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When Social Capital Becomes Political Capital: Understanding the Social Contexts of Minority Candidates' Electoral Success in the American States
Abstract
Political scientists have long been interested in studying the elective office-holding of disadvantaged groups. However, this line of research primarily focuses on the representation of ethnic minorities in the U.S. Congress and identifies three types of determinants of minority candidates' electoral success: the demographic and political make-up of constituents, candidates' personal traits, and macro-level electoral rules. Much less attention is given to minority candidates' electoral success in statehouses. In this paper, we ask: what factors promote the electoral success of minority candidates in state legislatures? Beyond voter characteristics and electoral rules, we attribute minority candidates' electoral success to the social capital possessed by their in-group constituents. We theorize that social capital manifested as civic engagement and social connectedness, can become political capital for minority candidates. Using the Current Population Surveys Civic Engagement Supplement, we validate state-level measures of social capital by race and ethnicity. Linking group social capital to state legislative election outcomes, we find the stock of minority social capital contributes to the electoral success of minority candidates, while white social capital decreases minority candidates' electoral success. Key findings suggest social capital is a form of political capital for disadvantaged groups with private benefits for in-group candidates.
... Customary elites, as demonstrated earlier, possess robust social capital, particularly within their respective customary societies, which benefits the community. Social capital manifested as civic engagement and social connectedness (Wright & Zhu, 2021). Coleman (1988) elucidated social capital as a resource influencing individuals' behavior in life. ...
This study examines the customary elites' role in the local socio-political landscape in Lampung, Indonesia. The problem is that so far, the role of customary elites is often ignored in regional development, where they only become political symbols and are used for local political interests in the region. In this case study, customary elites attempt to manage their adat communities so that they make positive contributions to society. Adat still has a significant influence and plays an important role in the daily lives of the Lampung people. However, this is not just community-level regulation or customary law; it also has important cultural and social significance for the nation. This study uses qualitative research methods and an ethnographic approach. Data was collected through in-depth interviews and participant observation with analysis using data reduction, verification, data display, and data triangulation. The result showed that adat helps form and maintain social ties among local communities, contributing to government development programs and administrative changes. In the adat government, traditional elites also represent their adat communities. Adat shows flexibility towards change while preserving local wisdom and contributing to regional development. Customary elites and adat communities have great influence in society, and they are valued and respected by their collective members. Their role should be maximized by local governments in regional development because one of the keys to successful development is utilizing local wisdom because local wisdom is the element that is most adaptable and flexible in change.
This study examined the cultural capital possessed by Minangkabau nomads as the candidates of the DPR-RI Legislature in the 2019 Legislative Elections. Minangkabau is one of the ethnic groups in Indonesia which maintains a matrilineal kinship system and a tradition of merantau (travelling in pursuit of success). Merantau becomes a significant investment used by Minangkabau nomads to gain vote support for their candidacy as a member of the DPR-RI legislature in electoral political contestation, including the 2019 Legislative Election. The study utilized a qualitative descriptive method to collect data through interviews and documentation studies. The study results revealed that the figure of Minangkabau nomads candidates possessed the cultural capital and were able to manage this cultural capital to succeed in gaining significant victories in their respective constituency. The cultural capital of Minangkabau nomads could be seen from the two figures of Minangkabau nomads legislative candidates, namely Fadli Zon and Jon Erizal, including the institutionalized tradition of merantau, and the role Tungku Tigo Sajarangan (the traditional leaders) in the matrilineal kinship system. Through adequate cultural capital, the Minangkabau nomads were able to secure a big victory in their respective electoral districts.
A survey of 711 candidates for local offices in the United States, conducted in December 2021, reveals that many were concerned before they began their campaigns about the impact of politics on their work and family, the time demands of campaigning, their ability to raise funds, and their knowledge of the process, among other obstacles. Many candidates who had anticipated each concern found it less onerous than they had expected. Those who were parents, those with full-time jobs, and those who had experienced poverty as children were especially likely to have difficulty meeting work and family obligations while campaigning. Being liberal, being young, having less education, and experiencing poverty in childhood were all associated with concerns about being qualified to run. The study offers additional details about which backgrounds and experiences are associated with specific challenges in local campaigns. The results may inform efforts to recruit and support underrepresented candidates.
