Peer-Reviewed Publications

 

Since Key and Allport, scholars have argued that racial context affects political behavior, with some finding out-group contact increases inter-group hostility and others showing the opposite. We argue that Americans exist in multiple racial contexts simultaneously that may overlap or conflict, helping to explain past discord. Using novel data, we document in-group embeddedness among the four largest U.S. ethnoracial groups for three kinds of racial context: geographic, social, and psychological. These three contexts are only weakly correlated, we find, with social ties exhibiting distinctly high rates of in-group segregation. We next examine the relationship between racial contexts and political attitudes, showing that individuals who are highly embedded across contexts express notably different views than those who experience cross-cutting pressures. Our results underscore a need for greater care and specificity when examining the relationship between “racial context'“ and political phenomena.

 
 

What role do science and scientists play in the transition between food regimes? Scientific communities are integral to understanding political struggle during food regime transitions in part due to the broader scientization of politics since the late 1800s. While social movements contest the rules of the game in explicitly value-laden terms, scientific communities make claims to the truth based on boundary work, or efforts to mark some science and scientists as legitimate while marking others as illegitimate. In doing so, scientific communities attempt to establish and maintain the privileged position of science in contests over policy. In this paper, we situate scientific boundary work within its world historical context in order to ask two key questions: (1) how does scientific boundary work vary across food regimes; and, in turn, (2) what role does scientific boundary work play in the political contestation that drives transitions between food regimes? We explore these questions through the case of one scientific community—the AOAC (Association of Official Analytical Communities)—involved in food safety regulation across the British, US, and corporate food regimes. We argue that scientific boundary work is shaped by historically specific patterns of social conflict within food regimes and, in particular, the double-movement dynamics that Polanyi (1957) theorizes. Moreover, as scientific communities reconstruct their internal rules, norms, and procedures to claim their own legitimacy in relation to prevailing forms of social conflict, they also reshape who sets scientific agendas and thus the knowledge available for making new rules within periods of food regime transition. To elaborate this argument in theoretical terms, we build on recent efforts to integrate a neo-Polanyian perspective into food regime analysis and link this to research on scientific boundary work by scholars in science and technology studies.

 

Working Papers

  • “Democratic But Still White: The Impact of Racial Identity Threats on White Democrats’ Support for Racial Justice Protests” (Revise and resubmit at Political Behavior) [Abstract]

 

In recent years, observers have noted an apparent increase in racially progressive attitudes among White Democrats. Among journalists, this “great awokening'“ of White Democrats is practically taken as a political fact. However, what this consensus about the racial liberalism of White Democrats often overlooks is that while White Democrats have in many ways moved in line with the Democratic Party’s position on race and racial inequality, their White identity makes them vulnerable to racial identity threats. In this study, I test this potential for racial identity-driven backlash among White Democrats in the context of racial justice protest movements. To do this, I use a survey experiment in which respondents are exposed to an image from a racial justice protest, and I vary the messaging on the signs in the image as well as the race of the protesters. I find that when protesters use messaging that is critical of Whites and Whiteness, White Democrats’ support for the movement and the protesters declines. Additionally, such messaging causes respondents to distance themselves from the views of the protesters and raises concerns about violence erupting at the protests.

 

  • “When Identities Collide: Testing the Limits of White Democrats’ Progressive Racial Attitudes” [Abstract]

 

“Identity politics'“ has become a ubiquitous phrase in contemporary American politics, with pundits and scholars alike placing particular emphasis on partisan, race, gender, and class identities. Extensive research has addressed how different partisan and demographic identities affect the political attitudes and behaviors of individuals, but there has been far less exploration of how these identities might interact with each other to impact politics. In this paper, I use the case of White Democrats to explore how individuals respond when circumstances bring their partisan identity into conflict with another salient identity. I argue that White Democrats today are increasingly likely to face tension between their partisan identity and their racial identity. Despite a strong attachment to their party, when a perceived threat to White Democrats' racial identity becomes sufficiently strong, their racial identity can become a primary motivator for their actions. Across two studies, I examine how White Democrats respond to both esteem-based and material-based racial group threats. I find that White Democrats distance themselves from candidates who are critical of their racial group and those who propose policies that do not benefit White constituents. These results highlight how threats to other important identities can complicate partisans’ support for their party's candidates and policies and underscore the need to study how partisan identity and other identities interact to shape political behavior.

 
 
 

The increase in and consequences of affective polarization have been well-documented in the political science literature. But while previous studies have shown the impact of partisan agreement or disagreement on social behaviors from dating to getting married, none to date have examined the effect of political disagreement on the dissolution of marriage. Using divorce records from three counties in three states, we match divorcees to the national voter file and compare divorced couples to a “control'“ group of married couples from the same area. We find that political agreement, defined as voting in the same partisan primary, is higher among married couples than among divorcees, implying that couples who divorce are more likely to have politically different views than those who remain married. We replicate these findings using a nationwide survey of recently divorced Americans. Survey results indicate that, in comparison with a baseline survey of married individuals, divorced respondents perceive significantly higher levels of political disagreement. Further, an analysis of election turnout shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, couples who go on to divorce show lower levels of turnout across several election cycles preceding their divorce. This provides suggestive evidence that political withdrawal is not simply a short-term phenomenon caused by the onset of divorce proceedings, but rather a result of psychological cross pressures during marriage.

 

Works in Progress

  • “The Great Awokening? An Analysis of the Shift in Democratic Rhetoric About Race”

 
 
 

  • “How Readers Respond to Racial Cues in The New York Times Comments Section,” with Jamal Johnson

 

  • “Stigma and Shame: Testing the Constraints on Working Women in Pakistan” with Natalya Adam-Rahman

 

Selected Public Writing