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Racial Identity and Voting: Conceptualizing White Identity in Spatial Terms Nicholas Weller and Jane Junn

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Racial Identity and Voting: Conceptualizing White Identity in Spatial Terms Nicholas Weller and Jane Junn Reflections Racial Identity and Voting: Conceptualizing White Identity in Spatial Terms Nicholas Weller and Jane Junn Recent political events have prompted an examination of the analytical tools and conceptual frameworks used in political science to understand voting and candidate choice. Scholars in the behavioral tradition have highlighted the empirical relationship between racial resentment and anti-black affect among white voters during and after President Obama’s successful run for re- election. The theoretical role of white identity within the context of the privileged status of this racial group has seen much less scholarly attention by political scientists, particularly with respect to racial group identification and its implications. To address this lacuna, we argue that racial identification among white voters can be conceived of as a utility-based trait relevant to candidate choice, combining a social-psychological approach of group membership together with a rational choice perspective. This conceptualization of the political utility of white racial identity provides wider conceptual latitude for empirical tests and explanations of voting in U.S. elections. ince the advent of the large-N survey in the party identification were developed before the enactment S mid-twentieth century, the study of voting in the of federal voting rights legislation, prior to party realign- United States among political scientists has pro- ment among voters in the American South, and during gressed along two conceptually distinct tracks. The social- a time in which nine out of ten Americans were white. At psychological approach, exemplified by The American the inception of the American National Election Study Voter,1 forwarded a “funnel of causality” model based on (ANES), and despite the explicit and strong expression of social group identification. Based on some of the earliest racial antipathy against Blacks among some whites, group survey data from elections in the 1940s and 1950s, this identification was conceived as tied to partisan identity social-psychological approach originated in response to alone. Identification with political party was hypothesized fi ndings that the mass public lacked consistent ideological to be of primary significance and decades of subsequent 2 belief systems. Explanations of voting as a function of research confirmed the importance of this group identity to voting in the United States. By contrast, rational choice theories of voting empha- size the relevance of utility-based action. These Nicholas Weller is Assistant Professor of Political Science at approaches to voting behavior are exemplified by “spatial the University of California, Riverside ([email protected]). models” of voting that place voters and their choices Jane Junn is Professor of Political Science at the University of (candidates or policies) into the same issue space, with the Southern California ([email protected]). former casting ballots to maximize their utility by choosing They thank their colleagues Jeb Barnes, Justin Berry, the candidate or party that is closest to their own policy Ashleigh Campi, Niambi Carter, Jonathan Cervas, Lorrie preferences.3 In this basic framework, parties and candi- Frasure-Yokley, Stacey Greene, Bernard Grofman, Morris dates are assumed to have little constraint in their ability to Levy, James Lo, Natalie Masuoka, Vlad Medenica, and move ideological positions strategically. Spatial models Christian Phillips for helpful discussion and suggestions. have been applied to explain the behavior of elites and They are grateful to colleagues at the universities where they elected officials and ordinary voters in the mass public. presented their work: University of Washington; University The enduring legacy of these two important perspec- of Oregon, University of California, Los Angeles; University tives is visible in contemporary scholarly and popular of Massachusetts, Amherst; University of Illinois, Chicago, analyses of electoral politics and voter choice. Explan- and University of California, Riverside. Finally, thanks to ations for voters’ behavior find support in both social- the external reviewers and the editors and staff at Perspec- psychological and utility-based approaches.4 Political party tives for outstanding guidance and commentary. identification remains among the most important doi:10.1017/S1537592717004285 436 Perspectives on Politics © American Political Science Association 2018 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UC Riverside Libraries, on 07 Aug 2018 at 22:32:12, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592717004285 correlates of candidate choice, echoing the group attach- immigrants, entered the voting population in record ment perspective. Democrats vote for Democratic Party numbers thereby transforming the ethnic and racial candidates and Republicans vote for Republican Party composition of the polity from the black-white binary candidates at similar and high rates of party loyalty. Voters of the 1960s to a multiracial electorate where more than also continue to choose candidates based on issues and one-quarter of eligible voters today are categorized racially policy positions as is consistent with a utility maximization as something other than white. These dramatic changes approach. in the racial composition of the American electorate and Over the last five decades the U.S. population and the growing allegiance of voters of color with the political parties have undergone substantial change. Democratic Party are creating a context for white voters A variety of issues including immigration, health care, distinct from the previous and longstanding circumstance trade, LGBT rights, affirmative action, income redistri- of white voter dominance in the 1950s and 1960s where bution, terrorism, reproductive freedom, and environ- whites were more evenly split across the two major mental protection create crosscutting cleavages that political parties. complicate models of voting based solely on party It is precisely because of changes in the U.S. political identification or one-dimensional ideology. The inven- environment that scholars need to update their tion of the terms “Reagan Democrat” and “working class approaches to analyzing voting behavior by considering Republicans” has driven a cottage industry of analysts perspectives ordinarily not used together, and by learning explaining “what’s the matter with Kansas.”5 Motivating from allied disciplines including sociology, economics, this line of research is the purported irrationality of lower psychology, law, gender and ethnic studies, and history. middle-class white Americans—the so-called “white work- In this article, we draw from these fields and articulate ing class”—who support the Republican Party even when how utility associated with white racial identity can affect its policy positions seem inimical to the material interests voting and candidate choice. In so doing we illustrate of this group of voters. Indeed, the victory of Republican a two-dimensional spatial model of racial identity among Party candidate and political newcomer Donald Trump in white voters that combines a social-psychological ap- the 2016 U.S. presidential election has amplified the proach of group membership with a rational choice disquietude and puzzlement regarding the motives of perspective that focuses on the utility received from racial white voters in the United States, a demographic group identity. To understand how racial identity can shape representing the candidate’s base of supporters. preferences among some whites, its utility must be Both the social-psychological approach of group iden- understood within the context of the privileges associated tification with a political party and the rational choice with being white in American society.8 model built on utility maximization contain important We argue that racial identity among whites can be insights about political behavior, but these explanations thought of as a utility-based trait relevant to decision- alone are limited in their ability to account for the making in U.S. elections. Rather than treating voters as dynamism in voting behavior observed in contemporary ignorant or mistaken if they support Republican Party U.S. politics. The American polity has undergone sub- candidates despite material interests that might align stantial change both in terms of racial diversity, expansion them with the Democratic Party, for example, we argue of the franchise, and the composition of the two major that the expression of white identity can be conceptual- political parties since these theories were first proposed. ized as a utility-based behavior and should therefore be In the mid-1960s, landmark federal legislation governing modeled as such. This perspective provides wider immigration and suffrage set in motion changes in the conceptual latitude for behavioral explanations, and racial and ethnic composition of the U.S. voting welcomes the identification of model specifications that population. African American voters moved from the treat racial identity among whites as independent varia- party of Lincoln and consolidated behind the modern bles rather than as part of the error term. Before Democratic Party, and once heavily disenfranchised black proceeding to the argument and illustration, we state voters in the South now post turnout numbers as high three important priors about racial categorization, the and often higher
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