Electoral Power Research Articles

State Felon Disenfranchisement Policy

Objective. Felon disenfranchisement policies impose restrictions on a felon's right to vote. Since these policies disproportionately affect minority citizens, legal scholars and others argue that felon disenfranchisement is a result of racial politics, aimed primarily at undermining the electoral power of black and Latino citizens. This study evaluates these claims in a rigorous empirical analysis. Methods. The study uses cross‐sectional data on current state felon disenfranchisement policies in an order probit regression analysis to examine race‐based explanations in light of competing hypotheses. Results. The findings demonstrate that the size of the minority population, parity in incarceration rates, and the degree of legislative professionalism are the primary explanatory factors of this policy. Conclusions. Given the continued rise in minority incarceration rates relative to those for whites and the link between the racial composition of a state and the severity of felon disenfranchisement laws, the study raises important questions regarding the future of minority participation in the democratic process.

Even at the Turning of the Tide

The increase in the number of African Americans in elective and appointed offices is often cited as lasting evidence of the success of the 1960s civil rights movement. However, two generations after the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the question of whether electoral power transfers into substantive change for the powerless reverberates. Some may find it sacrilegious to question the utility of the franchise in light of the past sacrifices to gain unfettered access to the ballot. Nevertheless, not to raise this critical question at this juncture commits a disservice to past African American martyrs. Thus, this analysis seeks to critically examine African American legislative participation in the North Carolina general assembly. The following analysis builds on prior research that examined the activities of the North Carolina Legislative Black Caucus (NCLBC) from 1970 to 1985 (Sullivan, 1988). Between 1985 and 1988, several major developments occurred within the North Carolina legislature that warrant further inquiry. First, the number of African Americans serving in the state legislature increased significantly. Second, the state has struggled through several years of divided government. Further exacerbating this division in government has been the Republican Party control of the House of Representatives. The following examines the NCLBC in light of these developments. The analysis proceeds with a discussion of African American legislative participation prior to the post-civil rights period. A pro-

The Conditional Effect of Violence as a Political Tactic: Mass Insurgency, Welfare Generosity, and Electoral Context in the American States

Theory: Political elites, in their efforts to exercise social control while maintaining legitimacy, respond to civil unrest by expanding the relief rolls. This response is not guaranteed, however, and is highly dependent upon the numerical strength of the insurgent group, access to democratic electoral institutions, and the relationship between the insurgent group and the rest of society. Hypotheses: The theory is tested by examining the impact of black insurgency in the United States on AFDC growth. In the absence of effective black electoral access, if insurgency has any impact at all, it should be weakest where white resistence is strong. In the presence of effective electoral access, insurgency will have a positive effect on AFDC growth, and will be most effective where white resistance is weak, or where black electoral power is strong. Methods: Pooled time-series analysis is used to examine growth in state AFDC recipient rates during the years 1962-80. Results: The results provide strong evidence that political violence can bring important benefits to insurgent groups in the United States. Benefits are not guaranteed, however, and appear to be contingent upon the hypothesized contextual variables. In the case of the United States, these variables appear to have interacted in a complex fashion to produce a rather unexpected outcome. Political violence was most effective in the areas where white resistance was strongest, due to the dominance of black electoral power, and where black electoral power was weakest, due to a more tolerant white electorate.

The Supply Side of Congressional Redistricting: Race and Strategic Politicians, 1972-1992

The goal of empowering minorities through redistricting has been attacked from all sides. The Supreme Court recently called the North Carolina redistricting plan political apartheid (Shaw v. Reno 1993) while critics on the left reject the approach because it merely provides descriptive rather than substantive representation (Guinier 1991a, 1134-53). This article offers a new perspective from which to assess the viability of this approach to black empowerment: the supply side of redistricting. Using a unique data set from the 1972, 1982, and 1992 congressional elections in black districts, we examine how individual politicians respond to the changing electoral context imposed by new district lines and how, in turn, their decisions shape the electoral choices and outcomes in a given district. We argue that individual politicians acting in their own self-interest may tip the balance of electoral power to black and white moderates in the district. We find that this outcome prevails in approximately half of ...

Political Learning and Democratic Consolidation

Although the concept of political learning is recognized as a key to understanding the success of democratic consolidation, it has been difficult to operationalize it. The author argues that if we use as an independent variable the messages with which actors update their beliefs, we can develop a theory of democratic consolidation based on political learning. In the Korean case, political learning took place among workers who had to decide whether to use illegal means to protest the rules of the game. Because of their weak electoral power, Korean workers had to resort to their market power to contest the labor laws outside of electoral and legislative arenas. If the rules of the game had been contested in a less confrontational manner, the process of political learning may have been less protracted.