The number of women seeking congressional office in the United States has dramatically increased since 1980. Previous research on women candidates explores why women run, but new research on candidate emergence shows that women face different challenges and advantages based on their race and ethnicity. We investigate these differences by disaggregating data on women’s candidate emergence by race and ethnicity to examine how these theories work when explicitly considering race and ethnicity. We focus our examination on women running in House primaries between 1980 and 2012. We argue that theories of candidate emergence are conditional to the racial and/or ethnic identification of the candidate. We employ a cross-sectional time series analysis with the intuition that examining congressional elections over time will allow us to make general comments about the participation of women in congressional elections. We find that many of the conditions thought necessary for women’s emergence as candidates are contextual and temporally specific. Moreover, conditions that encourage women to run do not necessarily apply to women of color.
A long-standing debate persists regarding how social capital relates to diversity and inequality in the American states. Putnam argues social capital leads to greater equality and tolerance; however, others find that it increases racial inequality. We build on Soss, Fording, and Schram’s Racial Classification Model (RCM) and theorize that social capital enhances social trust and empathy in homogeneous contexts and favors paternalistic and punitive social controls in diverse contexts. We test this using the case of immigration and welfare generosity following the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996. Using state-level data from 1997 to 2009, we find that under conditions of low immigration, social capital is associated with increased social trust and empathy; however, as immigration increases, social capital pivots toward favoring mechanisms of social control. Specifically, social capital increases Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash benefit levels, but only when immigration levels are low. In high-immigration contexts, social capital is associated with decreased welfare generosity.
Objective. Campaign costs have grown rapidly in recent years. This analysis considers the amount of money candidates allocated in running for the state legislature. What factors associated with candidates, districts, and states are responsible for variations in campaign costs? Of particular concern is the impact of campaign finance regulations. Are laws aimed at restricting contributions effective at reducing overall levels of campaign spending as is often assumed to be the case? Methods. This analysis examines spending by 3,253 state legislative candidates running in twenty-seven states in the mid-1990s. Results. A number of factors are found to influence campaign spending although these effects often vary by type of candidate. In particular, contribution limits and public funding reduce spending for incumbents while public funding leads to higher levels of challenger spending. Conclusions. Campaign finance laws affect spending levels, but candidate-and district-level factors also have a large impact. Several of these findings have implications for understanding the role of money in elections and for anticipating the effects of possible reform measures.
Scholarship on primary election outcomes has largely ignored the ability of political parties to shape outcomes and influence the decisions of candidates to compete for the party's nomination. Only recently have theories of parties as networks of policy demanders suggested that parties influence the candidate nomination process. Previous attempts to document party control of primaries, however, have only tested these theories on small or unrepresentative samples of primary races or have looked at general election results after the party's nominee has already been selected. Using a simple and easily understood measure of party support, I show that candidates who are less connected to the party are less likely to win and also less likely to remain a candidate in the primary. I find that parties not only are effective in helping candidates win but also are influential in excluding certain electoral options from being presented to primary voters.
Do internal (administrative human capital) and external (social capital) resources work to reinforce the effects of each other? Work from multiple disciplines has approached this question, and we advance this literature with a theory of social and administrative resources as potential substitutes for each other in the production of public education outcomes. We argue that social capital benefits some groups more than others and that it interacts with management to improve performance. We therefore expect the benefits associated with social capital to be non-uniform across community groups. Using education as our area of study, we find that social capital offers the most direct and unconditional benefits to white students but that management can use human capital resources to compensate disadvantaged students who may lack support and resources outside of the classroom. We do not find support for the expectation that social capital and human administrative capital reinforce the benefits of each other, but we find evidence that the two resource types are substitutable. This implies that management may substitute human capital resources when social capital is low to benefit public program performance.
