Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration: Assessing the Link Between Passive and Active Representation for Foreign-Born Clients
Representative bureaucracy scholars contend that clients are likely to experience greater benefits and more positive policy outcomes from public agencies when bureaucrats share salient demographic characteristics. Despite the large body of evidence that shows a link between passive and active representation, much of the extant representative bureaucracy literature rests on an assumption of group homogeneity. However, racial groups have a great deal of heterogeneity among them, particularly due to immigration patterns. As the demographics of the US changes, it behooves us to discern who represents foreign-born clients. One-fifth of Blacks in the U.S. have ties to some other country, thus allowing us to leverage heterogeneity among Blacks to examine who most effectively represents foreign-born clients. Differences between Black native-born bureaucrats and Black foreign-born clients in experiences, socialization processes, and interests may hinder the linkage between passive and active representation for Black immigrants. Using New York City public school data from the 2005-2006 to 2015-2016 school terms, we find that representative bureaucracy crosses ethnic lines. Both foreign-born and native-born Black students experience performance gains when taught by a Black teacher, but the groups differ in substantive benefits.
Manuscript awarded the 2019 Herbert Kaufman Best Public Administration Paper Award. American Political Science Association Annual Conference.
Under Revise and Resubmit at the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.
Traditional models and theories of partisanship assume that American partisans are socialized in the U.S. or at least have a good deal of knowledge of the two major political parties. These models center socioeconomic status as an important determinant of partisanship, and they assume there will be a match between voters’ and candidates’ parties with voters’ and candidates’ ideological leanings. Here, we center Blacks to gain more insight into the determinants of partisanship of the members of this pan-ethnic group.
Using data from the National Politics Survey, 2004, our results reveal that developing a fully specified model of Black partisanship requires scholars to reconsider a number of these assumptions. Specifically, the results show that identity and racial group interests influence African Americans’ and Black immigrants’ partisan affiliation; Blacks’ ideology does not neatly map onto the two-party system; and socioeconomic status provides no additional information about partisanship for native- or foreign-born Blacks. These findings add to the larger body of literature that asserts political scientists must consider the unique experiences and identities of underrepresented groups when developing theories and models of political attitudes and behaviors.
The (Additional) Determinants of Black Pan-Ethnic Partisanship
Straddling Identities: Identity Cross-Pressures on Black Immigrants’ Policy Preferences
The rich Black Politics literature suggests that Blacks in the US think about the well-being of their racial group in political decision-making; consequently, Blacks should continue to behave similarly as long as they perceive their life chances as inextricably linked to their racial identity. We suggest that it is becoming increasingly important to examine the centrality of other identities in Black political behavior as the ethnic diversity among Blacks increases with large influxes of African, Afro-Latino, and Afro-Caribbean immigrants. We test the idea that minorities, even Blacks, navigate multiple identities when making political decisions. Findings show that ideas of ongoing unity among Blacks do not square empirically. Although Black immigrants are lumped into a larger Black category, we find that they often differ from African-Americans, even on policies that affect Black immigrants because of their racial group membership. Our findings have major implications for Black politics specifically, but also minority politics broadly, chiefly since our findings concern prospects for inter- and intra-group coalition and conflict.