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Racial Authoritarianism in U.S. Democracy

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Racial Authoritarianism in U.S. Democracy Downloaded from Protests against mistreatment of Black people by police http://science.sciencemag.org/ highlight that many U.S. citizens effectively live outside the provisions of the Constitution. POLICY FORUM Racial authoritarianism in U.S. democracy One segment of the population experiences different rules and differential citizenship. on September 23, 2020 By Vesla M. Weaver1 and Gwen Prowse2 otherwise functioning democracy. This mis- power operates on citizens within a democ- characterization is not limited only to intel- racy, scholars of U.S. politics largely overlook ecently, casual and savage violence lectual discourse but also affects the public state power to coerce, surveil, and enact vio- of police against peaceful protest- sphere. By obscuring evidence of racial au- lence often by police authorities and treat it ers and images of police in military thoritarianism, reforms will not land where as unimportant to theorizing our democracy. gear sweeping up residents into un- needed. Procedural reform is useful when we Starting from the assumption of a liberal marked vans has led journalists to are simply improving policing, not ridding tradition and examining deviations from question whether U.S. democracy democracy of authoritarian practices. a mostly pluralistic polity, they document Ris in peril. Many observers described these Racial authoritarian governance has evidence of democratic retreat only when recent actions as authoritarian. But racial deeply shaped our institutions, political ar- political competition is curtailed and trust in authoritarianism has been central to citizen- rangements, and state development, and governing institutions erodes, despite over- ship and governance of race-class subjugated virtually every racial justice movement over whelming evidence of racial authoritarian- communities throughout the 20th and early the past 100 years has tried to expose its ism. This view, stretching from the field’s de- 21st centuries. It describes state oppression operation, challenge it, and seek freedom fining scholars to the present day, is housed such that groups of residents live under ex- from it (1). Coterminous with democracy in within a polity that was increasingly turning tremely divergent experiences of government the United States, racially authoritarian pat- to, and expanding, its coercive instruments of and laws. Yet when police engage in excessive terns are reproduced and innovated after pe- surveillance, predation, violent intimidation, surveillance, incursions on civil liberties, and riods of democratic expansion in the United and confinement, concentrated on race-class arbitrary force as a matter of routine patrol, States. Since the 1960s, policing has been subjugated residents. many scholars of American politics are reluc- the primary administrative tool of racial au- The result is a substantive and substantial tant to consider it a violation of democracy thoritarianism: One segment of the popula- narrowing: By failing to consider the possi- and instead deem them aberrations in an tion effectively lives under a different set of bility of widespread, coherent, and racially rules and, as a result, experiences differential targeted authoritarian practices, the focus 1Department of Political Science, Department of Sociology, power and citizenship. in academic debates becomes improving as- Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA. 2Departments of Political Science and African American Studies, Yale Although many Black intellectuals and pects of democratic quality and the distribu- University, New Haven, CT, USA. Email: [email protected] citizens have understood how authoritarian tion and delivery of democratic goods—more NOBLE JR. MICHAEL PHOTO: 1176 4 SEPTEMBER 2020 • VOL 369 ISSUE 6508 sciencemag.org SCIENCE Published by AAAS DEMOCRACY IN THE BALANCE SPECIAL SECTION representation, more votes, more responsive ity when police executed Black people. tice; but why should we not also analyze it in policy—while rendering invisible the lack of When we look to narrative accounts and the literature on democratic transitions, sub- autonomy and freedom, and the vulnerabil- the undemocratic practices they reveal, we national or group-based authoritarianism, ity to state violence and illegal takings, that may be better equipped to anticipate criti- and political violence? characterizes the experience of U.S. democ- cal ruptures in political life. State practices If the field of political science sequestered racy for those experiencing its more authori- of policing, surveillance, and impunity that police repression from questions of democ- tarian aspects. We should augment our un- are quotidian for racially subjugated people, racy, historical Black thinkers did not. An derstanding, theories, and measurement to when popularized, become worrying signs of understanding of racial authoritarianism— encompass or reconcile the presence of such an authoritarian turn. although completely absent in mainstream authoritarian practices within U.S. democ- scholarship—animated historical Black racy. In addition to measuring democratic HIDING IN PLAIN VIEW theorizations that contested U.S. democ- performance through national indicators Despite racial authoritarianism’s glaring racy’s hard line boundary from authoritar- such as free and fair elections, we should also presence in experiential accounts of U.S. de- ian modes of governance. They saw police include local coercive practices concentrated mocracy, it has been hiding in plain view in violence and power as a central instrument on subgroups of the population. the field of political science. In a field respon- upholding the differentiated citizenship sible for constructing metrics on democratic key to the operation of democracy in the A TRENCHANT REBUTTAL stability and political behavior, our failure United States. For example, in 1966 James Once we look beyond democracy’s formal to theorize racial authoritarianism has had Baldwin wrote, “I have witnessed and en- structures, institutions, and rules to the consequences for how U.S. democracy is con- dured the brutality of the police many more lived experiences of political authority, we ceived by the public and policy-makers. times than once—but, of course, I can- Downloaded from see that they pose a sharp contrast, and a There are several reasons why racial au- not prove it. I cannot prove it because the trenchant rebuttal, to the conventional un- thoritarianism in the United States has, for Police Department investigates itself, quite derstandings of liberal democracy. For exam- so long, gone unnamed by our field. One as though it were answerable only to itself. ple, drawing on the largest database of narra- reason is because scholars tend to discount But it cannot be allowed to be answerable tive accounts of policing in U.S. cities after the knowledge derived from a bottom-up ap- only to itself. It must be made to answer to Baltimore uprising of 2015, we see that U.S. proach (actual citizen experience), which the community which pays it, and which it http://science.sciencemag.org/ residents have a sophisticated understanding may obscure our understanding of how gov- is legally sworn to protect, and if American of the actual operation of democracy and are ernment authority is actually experienced. Negroes are not a part of the American witnesses to its relationship to authoritar- Empirical research on democracy leans heav- community, then all of the American pro- ian practices (2). Stopped by police, subject ily on quantifiable indices (such as the Polity fessions are a fraud” (4). to violation of privacy and displays of force, Index) and nationally representative survey This brings us to the final reason, which routine seizure of resources, and unable to samples. These measures are useful tools for is that we have been working from founda- freely assemble because of police occupation comparative analysis and standardized snap- tions of a discipline that has segregated and of their neighborhoods, they described being shots for change over time, but they do not isolated Black knowledge. For example, our effectively outside the provisions of the main leave room for citizens to define democratic field’s most vaunted scholar of American text of U.S. democracy—the Constitution: deficits on their own terms or through their democracy, Robert Dahl, theorized civic life on September 23, 2020 “But every black and every Hispanic that own experiential accounts. When we use nar- through a case study in New Haven dur- gets stopped, especially here in LA, they rative accounts as the lens through which we ing a period of mass racial upheaval across asked to get out their car...okay. And it’s a view U.S. democracy, racial authoritarianism northern U.S. cities (5). Yet, Dahl’s account difference. When you’re telling me, you’re go- comes clearly into focus. portrayed a democracy that subjugated Black ing to go and say, ‘Oh you’re just nitpicking, Relatedly, scholars tend to fixate on nation- citizens did not live and had never taken part you’re crying, you’re complaining.’ But we live ally representative institutions and political in. Political science scholars have typically ex- this. You see? We live it” [(2), p. 1162]. activities such as voting and operate from amined democratic deficits as a question of “They’re paid to protect and serve but an overly narrow definition of authoritarian who is represented and how; they tend to fo- they’re not protecting us, they’re not serving practices (executive power grabs, direct po-
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