J. Guerra. Part 4 The new kids on the block - key states with new and potentially influential Latino electorates: prototype from the Midwest - Latinos in Illinois, Luis Ricardo Fraga the conservative enclave - Cubans in Florida, Dario Moreno and Christopher L. Warren Puerto Ricans and the 1988 election in New York City, Angelo Falcon. Part 5 Conclusion: from rhetoric to reality - Latinos and the 1988 election in review, Rodolfo O. de la Garza.
THIS STUDY of the political culture of democracy had its inspiration some thirty years ago in the Social Science Division of the University of Chicago. Much of what now goes under the name of the behavioral approach to the study of politics originated there in the period between the wars. It is a tribute to the vision of the men who created this leaven that it has taken three or four decades for their conception of political science to become a common possession. In particular, this study owes its inspiration to the work of Charles E. Merriam. His Civic Training series formulated many of the problems with which this study is concerned, and his New Aspects of Politics suggested the methods that have been used in its execution.
In this article, we compare the 1996 turnout among cohorts of naturalized and native-born Latino citizens, looking for between-group differences endogenous to recent anti-immigrant rhetoric and events in California. We argue that immigrants naturalizing in a politically charged environment represent a self-selected subsample of all voters, identifying individuals who feel strohgly about the political issues at hand, and who seek enfranchisement as an act of political expression. We suggest that newly naturalized citizens living in California made exactly these choices, which differentiate them from native-born citizens, longer-term naturalized citizens, and Latinos in other states. Using the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute's 1997 three-state survey of citizen attitudes, validated using original registrars-of-voters data, we estimate multivariate logit models of individual turnout of Latino citizens in each state for the 1996 national election. The data support our hypotheses. Newly naturalized Latinos in California behave differently from other Latino citizens of California, and the patterns of difference are not replicated in either Florida or Texas. Turnout was higher among those who naturalized in the politically hostile climate of California in the early 1990s. Our results suggest important political effects of wedge-issue politics that target Latino immigrants.
Political trust can be seen as one counterpoint to political alienation. In this chapter, the authors review 25 separate political trust measures, defining trust as citizen "confidence that authorities will observe the rules of the game and serve the general interest." The reviewed scales include 4 focused on the short-term incumbent level, 5 examining trust of Congress or other specific institutions, and 4 covering cynicism about politicians in general. The final 11 measures deal with longer-term confidence in the general methods of governance and political institutions, several from other countries. The authors see the need for future measures that would focus on the different levels and branches of government, examine what citizens expect from their government, and relate political trust to trust at more basic and personal levels of social interaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Are Happy Days for government really here again? Recent polls suggest that the long slide in public confidence in America's political institutions and authorities has finally ended. Ronald Reagan, who came to Washington to bury government rather than praise it, ironically has presided over a restoration of trust in the competence of national leadership. We begin this article by charting the contours of the unanticipated improvement in the public's image of government, assessing the magnitude of the increase in confidence, identifying the social groups whose outlook has changed and specifying the institutions that have gained in popular esteem. Our main purpose, however, is to provide an explanation for the resurgence of trust in government that addresses persistent controversies about the theoretical and empirical status of this concept.
Declining trust in politicians and political institutions is one of the most dramatic and well-documented trends in American public opinion. Confidence in religious, educational and other institutions has also waned, but emphasis has focused on diminished political trust, both because it may summarize a wide range of diffuse grievances and because it might indicate an increased potential for disruptive action, political violence and instability. In the decade from 1968 to 1978, the level of political trust (measured by the conventional five-item CPS/NES index) was halved, the proportion of the public expressing moderate or high levels of trust falling from 64 to 33 per cent. The greatest decline in the index level (a drop of 14 points) occurred between 1972 and 1974.
Though many studies have focused on African Americans' turnout levels in descriptively represented electoral districts, few have examined the composition of African-American turnout in these districts, compared to districts that are not descriptively represented. This study contends that descriptive representation should conditionally affect African Americans' political participation, given preference heterogeneity among this group. It then examines the extent to which the ideological orientations of African Americans condition the effect of their Representative's race in the 104th House on their probability of participating in the 1996 national election. The study finds that when liberal African Americans are descriptively represented, they are more likely to vote, while moderate and conservative African Americans are less likely to vote. These findings not only help to resolve prior studies' disparate conclusions concerning descriptive representation's participatory effects, but they also show that descriptive representation affects which African Americans' interests are communicated to elected officials through voting.
Video-based media spaces are designed to support casual interaction between intimate collaborators. Yet transmitting video is fraught with privacy concerns. Some researchers suggest that the video stream be filtered to mask out potentially sensitive ...
In this age of multicultural democracy, the idea of assimilation--that the social distance separating immigrants and their children from the mainstream of American society closes over time--seems outdated and, in some forms, even offensive. But as Richard Alba and Victor Nee show in the first systematic treatment of assimilation since the mid-1960s, it continues to shape the immigrant experience, even though the geography of immigration has shifted from Europe to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Institutional changes, from civil rights legislation to immigration law, have provided a more favorable environment for nonwhite immigrants and their children than in the past.
