Distorted Communication, Unequal Representation: Constituents Communicate Less to Representatives Not of Their Race

Abstract

Communications from constituents strongly shape the representation politicians provide. However, if politicians hear less from some constituents than others, this unequal communication may lead to unequal representation. In this article, I present a field experiment demonstrating that constituents are less likely to communicate to representatives not of their race. The experiment exploited electoral rules in Maryland, where several multimember districts have both black and white representatives. I provided 8,829 residents of such districts an opportunity to communicate to one of their actual representatives, whose race I randomized. Both blacks and whites were markedly less likely to communicate to their representatives not of their race. These results imply that politicians receive racially distorted communication, hearing disproportionately infrequently from constituents unlike them. The fact that most racial minorities have white representatives may thus help explain both minorities' less frequent communication to their representatives and the diminished substantive representation minorities typically receive.

Descriptive and Substantive Representation in Congress: Evidence from 80,000 Congressional Inquiries

“…That is, they may prioritize serving electorally relevant constituents or exhibit personal bias (Butler and Broockman 2011). Moreover, descriptive characteristics may influence the likelihood constituents choose to contact legislators at all (Broockman 2014). Importantly, each of these potential mechanisms suggests the same relationship: that descriptive representation ought to translate into substantive representation.…”

“…Of course, there are other factors influencing these interventions. Most prominently, citizens of protected communities may be more likely to contact legislators with shared experiences, thus increasing the volume of "fire alarms" for those legislators (Broockman 2014;McCubbins and Schwartz 1984). Existing work, therefore, suggests that both mechanisms may contribute to observed differences.…”

“…Notably, the analyses above did not distinguish between two alternative (though not mutually exclusive) causal pathways: Legislators are more likely to represent groups with whom they share identities because shared back-grounds motivate members to be more diligent advocates or because constituents from those groups are more likely to contact them. However, since recent work on representation has emphasized delineating between these potential mechanisms (Broockman 2013(Broockman , 2014Butler 2014;Butler and Broockman 2011), we investigate differences in types of legislator interventions. From our sample of legislator interventions, we removed categories principally concerned with "casework" from individual constituents: complaints about employment discrimination, denials of government benefits, and grant support letters.…”

It’s All about Race: How State Legislators Respond to Immigrant Constituents

“…In light of the robust literature demonstrating bias in legislator response toward blacks (Butler, 2014;Broockman, 2014), it would be remarkable indeed to discover that such bias were no longer present. One can certainly conceive of factors that may have changed the way legislators respond to black constituents, including the ongoing "Black Lives Matter" movement, and even the possibility that legislators have internalized the results of previous audit studies.…”

Stylized Facts and Experimentation

“…Until recently however, the causal effect of race on discrimination was largely unknown. In the last decade, researchers have tested this potential causal relationship with a staggering number of experiments across a dizzying range of contexts (Butler and Crabtree, 2015;Butler, 2014;Bertrand and Mullainathan, 2004;Broockman, 2014;Grose, 2011;Gaddis and Ghoshal, 2015;Pager and Western, 2012;Pager, Western and Bonikowski, 2009;Yinger, 1995). The results from each experiment, in isolation, provide additional empirical support for the stylized fact that originally motivated them -racial minorities in American are discriminated against.…”