This review examines how legislators' race and ethnicity affect the representation of racial and ethnic minorities' interests and priorities in the mass public, how these legislators affect the political participation of these groups, how the presence of these candidates affects voter decision making, and how their prevalence impacts the composition of the parties and the nature of public policy. It also points to new directions and opportunities for scholarship on why minority legislators matter for American politics.
In the USA, Black women participate in politics at much higher rates than expected, especially given that the group ranks low on many of the traditional correlates of political participation, such as income and education. Using data from the 2000 Social Capital Benchmark Study and the 2011 American National Elections Study, we present an intersectional model of Black women's political participation. Our results demonstrate that many of the traditional factors associated with high levels of political participation matter less for Black women as a group and that social capital plays a key role in promoting their political participation. The high level of social capital in the group, combined with a strong substantive effect of social capital, illustrates the potential of social capital to help explain the puzzle of Black women's political participation. We provide evidence that social capital plays a particularly important role for Black women's political participation when compared to other groups. Our results demonstrate the importance of an intersectional approach to understanding democratic participation, particularly for marginalized groups.
Majority-minority voting districts have been advanced as a remedy to the underrepresentation of minority interests in the political process. Yet, their efficacy in furthering the substantive goals of minority constituents has been questioned because they may dilute minority influence in surrounding areas and lead to an overall decrease in support for minority-sponsored legislation. Thus, there may be a trade-off between increasing the number of minority officeholders and enacting legislation that furthers the interests of the minority community. Using nonlinear estimation techniques, we simulate the districting strategies that maximize substantive minority representation, and find that such a trade-off does exist. We also find that, outside of the South, dividing minority voters equally across districts maximizes substantive representation; inside the South the optimal scheme creates concentrated districts on the order of 47% black voting age population. In addition, minority candidates may have a substantial chance of being elected from districts with less than 50% minority voters.
Contrary to Cameron, Epstein, and O'Halloran's article (1996), (1) racial redistricting remains vital to the election of African Americans to the U.S. House, and (2) the tradeoff between black descriptive and substantive representation is actually greater in the South than in the North. Substantive and methodological errors explain why they arrived at their findings. Specifically, their analysis ignores the effect of the presence of Latinos on the election of African Americans. Ironically, due to the very policy assessed in the article, Cameron, Epstein, and O'Halloran's data set does not allow them to examine the link between the racial composition of a district and the ideology of its representative. In addition, they do not consider that racial redistricting not only changes the aggregation of seats into votes but also indirectly boosts the Republican share of votes and seats.
This article draws on work in the social construction of race and ethnicity to explain why racial/ethnic divisions are so often axes of domination and why these divisions are central to social movements. Racial/ethnic groups are constructed in political processes that are intertwined with state formation and social movements. Processes of state formation and collective action create racial/ethnic groups, define majorities and minorities, and create racial/ethnic structures of domination. Physical and social segregation in tandem with intergenerational inheritance creates network cliquing that reinforces group boundaries, group differences, and group interests. Movements by members of dominant racial/ethnic majorities differ from movements by members of subordinate racial/ethnic minorities in key ways, including access to democratic processes for achieving group goals, experience of repression, need for allies, identity construction, processes of consciousness raising, and bases of mobilization. These "ethnic dimensions" matter for all social movements.
Although intergroup conflict caused by demographic differences in organizations disrupts social interactions between employees, little empirical research has been conducted to understand how to effectively manage demographic diversity in the public workforces. By combining two theories of diversity and inclusion, this article explores the independent and joint effects of three dimensions of demographic diversity (gender, race, and age) and a diversity climate on organizational social capital in the US federal government. Statistical analysis shows a negative relationship between age diversity and organizational social capital and a contrasting positive relationship between a diversity climate and social capital. More important, the diversity climate as a key moderator conditions the impact of racial diversity and age diversity on social capital. The findings suggest the importance of a supportive diversity climate in improving the quality of social relationships within demographically diverse organizations.
