Racial Polarization or Biracial Coalition? An Empirical Analysis of the Electoral Coalition of Winning Candidates in Urban Elections
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-7781.2007.27.0.319-344Abstract
Inspired by deracialization and black threat theories, this research uses the racial context of American cities to explain winning electoral coalitions in urban elections. A total of 137 municipal elections in New Orleans and Memphis between 1969 and 2003 are examined. The multiple regression results confirm the previous findings that black candidates are more likely than white candidates to win urban elections based on racial bloc voting, urban elections are more likely to be racially polarized in mayoral races than in city-council contests, and the competitiveness of elections reflected by the size of candidate pool shapes the needs for winning candidates to build biracial elections. The most important finding, however, is a nonlinear, half U-shaped relationship between racial polarization and the electorate’s racial makeup. This suggests that the deracialization strategy designed to reduce the negative effect of race in urban electoral campaigns is especially important when the electorate is heavily black. In this electoral setting, a substantial level of electoral support from voters of both racial groups is necessary for victory.References
Albritton, Robert, George Amedee, Keenan Grenell, and Don-Terry Veal. 1996. Deracialization and the New Black Politics. In Race, Politics, and Governance in the United States, ed. Huey Perry. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Banks, Manley. 2000. A Changing Electorate in a Majority Black City: The Emergence of a Neo-Conservative Black Urban Regime in Contemporary Atlanta. Journal of Urban Affairs 22:265-278. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0735-2166.00056
Bates, Timothy, and Darrell Williams. 1993. Racial Politics: Does it Pay? Social Science Quarterly 74:507-522.
Browning, Rufus, Dale Marshall, and David Tabb. 2003. Has Political Incorporation been Achieved? Is it Enough? In Racial Politics in American Cities, 3rd ed., eds. Rufus Browning, Dale Marshall, and David Tabb. New York: Longman.
Bullock, Charles. 1984. Racial Crossover Voting and the Election of Black Officials. Journal of Politics 46:238-251. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2130442
Bureau of the Census. 1981. Cities With 100,000 Inhabitants or More in 1980—Population, 1960 to 1980, and Households, 1980. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Bureau of the Census. 2000. Cities—Population by Age, Sex, and Race. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Engstrom, Richard. 1985. Racial Vote dilution: The concept and the Court. In The Voting Rights Act: Consequences and Implications, ed. L. Foster. New York: Praeger.
Fox, John. 2002. An R and S-Plus Companion to Applied Regression. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Gay, Claudine. 2004. Putting Race in Context: Identifying the Environmental Determinants of Black Racial Attitudes. American Political Science Review 98:547-562. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003055404041346
Giles, Michael, and Melanie Buckner. 1993. David Duke and Black Threat: An Old Hypothesis Revisited. Journal of Politics 55:702-713. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2131995
Glaser, James. 1994. Back to the Black Belt: Racial Environment and White Racial Attitudes in the South. Journal of Politics 56:21-41. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2132344
Hahn, Harlan, David Klingman, and Harry Pachon. 1976. Cleavages, Coalitions and the Black Candidate: The Los Angeles Mayoral Elections of 1969 and 1973. Western Political Quarterly 29:151-167. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/448134
Henig, Jeffrey. 1993. Race and Voting: Continuity and Change in the District of Columbia. Urban Affairs Quarterly 28:544-570. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/004208169302800403
Howell, Susan, and William McLean. 2001. Performance and Race in Evaluating Minority Mayors. Public Opinion Quarterly 65:321-343. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/322847
Judd, Dennis, and Todd Swanstrom. 2004. City Politics: Private Power and Public Policy. New York: Longman.
King, Desmond, and Rogers Smith. 2005. Racial Orders in American Political Development. American Political Science Review 99:75-92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003055405051506
King, Gary. 1997. A Solution to the Ecological Inference Problem: Reconstructing Individual Behavior from Aggregate Data. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Krauss, Neil, and Todd Swanstrom. 2001. The Continuing Significance of Race: Black and Hispanic Mayors, 1967-1999. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, CA.
Leighley, Jan, and Arnold Vedlitz. 1999. Race, Ethnicity, and Political Participation: Competing Models and Contrasting Explanations. Journal of Politics 61:1092-1114. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2647555
Liu, Baodong. 2003. Deracialization and Urban Racial Contexts. Urban Affairs Review 38:572-591. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1078087402250370
Liu, Baodong. Forthcoming. EI Extended Model and the Fear of Ecological Fallacy. Sociological Methods and Research.
Liu, Baodong, and James Vanderleeuw. 2001. Racial Transition and White-Voter Support for Black Candidates in Urban Elections. Journal of Urban Affairs 23:309-322. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0735-2166.00091
Longoria, Thomas. 1999. The Impact of Cross-Racial Voting: Evidence from the 1996 Milwaukee Mayoral Election. Urban Affairs Review 34:596-603. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10780879922184095
McClerking, H. 2001. Looking for "Threats" in all the Wrong Places: A Critique of the Current Use of Race as a Contextual Effect in Political Science. Politics & Policy 29:637-649. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2001.tb00608.x
McCormick, Joseph, and Charles Jones. 1993. The Conceptualization of Deracialization: Thinking Through the Dilemma. In Dilemmas of Black Politics, ed. Lauren Silverman. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers.
