Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T04:54:48.807Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Black Opinion on the Legitimacy of Racial Redistricting and Minority-Majority Districts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2003

KATHERINE TATE
KATHERINE TATE
Affiliation:
Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science, 3151 Social Science Plaza, University of California, Irvine, Irvine CA 92697-5100 ([email protected]).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Minority–majority districts are highly controversial. To assess the degree to which black positions on this controversial matter were well-thought-out and fixed, questions based on Sniderman and Piazza's (1993) “counterargument” technique were included in the 1996 National Black Election Study. Black opinion instability on the issue of race and redistricting reveals the complexity of mass attitudes and the reasoning process and reflects the manner in which a set of clashing interests and core values is balanced and prioritized. Although a large majority of blacks voiced initial opposition to creating districts where blacks and Hispanics are the voting majority, most blacks changed their position in response to the counterargument. This asymmetry suggests that blacks more strongly favor the goal of increasing minority representation than the principle of color blindness in Congressional redistricting. Education and racial identification are key predictors of black opinion on racial redistricting. Less educated blacks and weak racial identifiers were less supportive of minority-majority districts and racial redistricting practices. These results support the revisionist perspective among public opinion scholars that rational, thinking individuals can hold wavering opinions upon questioning because they generally encapsulate a set of contradictory values and interests.The research reported in this paper was funded by grants to the author from the National Science Foundation POWRE Program (SBR-9743928) and from the National Science Foundation's Political Science Division (SBR-9796212). An earlier version was presented at the 2000 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott Wardman Park, August 31–September 3, 2000. The author thanks Luis Fraga at Stanford University for his comments as the panel's discussant, as well as the APSR Editor, Lee Sigelman, and reviewers for their contributions to this paper. I also thank Bruce Boyd at Computing Services at UCI and Gary King at Harvard University for their technical assistance.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 97 , Issue 1 , February 2003 , pp. 45 - 56
Copyright
© 2003 by the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alt James E. 1994 The Impact of the Voting Rights Act on Black and White Voter Registration in the South Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965–1990 Davidson C. Grofman B. Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press, 351–377
Amy Douglas J. 1993 Real Choices, New Voices: The Case for Proportional Representation in the United States New York Columbia University Press
Barker Lucius J Jones Mack H. Katherine Tate 1998 African Americans and the American Political System 4th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice–Hall
Bradburn Norman M. 1983 Response Effects Handbook of Survey Research Peter H. Rossi James D. Wright Andy B. Anderson New York Academic Press, 289–328
Cameron Charles David Epstein Sharyn O'Halloran 1996 Do Minority-Majority Districts Maximize Substantive Black Representation in Congress? American Political Science Review 90 December 794 812Google Scholar
Canon David T. 1999 Race, Redistricting, and Representation: The Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts Chicago University of Chicago Press
Converse Jean M. Howard Schuman 1974 Conversations at Random: Survey Research as Interviewers See It New York John Wiley & Sons
Converse Philip E. 1964 The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics Ideology and Discontent Apter D.E. New York.
