Politics at the intersections : race, ethnicity, and gender in political identity and behavior
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- How do multiple identities jointly shape political attitudes and behavior? In this dissertation project, I investigate three separate questions about the simultaneous effects of race/ethnicity and gender on American political behavior. Together, these three papers demonstrate the contingent effects of multiple identities. Treating identities as singular and independent obscures the way that multiple identity categories affect political experiences. In Chapter 2, I use two novel survey experiments to test how negative stereotypes about race and gender subgroups can transform into positive perceptions of candidate competence under racialized conditions. In the first experiment, I test the theory of stereotype transformation by priming White respondents with information about rising local crime rates prior to offering a choice between two candidates in an intra-party mayoral race. Consistent with theoretical expectations, highly qualified Black male challengers are advantaged relative to other candidates when respondents are informed that crime is on the rise. The second survey experiment supports the theoretical basis for this counterintuitive result: associations of African-American men with violence lead to stereotypic assumptions that Black male candidates are best equipped to handle crime policy. The findings suggest an exciting new understanding of the relationship between group stereotypes and political behavior. In Chapter 3, I leverage random assignment in a national survey of Latino Americans to test the effects of race/ethnicity, out-group ties, and racial threat on the boundaries of Black-Latino electoral cooperation. I develop and test a theory that the threat of anti-Latino discrimination broadens Latinos' conception of the in-group beyond ethnicity to include other racial minorities. In turn, this increases Latino support for Black candidates who challenge White incumbents. I find that this effect is contingent on Black candidates signaling their ties to Latino interest groups, and that racial resentment and panethnicity moderate treatment effects. In Chapter 4, I use observational mass attitude data and novel survey experimentation to investigate the gender gap in African-Americans' racial linked fate. I argue that gender discrimination limits African-American women's belief that their own fate is tied to the fate of their racial group. Using both the oversample data from the 2012 ANES and new experimental evidence from a national survey of African-Americans, I find that perceptions of gender marginalization reduce racial linked fate among African-American women. However, when racial and gender disadvantage are primed simultaneously, linked fate among African-American women does not diminish. The findings indicate the need to analyze diversity within the Black population, and suggest a need to reexamine the theoretical foundations of linked fate theory.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2015 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Israel-Trummel, Mackenzie |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Political Science. |
| Primary advisor | Segura, Gary M, 1963- |
| Thesis advisor | Segura, Gary M, 1963- |
| Thesis advisor | Iyengar, Shanto |
| Thesis advisor | Sniderman, Paul M |
| Advisor | Iyengar, Shanto |
| Advisor | Sniderman, Paul M |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Mackenzie Israel-Trummel. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Political Science. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2015. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2015 by Mackenzie Leigh Israel-Trummel
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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