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How Do We Get Along? Linked Fate, Political Allies, and Issue Coalitions

September 2-6, 2009

Dianne Pinderhughes, University of Notre Dame, dpinderh@nd.edu
Pei-te Lien, University of California Santa Barbara, peite.lien@gmail.com
Christine Sierra, University of New Mexico, csierra@unm.edu
Carol Hardy-Fanta, University of Massachusetts Boston, carol.hardy-fanta@umb.edu

Abstract
How cohesive are the nation’s female and male minority elected officials in their group identities, political networks, and public policy outlooks? This paper empirically evaluates the coalition-building potentials of these elected officials in their sense of minority group linked fate, sources of policy support, and policy stands on key issues of pressing importance to women and minorities: immigrant rights, contested new rights, welfare and work, minority rights, among others. We assess the statistical significance of the intersecting identities of race and gender in their ability to structure the elected officials’ potentials to form political coalitions based on common identity, political allies, and issue concerns. We explore possible confounding factors in this process such as experiences of socialization, social networks, perceived structural barriers, and personal political orientations and other resources.

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Concepts and Correlates of Political Representation: A Multicultural and Subnational View

March 19-21, 2009

Pei-te Lien, University of California, Santa Barbara
Carol Hardy-Fanta, University of Massachusetts Boston
Christine M. Sierra, University of New Mexico
Dianne M. Pinderhughes, University of Notre Dame
Lorrie A. Frasure, University of California, Los Angeles

The content and contours of political representation have been among the most heavily studied topics in U.S. scholarship on democratic leadership. However, nearly all of the recent research on political representation focuses on legislators’ leadership actions, policy responsiveness to their constituents, and behavior consequences on constituency participation and trust. Very few scholars examine how elected officials themselves think of the role of their representation in the first place, and how this perception is linked to their own personal characteristics, social network, perception of and connection to the constituency, and the electoral structure. Even less attention has been paid to examining the representational roles of nonwhite elected officials.
This paper attempts to fill this void by investigating the contours and correlates of representational roles as perceived by elected officials of color serving at state and local levels nationwide. The research questions we seek to answer are: How do elected officials of color view their representational role? Do Black, Latino, Asian, and American Indian officials differ in their representational role orientations? What other factors may influence (or be associated with) their orientation toward a representational role? In what ways do elected officials who hold the trustee view different from those who hold the delegate view? And, how do Blacks and Latinos differ in the correlates of these two prevailing views of representation? Our data, the Gender and Multicultural Leadership Survey, focus on individuals serving at state and local levels of government where nine out of ten of nonwhite elected officials are located. With the increasing diversity in the nation’s population and political leadership, this research aims to broaden understanding of the meanings of democratic representation in a multicultural society by studying the attitudes of female and male elected officials of African, Asian, Hispanic, and American Indian origin.

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Expanding Categorization at the Intersection of Race and Gender:
“Women of Color” as a Political Category for African American, Latina, Asian American, and American Indian Women

August, 2008

Pei-te Lien, Department of Political Science, UC Santa Barbara
Carol Hardy-Fanta, Center for Women in Politics & Public Policy, University of Massachusetts Boston
Dianne M. Pinderhughes, Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame
Christine Marie Sierra, Department of Political Science, University of New Mexico

Abstract
Although the term “women of color” literally refers to all groups of women who share the attribute of being nonwhite, it was, for many years, synonymous with Black women because of their pioneering and leadership role in expanding the concept of feminist ideology beyond white women. Reflecting the general patterns of research on race and ethnicity in the United States, the small but budding present-day literature about the political status of nonwhite women continues to center on African American women and their experience of gendered racism of the socioeconomically disadvantaged. With the current experiences of U.S. women of color located in disparate socioeconomic and demographic strata, and with Latinas replacing Black women as the largest group of U.S. nonwhite women today, we question whether a scholarship based in large part on observations of Black women can still hold true now that the field is more diverse and larger. Another question is whether there exists a particular sociopolitical bond among “women of color” due to the discrimination and structural oppression many face that may have the potential for coalition building across race/ethnicity. In this paper, we attempt to move beyond a black-white dichotomy and expand knowledge about the content and political significance of the category “women of color” by examining the aggregate structural conditions and individual attitudes and opinions of four nonwhite groups of political women. Using both U.S. Census data and a first-of-a-kind survey that includes over 500 women of African American, Latino, Asian American, and American Indian descent (as well as over 800 men of color) who served as popularly elected officials at state and local levels nationwide in 2006–7, we consider if and how these women can be treated as a political category.

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A New Look at Paths to Political Office: Moving Women of Color from the Margins to the Center

August 30 – September 2, 2007

Carol Hardy-Fanta Director, Center for Women in Politics & Public Policy, John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston
Pei-te Lien Professor, Department of Political Science, UC Santa Barbara
Christine Marie Sierra Professor, Department of Political Science, University of New Mexico
Dianne M. Pinderhughes Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame

Abstract

This study focuses on women of color and their paths to elected office. A central question we pose in this paper is whether there may be distinctive paths to political office for black, Latina and Asian women in comparison to their male counterparts. We explore the paths to political office for women of color elected officials using new data from the Gender and Multicultural Leadership (GMCL) Survey of elected officials of color. The GMCL Survey is a national telephone survey of black, Latino, Asian American female and male officials who serve as state legislators, county commissioners/ supervisors, mayors, members of local governing councils (i.e., city/town councils, boards of selectmen/aldermen), and local school boards.

