With Drew Engelhardt & Veronica Oelerich

Abstract: A prominent paradigm demonstrates many White Americans respond negatively to information about their declining population share. But this paradigm considers the racial shift in a single venue which also produces a general status threat response across conceptually distinct outcomes, undercutting the ability to explain precisely Whites’ social and political responses. We address this by contrasting reactions to demographic change in three distinct venues: society at large, culture, and politics. If the racial shift produces a general sense of status threat, then we should find comparable attitudinal responses across contexts. We validate this shift by contrasting treatment effects using 4 existing mechanisms, 3 existing dependent variables, and one new dependent variable. We thus clarify an intervention used prominently, with results cited frequently, to understand native majorities’ responses to demographic change and potential challenges to multi-racial democracy.

With Lauren Palladino & Romeo Gray

Abstract: After US elections, news stories frequently highlight how the United States Congress has a higher proportion of women and is more racially and ethnically diverse than at any point in history. While some say that this coverage may diminish legitimacy and support for democratic norms, other research suggests that as descriptive representation increases, citizens - including white people and men - perceive more legitimacy and have more trust in institutions. However, little is known about the effect of this type of news coverage on citizens' attitudes toward Congress and democracy as a whole. Given these competing expectations, we conduct a series of experiments to determine whether portrayals of a diverse Congress affect its perceived legitimacy. We theorize that as Congress diversifies faster than the executive branch, the perceived legitimacy of Congress as well as commitment to democratic restraints on Presidential power may decline, as some individuals will want to consolidate power in the whitest, malest branch of government to protect the racial gender hierarchy from the threat of diversification. Using data from the 2020 ANES, 2020 ANES-GSS Joint Survey and two survey experiments, we ultimately find that when Congress’s diversity is highlighted, perceived institutional legitimacy is conditioned on race and partisanship.

With Joe Phillips, Kal Munis, Arif Memovic, and Jake Ford

Abstract: What factors do Americans find most important when evaluating acts of political violence? Normatively, details regarding the violent act (e.g., the target and violence severity) should determine the punishment for political violence. However, recent work on polarization and identity suggests evaluations of political violence may depend on the perpetrator’s characteristics. In two pre-registered conjoint experiments, we vary both perpetrator characteristics and features of the violent act to discern the relative weight of act-centric and perpetrator-centric considerations. We find that, overall, the features of the act matter more than perpetrator identity characteristics for citizen evaluations of political violence, on average. However, perpetrator identity characteristics –especially partisanship – matter too. Though these findings can be interpreted as normatively negative given the perpetrator’s identities do influence punishment, the disproportionate effect of the violent act’s target and severity are normatively encouraging.

With Lauren Palladino & Ryan Vander Wielen

Abstract: Why do some legislators continue to obstruct despite the public voicing support for compromise? We suggest that legislator gender and respondent partisanship are key moderators of how obstructive behaviors affect voters' evaluations. Since Republicans value masculinity more and obstruction is an inherently masculine behavior, we theorize that Republicans are more likely to reward obstructive behavior, especially for women legislators who are presumed to be less masculine. Using a conjoint experiment, we find evidence supporting our theory. Republicans evaluate women legislators more negatively until the perceived obstructiveness of their behavior increases. Meanwhile, perceived obstructiveness has no differential gender effects among Democrats. These results suggest that Republican women should be more likely to obstruct in Congress, which we find evidence of by analyzing US House motions to recommit from 1995 to 2022. Therefore, our results explain partisan and gendered asymmetries in obstruction contrary to conventional wisdom suggesting that women are disproportionately consensus-builders.

With Hannah Nam

Abstract: Both US political parties have increasingly embraced descriptive representation as an important ideal with leaders publicly stating an explicit commitment to selecting underrepresented candidates. We examine how different elite rhetoric about increasing diversity influences evaluations of the government body, the selected candidate, and efforts to diversify politics in general. With two survey experiments, we find that rhetoric emphasizing the value of diverse representation only has a positive effect on support for increasing representation of racial minorities when the policy is racialized. When the policy is non-racialized, even this seemingly positive rhetoric can have unintended negative effects on evaluations of the selection process and candidate. Furthermore, leaders’ explicit commitment to select an underrepresented candidate has largely negative effects regardless of policy racialization. These studies have important implications for how elite rhetoric can achieve normative goals of increasing racially diverse political representation while maintaining positive evaluations of political leaders and institutional legitimacy.