Latino-majority congressional districts are far more likely to elect Latino representatives to Congress than majority-white districts. However, not all majority-Latino districts do so. This paper addresses this question, and it investigates how the level of influence of political parties and interest groups in majority-Latino districts substantially shapes Latino representation to the US House of Representatives. I rely on five case studies and a dataset of candidates to open congressional races with a Latino population plurality from 2004 to 2014. The evidence indicates that groups and political networks are critical for Latina/o candidate recruitment, the organization of resources in a congressional district, the deployment of campaign resources on behalf of certain candidates, and the eventual success of Latina/o candidates. The findings suggest that Latino descriptive and substantive representation are shaped by the wielding influence of political parties and interest groups.
This article examines the differential effects of social capital on policy equity in state outcomes. Specifically, it explores the relationship between social capital and incarceration rates in the American states paying particular attention to racial disparities in incarceration rates. Building on work by Hero, I present a theoretical explanation and empirical support for how social capital operates differently under different racial contexts. I argue that social capital enhances social empathy in homogeneous contexts and social controls in diverse contexts. Using state-level longitudinal data on the contiguous states, I find that social capital is positively associated with incarcerations, but only for African Americans. Furthermore, the effects of social capital appear to be conditional on racial context where this relationship is stronger as minority group size increases.
Research on descriptive representatives provides mixed evidence that race informs legislators’ political views. However, past work conflates racial categorization with racial identity, and often lacks variation in race as the key variable. Additionally, few studies examine how diversity within groups may impact intergroup relations within the legislature. The presence of multiracial elected officials prompts us to revisit the linkages descriptive representatives draw between their race and their political outlooks, and to explore the consequences of multiracial legislators’ presence for intergroup relations within the legislature. Interviews with a diverse set of legislators were conducted. For multiracial legislators, questions about phenotypic ambiguity were salient, and narratives suggest their racial identities were consciously chosen, which in turn shaped their politics. The interviews also suggest that some multiracial legislators may encounter challenges to their minority caucus memberships. The findings suggest that as legislatures become more diverse, phenotype and identity choices may complicate intergroup relations in the legislature and how scholars understand what constitutes a descriptive representative.
Fifty years ago African Americans were severely oppressed. Not only were they unable to enjoy many of the basic citizenship rights guaranteed by the US Constitution but also, under Jim Crow, blacks were denied the franchise, barred from interacting with whites in public spaces, and trapped at the bottom of the economic ladder, where they were relegated to the poorest paying and least desirable jobs. The modern civil rights movement, a major social force in the mid-1950s, was the vehicle through which African Americans and their supporters overthrew Jim Crow. Partly as a response to this groundbreaking movement, scholars have constructed a new concept of social movements where organization, strategic thinking, cultural traditions, and political encounters figure largely as explanatory factors in analyses of social movements.
The literature examining the effect of residential integration on political behavior primarily focuses on how whites react to the entrance of non-whites into their communities. Over the past few decades however, the process of “white return” to urban centers throughout the nation has created the opportunity to invert the standard approach to studying racial context by exploring how minorities react to the entrance of whites into their communities. We adapt realistic conflict theories to the case of gentrification, and offer a model of the effect of white in-migration on social capital (SC) and political engagement in black communities. We demonstrate that white population growth erodes SC in black neighborhoods only where the larger surrounding community is majority black, and where such growth is accompanied by rising housing costs. Further, we find that residing in a gentrifying context, by eroding social capital, ultimately results in the political demobilization of black citizens.
This article examines the relationship between activity in non-political organizations and political participation. In their 1995 book, Voice and Equality, Verba, Schlozman, and Brady claim that, for a variety of reasons, activity in these non-political organizations has a positive effect on an individual's level of political participation. However, using empirical evidence, this study calls some of these findings into question by demonstrating that there are fundamental differences in the effects of workplace activity and similar activities undertaken in other non-political groups. Specifically, the results indicate that activity in more voluntary groups has the greatest effect on political participation, especially time-based and volunteer oriented activities. In several instances the effects of activity in these non-political organizations rival those of the classic SES variables.