Drawing from the literature, we identify four dimensions for analysis of trajectories to public office: political socialization, political capital, social capital, and political structure/opportunity. Under each of our analytical dimensions, we find evidence of commonality among women of color, most especially with black and Latina women. Still, we have identified areas where men of color may differ significantly from women of color, such as on political ambition. Nevertheless, racial differences appeared more pronounced on a number of factors, suggesting that there is more evidence that race trumps gender than the other way around. Finally, there is also evidence that race and gender interact in important ways for these groups. We conclude that the dominant paradigms in political science for understanding path to political office are male-centered, white-centered, and individually centered, and, hence, do not adequately capture the experience of people of color—women or men.

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The Voting Rights Act and the Election of Nonwhite Officials

July, 2007

Pei-te Lien, University of California, Santa Barbara
Dianne M. Pinderhughes, University of Notre Dame
Carol Hardy-Fanta, University of Massachusetts, Boston
Christine M. Sierra, University of New Mexico

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Exploring Dimensions of Interracial Connections between Asian and Other
Nonwhite Elected Officials

April 4-7, 2007

Abstract:

The dramatic diversification and continuing expansion of the nation’s nonwhite population in the post-1965 era require a reconsideration of the power structure and electoral leadership in governing the American nation as a multicultural democracy. To empirically address the conference’s theme of interracial connections, we propose to systematically examine the experiences and views of political elites of Asian descent as compared to those of African, Hispanic, American Indian descents in the United States.
Specifically, we analyze the attitudes and opinions of elected officials holding offices at state and local levels of office to identify the potential for coalition and/or conflict between elected officials (and communities) of color. Our main research question is: To what extent and on what basis do Asian, Black, Latino, and American Indian elected leaders converge and diverge in their experiences of political socialization, trajectories to office, political orientation and sense of linked fate, views on constituency and representation, and policy stance regarding important issues to nonwhite communities such as affirmative action, voting rights, and immigration? Our data come from the 2006-7 Gender and Multicultural Leadership (GMCL) Survey, which is the nation’s first multiracial and multi-office survey of female and male elected officials of color. We hope the results can contribute to the building of a stronger multicultural democracy and a more racially harmonious society in the United States.

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Changing Guards, Changing Views:  Preliminary Findings from the Gender and Multicultural Leadership Survey

March 8- 10, 2007

Pei-te Lien, University of California, Santa Barbara
Christine Marie Sierra, University of New Mexico
Carol Hardy-Fanta, University of Massachusetts Boston
Dianne M. Pinderhughes, University of Notre Dame

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Cleavage or Convergence:  Elected Officials of Color and the Politics of Immigration

March, 2007

Abstract

Of major theoretical and practical interest in contemporary politics is the incorporation or inclusion of marginalized and underrepresented groups in American society.  This paper examines the perspectives and policy positions of the nation’s elected officials of color toward immigrant incorporation.  The paper reports results from telephone interviews with a national sample of African American, Hispanic, Asian American, and American Indian elected officials (EOs) in local and state legislative office. The GMCL national survey, conducted from June 2006 through January 2007, is part of a larger project on African American, Latina/o, Native American, and Asian American elected officials in U.S. politics.  As the first of its kind, this survey provides a comprehensive examination of the backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives of America’s increasingly diverse elected leadership at the local, state, and national levels. 

This paper focuses on examining EOs’ level of support on four immigrant-related policy proposals: the provision of government services in languages other than English; bilingual education in public schools for students not proficient in English; drivers’ licenses for immigrants regardless of legal status; and non-citizen voting rights in local (i.e. school board) elections.  Bivariate analysis finds four sets of factors influence elite positions on the four immigrant-related proposals: perceived constituency characteristics, personal demographic characteristics of the officeholders, a select set of attitudes and political orientations, and institutional/political variables associated with their public office.  Multivariate analysis shows that race and gender matter—but in different ways across the racial and gender groups studied and depending on the policy issues at stake. The results suggest that there is no clear divide among racial groups.  Race and gender groups show a variation of support across the immigrant-related policies. 

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Gender, Race, and Descriptive Representation in the United States: Findings from the Gender and Multicultural Leadership Project

Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, Vol. 28, 3/4 (2006)

Carol Hardy-Fanta, University of Massachusetts Boston
Pei-te Lien, University of California, Santa Barbara
Dianne M. Pinderhughes, University of Notre Dame
Christine Marie Sierra, University of New Mexico

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Abstract
This research draws on the nation’s first comprehensive database of elected
leadership of color to provide a multi-cultural, multi-office, and multi-state look at the contours and context of descriptive representation by race and gender and with women of color at the center of analysis. We find that key to the persistent trend of growth in elective office holding of the nation’s Black, Latino, and Asian American communities in recent decades is the expanding size of women of color elected officials. Compared to whites, gender gaps in descriptive representation are smaller among nonwhite groups. Although the proportion of nonwhite population may impact the degree of electoral success, we find parity ratios to vary by race, gender, level of office, and state. For example, states that have the highest share of the black population did not produce the highest level of representation of Black women.

Finally, we find that gender differences within each race are generally significant, but far greater racial differences are found among men and women of color elected officials–especially at the municipal and school board levels of offices. We conclude that women of color have played a significant role in advancing descriptive political representation of people of color and of women in the United States as a whole.

Race, Gender, and Descriptive Representation:
Exploratory View of Multicultural Elected the United States

Revised 9/4/05

To what extent have women and men of color achieved representation in Congress, statewide offices, state legislatures, and local governments? Using data from the first comprehensive database of Black, Latino, Asian and American Indian elected officials, the authors compare the representation levels of these groups by gender, geographical location, and level of office. The importance of the Voting Rights Act to minority electoral representation is also discussed. This paper addresses a continuing challenge for American democracy: the full incorporation of women and racial/ethnic minorities in the nation’s political processes and governing institutions.

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Gender and Multicultural Leadership: The Future of Governance
American Political Science Association

Annual Meeting
Chicago, September 2, 2004

Powerpoint presentation

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