A major barrier to black political representation is the supply of black candidates to run for office

Great strides have been made in black representation in U.S. politics since the 1960s, but there is still a way to go before equality in this area is reached. In new research, Paru Shah takes a look at the reasons behind black underrepresentation in elected offices. While many studies have tended to look at blacks’ chances of electoral success, she also focuses on factors which influence whether or not black candidates run in the first place. She argues that whether or not blacks run in elections can depend on prior black candidacy for the office, whether or not the seat is open, and whether or not the office is municipal, and finds that when blacks do run, they have a greater than 50 percent chance of winning

Foreclosure\u27s Fallout: Economic Adversity and Voter Turnout

With the foreclosure crisis continuing to impact individuals and communities across the country, understanding the extent of its effect on political life is tantamount. In this paper, we ask how political behaviors are influenced by the economic adversities created by this crisis: loss of home, loss of resources, and perhaps loss of political efficacy. Previous research on economic adversity focuses almost exclusively on unemployment. Here we explore the demobilizing effects of foreclosures at the individual level, community levels, and the intersection of individuals nested in communities. With a unique dataset that matches voter file data to a database on individual foreclosures, we show that the foreclosure crisis was associated with a decline in voter turnout, both individually and for those in neighborhoods hit harder by the foreclosure crisis. We find that homeowners facing the loss of their homes were less likely to go to the polls. Consistent with previous research, we also show that turnout was suppressed in neighborhoods with higher rates of foreclosure. Taken together, our results suggest that political elites were less likely to hear from constituents most directly impacted by the foreclosure crisis

The voting rights act has been instrumental in ensuring gains in black representation in cities over the last three decades

This June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a decision that could have important impacts on the rights and representation of minorities. Using new research, Paru Shah, Melissa Marschall and Anirudh Ruhil find that the number of cities covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act with at least one African-American city council member increased by 82 percent between 1981 and 2001. They also argue that coverage by the Voting Rights Act seems to amplify the effects of minority voting strength, council size, and electoral structures in cities

Call and Response? Neighborhood Inequality and Political Voice

Over the past 20 years, many cities across the United States have adopted a range of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to make it easier for residents to get informed, communicate their preferences, and hold public officials accountable. In this paper, we ask two questions. First, are service requests and responses illustrative of existing neighborhood differences across a city? Second, do patterns of request and response differ by the type of complaint made to the city? We leverage data from the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to examine neighborhood variation in service requests and subsequent response times to those complaints. Our analysis makes a number of important contributions to the current literature on ICTs, including providing a more nuanced understanding of how types of requests vary by neighborhood context, and a more comprehensive picture of how requests and response times reveal social and racial disparities across the city

Motivating Participation: The Symbolic Effects of Latino Representation on Parent School Involvement

Decades of research suggest that parental involvement is vital for positive student academic achievement and thus one often-proposed solution to alleviate the poor educational outcomes of minority students is to increase their parents' participation in school. Building on a psychological motivation argument, I investigate how the symbolic effects of minority representation impact minority parent involvement. Copyright (c) 2009 by the Southwestern Social Science Association.

Legacies of Segregation and Disenfranchisement: The Road from \u3cem\u3ePlessy\u3c/em\u3e to \u3cem\u3eFrank\u3c/em\u3e and Voter ID Laws in the United States

This article explores how voter ID laws further the dismantling of voting rights and the promises of full political engagement for racial minorities, especially African Americans. The authors highlight the racial politics that inform the emergence of these laws, and the racial intent and impact these laws have in diluting minority voting access and therefore political power. It begins with a short historical overview of voting rights since the eradication of slavery, then offers background on the current legal climate in which voter ID laws are situated. The essay concludes with an analysis of Frank v. Walker as a case study exposing the intent and impact of voter ID laws

Replication Data for: One Run Leads to Another: Minority Incumbents and the Emergence of Lower Ticket Minority Candidates

This repository includes data and code needed to recreate Figure 1 in the main text and all tables and figures in the Online Appendix of "One Run Leads to Another: Minority Incumbents and the Emergence of Lower Ticket Minority Candidates.

Replication Data for: Black Candidates and Black Turnout: A Study of Viability in Louisiana Mayoral Elections

Data and code to replicate all results in the published paper

Are We There Yet? The Voting Rights Act and Black Representation on City Councils, 1981ﾖ2006

Sound evidence demonstrating what, if any, role the Voting Rights Act (VRA) has played in the impressive gains minorities have made in local office holding over the last 45 years remains in short supply. The present study is motivated by three crucial questions. First, where are gains in minority office holding most apparent, and how are these gains related to the VRA? Second, while studies have noted gains in black representation over time, the question of how the VRA in particular has contributed to these gains remains unclear. Finally, given claims made by opponents of the 2006 legislation reauthorizing the VRA that it was no longer needed, the question of when the VRA has been most efficacious, and if it continues to be relevant, is also salient. Our findings suggest that the VRA has been and continues to be an important tool in ensuring black descriptive representation, particularly in places with a legacy of racial intimidation and discrimination