Managers concerned with the performance of their organizations will exploit available social, administrative, and human capital resources. However, extant theory and mixed empirical evidence leave the effect of social capital on performance unclear. The gains from these norms of reciprocity, participation, networking, and trust may disproportionately benefit only some of their clients, leading to disparities in outcomes among diverse clienteles. We argue that in such contexts, management will put in place policies to counter these disparities. Indeed, our empirical evidence from the management of public education supports the expectation that an institutional commitment to diversity successfully mitigates the uneven effects of social capital on organizational performance. This finding carries important implications for public management and equity in public policy outcomes and may be of particular relevance to management of outcomes relying on co-production.
Objective. This research has two objectives: to construct a model incorporating factors other than those relating to SES, focusing on variables influencing Latino political participation, thereby helping to ascertain the distinctiveness of Latino activity, and to examine participatory acts beyond voting. Methods. We create a social structural model, predicting that Latinos' social context may increase their opportunities for political participation. Using data from a new survey, we estimate our social structural model employing an ordered probit methodolgy. Results. (1) Social structural variables including integration into politically active social networks, exposure to mobilization, and organizational affiliation increase the likelihood Latinos will participate; (2) after including into the model variables measuring attachment to native country, the social structural variables remain significant; (3) the variables underlying Latino political activity are distinct from those explaining black and white participation. Conclusions. Latinos' social milieu acts as a critical context for socialization, information dissemination, and mobilization, thereby providing some requisite resources central to facilitating participation.
Do voters in white districts systematically obstruct minority representation? Despite a great deal of public and scholarly attention, this question remains largely unresolved. We demonstrate that the narrow focus on the relationship between white voters and minority representation is inadequate to understand why we do not see more minority-elected officials in the United States. We use a matching technique to investigate three theoretical perspectives of descriptive representation using a unique dataset from the 2012 general elections for state legislative seats in 14 states, the first elections after the 2010 redistricting process. Our findings challenge the venerable notion that minority candidates consistently underperform in white districts, and complicate our understanding of the political expression of bigotry in the voting booth.
Objective. This study reviews the uneven history of research on nonreligious and religious group involvement in U.S. voting participation. It uses previously unmined data to examine the influence of voluntary association and church involvement on turnout over time. It tests theories that group involvement mobilizes voters through the byproducts of increasing predispositions to vote (political interest, efficacy, knowledge, and civic duty) and civic leadership skills; and that group leaders and issues mobilize voters directly. Methods. This research uses General Social Surveys to test the effect of voluntary association and church involvement on presidential-election turnout from 1972 to 1992. It uses the 1996 National Election Study (NES), supplemented by 1984, 1988, and 1992 NESs, to test the byproduct and direct mobilization theories. Results. Both nonreligious and religious group activity are moderately important predictors of turnout in all elections. Increases in civic skills do not explain group effects, and the group effects of participatory predispositions and of direct mobilization are weak. Conclusions. We need additional theories to explain the relationship between voluntary and religious group involvement and turnout. An increase in sense of community may explain how group involvement stimulates turnout, or group activity and turnout may be manifestations of the same underlying social participation construct.
Race and racial diversity are important aspects of America and have been shown to substantially affect social relations and the political system, often in ways inconsistent with the values of equality. However, greater civic association and a general sense of community, embodied in the concept of social capital, are said to have tremendous beneficial effects and profoundly influence American society. This study juxtaposes and critically assesses two bodies of research, including the work made famous in Robert Putnam”s Bowling Alone, that have reached different conclusions on these issues. Is America's legacy of racial inequality an 'evil twin' of the benefits of social capital? By analyzing the social outcomes for racial minorities, in addition to other dimensions of American politics, the author shows that the impact of racial diversity consistently outweighs that of social capital.