O'Loughlin, John. 1980. The Election of Black Mayors in 1977. Annuls of the American Association of Geographers 70:353-370.
Orr, Marion. 2003. The Struggle for Black Empowerment in Baltimore. In Racial Politics in American Cities, 3rd ed., eds. Rufus Browning, Dale Marshall, and David Tabb. New York: Longman.
Owens, Michael, and Michael Rich. 2003. Is Strong Incorporation Enough? Black Empowerment and the Fate of Atlanta's Low-Income Blacks. In Racial Politics in American Cities, 3rd ed., eds. Rufus Browning, Dale Marshall, and David Tabb. New York: Longman.
Perry, Huey. 1991. Deracialization as an Analytic Construct in American Politics. Urban Affairs Quarterly 27:181-191. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/004208169102700201
Perry, Huey. 1996. Introduction: An Analysis of Major Themes in the Concept of Deracialization. In Race, Politics, and Governance in the United States, ed. Huey http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511601187.004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2419.1996.tb00078.x
Perry, Huey. 2003. The Evolution and Impact of Biracial Coalitions and Black Mayors in Birmingham and New Orleans. In Racial Politics in American Cities, 3rd ed., eds. Rufus Browning, Dale Marshall, and David Tabb. New York: Longman.
Persons, Georgia. 1993. Black Mayoralties and the New Black Politics: From Insurgency to Racial Reconciliation. In Dilemmas of Black Politics, ed. Lauren Silverman. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers.
Pettigrew, Thomas. 1972. When a Black Candidate Runs for Mayor: Race and Voting Behavior. In People and Politics in Urban Society, ed. Harlan Hahn. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
Pierannunzi, Carol, and John Hutcheson. 1991. Deracialization in the Deep South. Urban Affairs Quarterly 27:192-201. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/004208169102700202
Pohlmann, Marcus, and Michael Kirby. 1996. Racial Politics at the Crossroads: Memphis Elects Dr. W.W. Herenton. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press.
Rogers, Reuel. 2004. Race-Based Coalitions among Minority Groups: Afro-Caribbean Immigrants and African-Americans in New York City. Urban Affairs Review 39: 283-317. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1078087403258960
Saltzstein, Grace. 1989. Black Mayors and Police Policies. Journal of Politics 51:525-544. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2131494
Santoro, Wayne. 1995. Black Politics and Employment Policies: The Determinants of Local Government Affirmative Action. Social Science Quarterly 76:794-806.
Stein, Robert, Stacey Ulbig, and Stephanie Post. 2005. Voting for Minority Candidates in Multiracial/Multiethnic Communities. Urban Affairs Review 41:157-181. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1078087405280311
Stone, Clarence, and Coral Pierannunzi. 1997. Atlanta and the Limited Reach of Electoral Control. In Racial Politics in American Cities, 2nd ed., eds. Rufus Browning, Dale Marshall, and David Tabb. New York: Longman.
Southwell, Priscilla, and Kevin Pirch. 2003. Political Cynicism and the Mobilization of Black Voters. Social Science Quarterly 84:906-917. http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.0038-4941.2003.08404020.x
Vanderleeuw, James. 1990. A City in Transition: The Impact of Changing Racial Composition on Voting Behavior. Social Science Quarterly 71:326-338.
Vanderleeuw, James. 1991. The Influence of Racial Transition on Incumbency Advantage in Local Elections. Urban Affairs Quarterly 27:36-50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/004208169102700103
Vanderleeuw, James, Baodong Liu, and Gregory Marsh. 2004. Applying Black Threat Theory, Urban Regime Theory, and Deracialization: The Memphis Mayoral Elections of 1991, 1995, and 1999. Journal of Urban Affairs 26:505-519. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0735-2166.2004.00212.x
Walton, Hanes, Kenneth Jordan, and Marion Orr. 2004. Continuity in Power: The 2003 Election of Otis Johnson as Mayor of Savannah, Georgia. Urban News 18:1-7.
Watson, Sharon. 1984. The Second Time Around: A Profile of Black Mayoral Reelection Campaigns. Phylon 45:165-175. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/274401
Winn, Mylon. 1990. The Election of Norman Rice as Mayor of Seattle. PS: Political Science and Politics 23:158-159. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1049096500032686 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/420058
Winn, Mylon, and Errol Palmer. 1996. The Election of Norman B. Rice as Mayor of Seattle. In Race, Politics, and Governance in the United States, ed. Huey Perry. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Wright, Sharon. 2000. Race, Power, and Political Emergence in Memphis. New York: Garland Publishing.
Wright, Sharon, and Richard Middleton 2001. The 2001 Los Angeles Mayoral Election: Implications for Deracialization and Biracial Coalition Theories. Politics & Policy 29:692-705. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2001.tb00611.x
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with American Review of Politics agree to the following terms:
The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
Attribution: other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
Non-Commercial: the materials may not be used for commercial purposes;
Share Alike: If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
with the understanding that the above condition can be waived with permission from the Author and that where the Work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.
The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a pre-publication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (see The Effect of Open Access). Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
The Author represents and warrants that:
the Work is the Author’s original work;
the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
the Work has not previously been published;
the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.
