Revisiting Black Incorporation and Local Political Participation

Spence, Lester K.; McClerking, Harwood K.; Brown, Robert A.

doi:10.1177/1078087409341546

Cited by 18 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The revised specifications test the effect of the interaction of black mayoral tenure (measured in intervals of years in Model 1 and measured as ordinal units of years in Model 2) and region (1 = South, 0 = Non‐South) on the number of local acts of electoral engagement by urban blacks. The results imply that longer tenures of black mayors may not necessarily be associated with declining local political electoral participation by urban blacks generally, which is surprising given earlier findings by Spence and his colleagues (). Rather, the evidence suggests that long black mayoral tenure primarily reduces the participation of urban blacks in the South.…”

Section: Votes: An Omen Of “Ethnoracial Transition” In City Hall?contrasting

confidence: 56%

“…More important, it demonstrates that declining black voter turnout in municipal elections weakens the electoral capacity of strong BPE in Atlanta, evidenced by the results of the 2009 general and runoff elections. Undetermined is whether the decline in voter turnout in Atlanta is symbolic of a more general observation across the United States-the inverse relationship between the length of municipal BPE (as measured by the uninterrupted presence of black mayors over time) and local black political participation (Spence, McClerking, & Brown, 2009). Table 2 reports the results of two multivariate models of the correlates of local black electoral participation in a set of cities and a set of majority-black cities.…”

Section: Black Electoral Disruptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The data, drawn mainly from the 1993–1994 National Black Politics Study, combine individual‐level political behavior measures with contextual variables of BPE (e.g., presence of black mayor and the length of black mayoral control). The local political participation index includes responses to questions about “helping in a voter drive, donating to political campaigns, attending a political fundraiser, handing out campaign material, and signing a petition for a candidate” (Spence, McClerking & Brown, , p. 278). Additionally, the inclusion of the interaction terms makes our models and results dissimilar to those reported by Spence, McClerking, and Brown ().…”

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confidence: 99%

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Weakening Strong Black Political Empowerment: Implications from Atlanta’s 2009 Mayoral Election

Owens

Brown

2014

Journal of Urban Affairs

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Atlanta is perhaps the city with the greatest degree of black political empowerment (BPE) in the United States. Yet in 2009 a relatively weak white mayoral candidate nearly won the general and runoff elections over a field of stronger black candidates. Why? Treating Atlanta as a prototypical case, the article examines factors that undermine the capacity of blacks to retain control of mayoralties in strong BPE cities, with an emphasis on disruptions to black electorates, discontent among black citizens, and reinvestment in electoral politics by whites at the local level.The city that became a post-civil rights movement emblem of the political power held by AfricanAmericans could have a white mayor for the first time in a generation-a possibility that has some in the black community scrambling to hold on to City Hall. (Haines, 2009) The struggle for and substance of black political empowerment (BPE) is a key concern of the urban politics literature. Studies examine the necessary and sufficient conditions for black political incor-). 1 What of the electoral challenges and lessons of retaining blacks in city hall as mayors over time?Other than the cases where black control of city hall was hard-fought but fleeting in non-majority black cities (e.g., Charlotte, Chicago, New York City, Denver, Dallas, and Seattle), scholars know little about the factors for losing mayoral control by blacks. Cases where blacks in BPE cities have lost mayoral control to whites (or other groups such as Latinos), or faced strong competition from non-blacks in biracial elections, are uncommon. In a few cities where BPE has been strong (e.g., Detroit, Memphis, Newark, and Washington D.C.), black mayoral regimes are uninterrupted for two decades or more. New Orleans is the exception because of its dramatic demographic transformations from hurricane recovery and public housing demolition. Nearly uninterrupted black mayoral regimes of a decade or so, with white mayors being electoral stand-ins between black mayoral administrations, have occurred in other strong BPE cities (e.g., Baltimore and Philadelphia).Demographic projections, however, forecast that Detroit, Portsmouth (VA), Newark, Washington, D.C., Richmond (VA), Inglewood (CA), Philadelphia, and other strong BPE cities with black

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Section: Votes: An Omen Of “Ethnoracial Transition” In City Hall?contrasting

confidence: 56%

Section: Black Electoral Disruptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Weakening Strong Black Political Empowerment: Implications from Atlanta’s 2009 Mayoral Election

Owens

Brown

2014

Journal of Urban Affairs

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“…2011Lawless 2004;Overby et al 2005;Tate 2002). There is even some evidence that incorporation can sometimes decrease participation (Spence, McClerking, and Brown 2009).…”

Section: Why Might Individuals Communicate More To Representatives Ofmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Broockman

2013

American J Political Sci

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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.

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“…Others find that the presence of black judges did not lead to blacks viewing the judicial system as more fair (Overby et al 2005). Finally, a recent paper shows that black political incorporation, measured as having a black mayor, decreases participation in local politics (Spence, McClerking and Brown 2009). A common argument in these papers is that the novelty of political empowerment eventually wears off, weakening its ability to positively affect black political attitudes and participation.…”

Section: Political Empowermentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpacking descriptive representation

Clark¹

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This research aims to understand how black descriptive representation comes about and why black descriptive representation matters, at the state level. What distinguishes this research from previous works is its simultaneous analysis of different forms of descriptive representation at the subnational level, rather than in Congress or at the local level. This research argues black descriptive representation can take four different forms: dyadic, collective, parity and caucus. An important and understudied mechanism for black descriptive representation is the formation of state legislative black caucuses and their potential to influence policy and behavior. Subnational descriptive representation need not have negative tradeoffs for black substantive policy representation, as has been found with minority representation in Congress (Lublin 1997). Black representation is akin to a diamond, and looking at it from only one perspective is similar to judging a diamond only by its color, instead of also judging it by its hardness and fluorescence, as well as its clarity, shape, and size. In short, this work recognizes the multifaceted nature of black representation in the states.

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Revisiting Black Incorporation and Local Political Participation

Cited by 18 publications

References 29 publications

Weakening Strong Black Political Empowerment: Implications from Atlanta’s 2009 Mayoral Election

Weakening Strong Black Political Empowerment: Implications from Atlanta’s 2009 Mayoral Election

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

Unpacking descriptive representation

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