Recent work challenges traditional understandings of the link between race and voter turnout, suggesting that there is limited evidence of increased minority voting due to co-ethnic representation and majority-minority districts. Here I examine 65.3 million registration records from 10 states to trace individual-level participation before and after the 2012 round of redistricting, testing whether a shift in congressional representation, candidacy, and/or district ethnic composition affected an individual's decision to participate. Separating results for non-Hispanic white, black, Latino, and Asian American registrants, I find that individuals change their behavior in response to ethnoracial context, with African Americans more likely to vote when assigned to majority-black districts with black candidates or incumbents. White and Asian registrants also turn out in higher numbers when a co-ethnic candidate is on the ballot, but Latinos may be less likely to vote in the short term when assigned to majority-Latino districts.
Social capital is the web of cooperative relationships between citizens that facilitates resolution of collection action problems (Coleman 1990; Putnam 1993). Although normally conceived as a property of communities, the reciprocal relationship between community involvement and trust in others is a demonstration of social capital in individual behavior and attitudes. Variation in social capital can be explained by citizens' psychological involvement with their communities, cognitive abilities, economic resources, and general life satisfaction. This variation affects citizens' confidence in national institutions, beyond specific controls for measures of actual performance. We analyze the pooled General Social Surveys from 1972 to 1994 in a latent variables framework incorporating aggregate contextual data. Civic engagement and interpersonal trust are in a tight reciprocal relationship, where the connection is stronger from participation to interpersonal trust, rather than the reverse.
How does racial prejudice affect White turnout in elections with Black candidates? Previous research, which largely focuses on the relationship between prejudice and vote choice, rarely examines the relationship between prejudice and turnout, leading to an incomplete picture of the impact of prejudice on the fate of Black candidates. In this project, we examine a key condition under which partisanship and partisan strength moderate the effect of prejudice on electoral behavior. Specifically, we argue that when a prejudiced strong partisan shares the partisanship of a Black candidate, she is likely to experience a decision conflict—prejudice and partisanship point in opposing directions—increasing the likelihood that she stays home on Election Day. We test this argument through observational analyses of the 2008 presidential election. Our findings illuminate an additional barrier to Black electoral representation: racial prejudice undermines Black candidates’ efforts to mobilize strong partisans.
Both blacks and women are under-represented in American elected offices. At the local and state legislative levels, however, the under-representation of blacks is almost entirely due to the under-representation of black women. Black men have achieved or exceed parity between their population proportions and their proportions among elected officials; therefore, the under-representation of blacks and women are one and the same. Women are more likely to be elected in multi-member districts than in single-member district systems. Black women, in particular, are more likely to come from multi-member district systems whether in overwhelmingly white or black majority constituencies. Redistricting to multi-member districts with black majority and overwhelmingly white constitencies, then, could aid in the election of more black women without hurting black representation overall.
The ongoing underrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in most levels of office continues to warrant our attention. However, scholars have only focused on what factors contribute to the electoral success of minorities, without attention to a vital precursor-the supply of minority candidates. Using data from the Local Elections in America Project, this study provides one of the first glimpses into the supply side of minority representation, detailing how demographic, electoral, and political factors affect the likelihood a black candidate is on the ballot, and the subsequent impact on the likelihood of a black candidate winning.
Why are politicians more likely to advance the interests of those of their race? I present a field experiment demonstrating that black politicians are more intrinsically motivated to advance blacks’ interests than are their counterparts. Guided by elite interviews, I emailed 6,928 U.S. state legislators from a putatively black alias asking for help signing up for state unemployment benefits. Crucially, I varied the legislators’ political incentive to respond by randomizing whether the sender purported to live within or far from each legislator's district. While nonblack legislators were markedly less likely to respond when their political incentives to do so were diminished, black legislators typically continued to respond even when doing so promised little political reward. Black legislators thus appear substantially more intrinsically motivated to advance blacks’ interests. As political decision making is often difficult for voters to observe, intrinsically motivated descriptive representatives play a crucial role in advancing minorities’ political interests.
