Suchergebnisse

This article explores the controversial 1996 success of three African American incumbents (Sanford Bishop and Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and Corrine Brown of Florida) who lost their majority-Black southern congressional districts to Supreme Court decisions. Using aggregate electoral data and Gary King's solution to the ecological inference problem, we gauge (a) the extent of bias against Black candidates, (b) the extent of backlash against Black voters, and (c) the extent to which incumbency explains away the Georgia victories. The findings are compatible with neither a full attack on racial redistricting nor a defense of it. Southern Whites do not exhibit either consistent bias against Black candidates or backlash against Black voters, but racial polarization is nonetheless evident and dispersed in a geographically systematic manner. Barriers against Black representation are still strong, but they are not the electoral barriers that civil rights activists assume when they embrace majority-minority districts.

We test the "white backlash" hypothesis -- that white racial conservatism grows as black population density increases -- using methods & data parallel to those upon which the concept was originally developed. A 1996 KY referendum vote to strike school segregation from the state constitution serves as a rare measure of "old-fashioned racism." We estimate the white vote for segregation using ecological inference techniques, & show that the county-level pattern of white segregationist support for this referendum actually runs in the opposite direction from that predicted by the backlash hypothesis. Precinct-level KY analysis & county-level analysis of a related SC referendum validate our finding against the white backlash hypothesis. We conclude that the frequent failure of recent research to find white backlash, especially among white urban voters, therefore cannot be explained away by the absence of measures of old-fashioned racism. Rather, the geographical pattern of American racial conservatism seems to have changed since the successes of the Civil Rights movement. 1 Table, 1 Figure, 79 References. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractWe test the "white backlash" hypothesis—that white racial conservatism grows as black population density increases—using methods and data parallel to those upon which the concept was originally developed. A 1996 Kentucky referendum vote to strike school segregation from the state constitution serves as a rare measure of "old-fashioned racism." We estimate the white vote for segregation using ecological inference techniques, and show that the county-level pattern of white segregationist support for this referendum actually runs in the opposite direction from that predicted by the backlash hypothesis. Precinct-level Kentucky analysis and county-level analysis of a related South Carolina referendum validate our finding against the white backlash hypothesis. We conclude that the frequent failure of recent research to find white backlash, especially among urban voters, therefore cannot be explained away by the absence of measures of old-fashioned racism. Rather, the geographical pattern of American racial conservatism seems to have changed since the successes of the Civil Rights movement.

Analyzes link between racial composition and political parties in election results, 1990-98; competing logit models. Effect on Republican and Democratic parties; finds that redistricting hurt Democrats, little evidence to "White-backlash" theory, and that Democrats did better in highland districts.

Provides detailed survey methodology from the most prominent US preelection pollsters in 1988 & 1992. Topics covered include random-digit dialing, determining the respondent, & adjusting the data. It is shown that poststratification weighting has a dramatic effect on population estimates drawn from the samples, using 1988 data from the Roper Center to compare weighted & unweighted results. The methodological detail was provided by representatives of the survey organizations (as well as from Survey Sampling, Inc., & Marketing Systems Group), during intensive interviews. 1 Table, 3 Figures, 2 Appendixes, 16 References. Modified AA