Assimilation is still driven, in claim, by the decisions of immigrants and the second generation to improve their social and material circumstances in America. But they also show that immigrants, historically and today, have profoundly changed our mainstream society and culture in the process of becoming Americans.
Surveying a variety of domains--language, socioeconomic attachments, residential patterns, and intermarriage--they demonstrate the continuing importance of assimilation in American life. And they predict that it will blur the boundaries among the major, racially defined populations, as nonwhites and Hispanics are increasingly incorporated into the mainstream.
Table of Contents:
Preface
1. Rethinking Assimilation
2. Assimilation Theory, New and Old
3. Assimilation in Practice: The Europeans and East Asians
4. Was Assimilation Contingent on Specific Historical Conditions?
5. The Background to Contemporary Immigration
6. Evidence of Contemporary Assimilation
7. Conclusion: Remaking the Mainstream
Notes
Index
Reviews of this book:
Sociologists Alba and Nee provide a superb, comprehensive analysis of theory, data, and history to revise past and contemporary understandings of immigration and assimilation in the U.S. Their goal is to respond to skeptics' pessimism about new immigrants' assimilability, question misconception about the assimilation experiences of previous and current immigrant groups, reject normative baggage attached to notions of assimilation, and answer the question, 'What can assimilation look like in such a diverse and ethnically dynamic society?'
--S. M. Green, Choice
Alba and Nee have written a carefully theorized, thoughtfully argued, and empirically well-grounded book. They demonstrate persuasively that the so-called "new" immigration is not terribly different from previous ones, and that most of the descendants of today's Hispanic, Asian, and other newcomers are assimilating in much the same way as the children and grandchildren of the European immigration. Their contribution to our understanding of immigration, ethnicity and race should be read far beyond the worlds of social science scholarship.
--Herbert J. Gans, Author of Democracy and the News
Assimilation is dead, long live assimilation! Alba and Nee are fully aware of the flaws and biases in the old model of the "melting pot," but they rehabilitate it with elegant theory, persuasive facts, and careful attention to its continued racial and class-based failings. The idea of assimilation may be unfashionable, but it has the singular virtue of fitting the case--for many Americans, at any rate--more than other trendier theories do. Remaking the American Mainstream shows us how, why, and to what end.
--Jennifer L. Hochschild, co-Author, The American Dream and the Public Schools
Alba and Nee have accomplished a tour de force . They have an important story to tell and they've told it with great verve and skill, using prose that will allow this book to be widely read. Remaking the American Mainstream is an outstanding work that is truly worthy of the important topic it addresses.
--Roger Waldinger, author of Still the Promised City?: African-Americans and New Immigrants in Postindustrial New York
No phenomenon is more central to the future shape of American life than assimilation - its contested meanings, the demand for it by established Americans, the powerful but mixed incentives for it by immigrants, its social history, and its future trajectory. Alba and Nee elucidate these crucial questions and supply provocative answers. Their book is a valuable Baedeker for anyone who visits the subject.
--Peter Schuck, author of Diversity in America: Keeping Government at a Safe Distance
"This provocative study of the Latino political experience offers a nuanced, in-depth, and often surprising perspective on the factors affecting the political engagement of a segment of the population that is now the nation's largest minority. Drawing from one hundred in-depth interviews, Lisa García Bedolla compares the political attitudes and behavior of Latinos in two communities: Working-class East Los Angeles and middle-class Montebello. Asking how collective identity and social context have affected political socialization, political attitudes and practices, and levels of political participation among the foreign born and native born, she offers new findings that are often at odds with the conventional wisdom emphasizing the role socioeconomic status plays in political involvement. Fluid Borders includes the voices of many individuals, offers exciting new research on Latina women indicating that they are more likely than men to vote and to participate in political activities, and considers how the experience of social stigma affects the collective identification and political engagement of members of marginal groups. This innovative study points the way toward a better understanding of the Latino political experience, and how it differs from that of other racial groups, by situating it at the intersection of power, collective identity, and place."
"The segmented assimilation theory offers a theoretical framework for understanding the process by which the new second generation--the children of contemporary immigrants--becomes incorporated into the system of stratification in the host society and the different outcomes of this process. This article examines the issues and controversies surrounding the development of the segmented assimilation theory and reviews the state of recent empirical research relevant to this theoretical approach. It also highlights main conclusions from recent research that bear on this theory and their implications for future studies." The geographical focus is on the United States.
Objective. Existing research establishes that political trust is not only an important determinant of individual political behavior and government effectiveness, but may also measure the health of civic society. This article looks specifically at trust among Latinos of Mexican descent, demonstrating that acculturation is corrosive of political trust.
Methods. Logit and ordered logit models are used to simultaneously test two theories of acculturation—classic assimilation theory and ethnic competition theory. Data come from the Latino National Political Survey (LNPS).
Results. Support is found for both modes of acculturation.
Conclusions. Although the results do not conclusively side with one particular mode of acculturation, they consistently show that acculturation is corrosive of political trust. Latinos of Mexican descent become more cynical about American government as they incorporate into or are exposed to mainstream American culture, and as they become more aware of or concerned about racism and discrimination.