Abstract We use state legislator ideology estimates (standardized W‐nominate values) to examine whether Latino and African American legislator ideological differences can be explained away by traditional constituency characteristics like partisanship and demographics. We find instead that both Black and Latino legislators are unique “types.” Our evidence supports the theoretical presumption that there is a minority dimension to legislative voting and that it is uniquely personified by minority officeholders. White, Black, Latino, Democrat, and Republican representatives are all examined for responsiveness to different partisan and racial/ethnic populations. The dataset includes all 50 state legislatures from the 1999–2000 legislative sessions, including information from the U.S. Census, NALEO, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Gerald Wright's Representation in the American Legislature Project, and CQ Press's Almanac of State Legislative Elections.
Nearly every aggregate study of minority legislative representation has observed outcomes of elections (officeholders), rather than the supply of minority candidates. Because of this, scholars have left a large amount of important data, the election losers, out of their models of minority representation. The evidence presented in this article demonstrates that voters in the United States cannot choose minority officeholders because there are rarely minority candidates on the ballot. I use state legislative candidate data from Carsey et al. () and Klarner et al. () to test models of Latino representation that correct for first-stage selection bias. Once candidate self-selection is taken into account, the probability of electing a Latino increases enormously. I then use data from 2010 to make out-of-sample predictions, which clearly favor the conditional model. Thus, our current understanding of Latino representation is significantly biased by ignoring the first stage of an election, a candidate's decision to run.
The central domestic issue in the United States over the long history of this nation has been the place of the people of color in American society. One aspect of this debate is how African-Americans are represented in Congress. Kenny J. Whitby examines congressional responsiveness to black interests by focusing on the representational link between African-American constituents and the policymaking behavior of members of the United States House of Representatives. The book uses the topics of voting rights, civil rights, and race- based redistricting to examine how members of Congress respond to the interests of black voters. Whitby's analysis weighs the relative effect of district characteristics such as partisanship, regional location, degree of urbanization and the size of the black constituency on the voting behavior of House members over time. Whitby explores how black interests are represented in formal, descriptive, symbolic, and substantive terms. He shows the political tradeoffs involved in redistricting to increase the number of African-Americans in Congress. The book is the most comprehensive analysis of black politics in the congressional context ever published. It will appeal to political scientists, sociologists, historians, and psychologists concerned with minority politics, legislative politics, and the psychological, political, and sociological effects of increasing minority membership in Congress on the perception of government held by African Americans.
In this research I examine the electoral coalitions of minority candidates elected citywide. The focus is on the election of a Hispanic as mayor and a black as city auditor of Denver. Although the coalitions that elected the two minority candidates are similar in many respects, there are some notable differences. Perhaps most interesting are the levels of black support for the Hispanic candidate as compared to the Hispanic support for the black candidate. And the level of nonminority support for the black auditor candidate is somewhat higher than that for the Hispanic mayoral candidate. These findings are integrally important but there are also broader implications.
The idea of social capital has had a powerful impact on the study of politics, policy, and social science at large. Much of what we know about the causes and effects of social capital, however, is limited by the nature of data used regularly by scholars working in this area. Current data sets allow researchers to study changes in social capital over time at the national level and static differences in the distribution of social capital across the states. The inability of scholars to know how social capital varies over time and across space limits the kinds of questions that can be asked. In this article, we use sample data of more than 20,000 individuals conducted biannually in the continuous 48 states by the marketing research firm MediaMark Research, Inc. to create a unique measure of social capital that varies across time and space. These data are available at the state level from 1986 through 2004.
Robert Putnam’s work suggests social capital is compatible with social equality, while Rodney Hero argues the two are inversely related. Hero and Putnam, however, are limited in their arguments because they have only cross-sectional data and their theoretical arguments imply dynamic relationships over time. We create a state-level social capital index and a measure of racial diversity that varies over time and across states. We use multivariate models to determine whether social capital or racial diversity better predicts levels of policy equity. We find that social capital detrimentally affects policy equity and racial diversity is positively associated with policy equity.