Davidson Chandler Bernard Grofman 1994 Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965–1990 Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press
Dawson Michael C. 1994 Behind the Mule Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press
Dawson Michael C. 2001 Black Visions, The Roots of Contemporary African-American Political Ideologies Chicago University of Chicago Press
Grofman Chandler Davidson 1992 Controversies in Minority Voting: The Voting Rights Act in Perspective Washington, DC Brookings Institution
Grofman Bernard Lisa Handley Richard Niemi 1992 Minority Representation and the Quest for Voting Equality New York Cambridge University Press
Guinier Lani 1994 The Tyranny of the Majority: Fundamental Fairness in Representative Democracy New York Free Press
Gurin Patricia Shirley Hatchett Jackson James S. 1989 Hope and Independence: Blacks' Response to Electoral and Party Politics New York Russell Sage Foundation
Kinder Donald R. 1983 Diversity and Complexity in American Public Opinion Political Science: The State of the Discipline Ada W. Finifter Washington, D.C. American Political Science Association
Kousser J. Morgan. 1999 Colorblind Injustice: Minority Voting Rights and the Undoing of the Second Reconstruction Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press
Krosnick Jon A. 1989 Attitude Importance and Attitude Accessibility Personality and Social Psychology 55 196 210Google Scholar
Krosnick Jon A. 1991 The Stability of Political Preferences: Comparisons of Symbolic and Nonsymbolic Attitudes. American Journal of Political Science 35 3 547-76Google Scholar
Kuklinski James H. Parent T. W. 1981 Race and Big Government: Contamination in Measuring Racial Attitudes Political Methodology 7 131-59Google Scholar
Lacy Dean 2001 Nonseparable Preferences in Survey Responses American Journal of Political Science 45 2 239-58Google Scholar
Lee Taeku 2002 Mobilizing Public Opinion, Black Insurgency and Racial Attitudes in the Civil Rights Era Chicago, University of Chicago Press
Lublin David 1997 The Paradox of Representation: Racial Gerrymandering and Minority Interests in Congress Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press
Mansbridge Jane Katherine Tate 1992 Race Trumps Gender: Black Opinion on the Thomas Nomination PS: Political Science and Politics 25 3 488-92Google Scholar
Margolis Michael K Hague 1981 Applied Tolerance or Fear of Government? An Alternative Interpretation of Jackman's Finding American Journal of Political Science 25 241-55Google Scholar
Ostrom Thomas M. 1987 Bipolar Survey Items: An Information Processing Perspective Social Information Processing and Survey Methodology Hans-J. Hippler Norbert Schwarz Seymour Sudman New York Springer-Verlag 71–85
Page Benjamin I. Shapiro Robert Y. 1992 The Rational Public Chicago University of Chicago Press
Parker Frank R. 1990 Black Votes Count Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press
Reeves Keith 1997 Voting Hopes or Fears? White Voters, Black Candidates, & Racial Politics in America New York Oxford University Press
Schuman Howard Stanley Press 1981 Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys: Experiments on Question Form, Wording, and Context Beverly Hills, CA Sage
Schuman Howard Charlotte Steeh Lawrence Bobo Maria Krysan 1998 Racial Attitudes in America: Trends and Interpretations. Rev Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press
Sniderman Paul M. 2000 Taking Sides: A Fixed Choice Theory Elements of Reason Lupia A. McCubbins M. D. Popkin S. L. New York Cambridge University Press 67–84
Sniderman Paul M. Thomas Piazza 1993 The Scar of Race Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press
Sniderman Paul M Thomas Piazza Tetlock Philip E. Ann Kendrick 1991 The New Racism American Journal of Political Science 35 423-47Google Scholar
Sudman Seymour Bradburn Norman M. 1974 Response Effects in Surveys Chicago Aldine
Swain Carol M. 1993 Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press
Tate Katherine 1994 From Protest to Politics: The New Black Voters in American Elections, Enlarged Ed Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press and Russell Sage Foundation
Tate Katherine 1998 National Black Election Study, 1996 [computer file]. ICPSR version. Columbus: Ohio State University [producer], 1997. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor]
Tate Katherine 2001 The Political Representation of Blacks in Congress: Does Race Matter? Legislative Studies Quarterly 26 November 488-92Google Scholar
Tate Katherine 2003 Black Faces in the Mirror, African Americans and Their Representatives in the U.S. Congress Princeton, NJ Princeton University Press
Tate Hampton Gloria J. 2000 Changing Hearts and Minds: Racial Attitudes and Civil Rights Legacies of the 1964 Civil Rights Act Bernard Grofman Charlottesville, Va University of Virginia Press 167–89
Thernstrom Abigail 1987 Whose Votes Count? Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press
Tomz Michael Jason Wittenberg Gary King 1999 CLARIFY: Software for Interpreting and Presenting Statistical Results. Version 1.2.1. June 1. http//gking.harvard.edu/
Whitby Kenny J. 1998 The Color of Representation: Congressional Behavior and Black Constituents Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press
Zaller John 1992 The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion New York Cambridge University Press
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.