The politics of language: the impact of language legislation on French- and English-speaking citizens of Quebec

This paper traces the history of French-English conflict in Quebec from the British conquest of New France in 1795 to the present. The long-lasting cultural and economic deprivation ofthe French resulted in a movementfor change with the development ofan urban intellectual-managerial class, and a growing sense of ethnic pride. This is intensified by the fear that the French language and culture will be overwhelmed by the predominantly English-speaking surrounding Community. Thepeaceful transference of economic power and language dominance from the English- to the Frenchspeaking Community was facilitated by the electoral power of the French Community. Of growing concern is the greater need for English-language proficiency in the French-speaking Community as Quebec industry enters the international marketplace.

The Vital South: How Presidents Are Elected, by Earl Black and Merle Black

This book chronicles the massive shift of southern electoral power to the Republican party, The Vital explores the history, meaning, and ramifications of a Republican South in presidential politics. Combining political narrative, in-depth analysis, and telling anecdotes, it aims to be a definitive source on southern presidential politics for some time to come.

Poverty and Electoral Power

Poverty and Electoral Power

A Test of the Relative Efficacy of Political Tactics

The choice of tactics utilized by groups to achieve social change is a hotly debated but little researched topic. Examining the relative effects of black electoral power, black protest politics, and riots, controlling for need, indicates that the level of black electoral power and nonviolent protest significantly influenced changes in the number of Mississippi welfare recipients 1960-1970. The results of a path model with two mediating changes indicate that all three political tactics are efficacious. Black electoral power influences changes in the approval rate; nonviolent protest and riots influence changes in the size of the applicant pool. Thus, it appears that all three tactics cause policy changes but in different fashions.

Black electoral power, white resistance, and legislative behavior

This paper examines the relationship between black electoral power and white legislative behavior in Mississippi. The initial theoretical foundation is provided by the work of William R. Keech. Keech's implicit model is presented and a more elaborate model which views black payoffs as a function of black electoral power and white resistance, and the political generation of white legislators is developed and tested. A typology of electoral contexts is constructed, and the impact of such contexts on the relationships between the key variables is examined. The findings suggest that the processes responsible for the curvilinear relationship between black electoral power and black payoffs are more complex than previous research has implied and that the nature of electoral contexts may have a substantial influence on these processes.

Population distributions and electoral power: Preliminary investigations of class bias

Johnston R. J. (1977) Population distributions and electoral power: preliminary investigations of class bias, Reg. Studies 11, 309–321. That the imposition of a set of spatially-defined constituencies upon a non-uniform population distribution produces electoral biases is well-known, but who are biased against is not clear. The present paper looks at a series of measures derived from coalition theory to investigate the power of classes in constituencies. Scottish data indicate that the bias is generally against the larger classes, although details of their spatial distribution can influence the finding.

Deference and Aristocracy in the Time of the Great Reform Act

A THEORY OF DEFERENCE has recently played a significant role in modifying older explanations of intention and effects of Great Reform Act. The historian chiefly responsible for new interpretation is D. C. Moore, who insists on the electoral importance of what might be called 'deference community,' community of men who lived in close contact with one another, who had same occupation or were connected by same 'interest,' and-most important of all-who recognized same individual, or individuals, as their social, economic, and ideological leader or These deference communities, Moore contends, were all-important and allpervasive. Every elector was a member of one or another community, and great bulk of electorate tamely followed preferences of relatively few leaders. Moore goes so far as to assert: For conceptual purposes, of course, deferential behaviour should be distinguished from behaviour motivated by economic, social, or religious interest. In practice, however, in most constituencies for most of century this distinction cannot be made.' Moore argues that Lord Grey and his colleagues in reform ministry were aware of this phenomenon and built their measure upon it. They had no intention of increasing electoral power of middle classes or of giving individual elector a real voice. Rather, they sought to strengthen influence of leaders in several deference communities, most particularly influence of larger landowners, class that had always dominated English politics. The Reform Act was intended, then, not as a concession, but as a cure.2 John Cannon and Michael Brock have argued convincingly, however, for

The Political Socialization of the American Negro

American Negroes perforce "came to terms" his torically with a locality-circumscribed political world. A huge northward migration has occurred, and the younger Negro has gradually become aware of metropolitan as well as national American political processes as they affect him. Opinion-sur vey evidence reveals clear contrasts by region and generation in Negro attitudes toward public officials; it also suggests that Negro evaluations of political opportunity sometimes approach parity with matched counterpart groups of underprivileged whites. A shift has also occurred in Negro leadership, away from accommodationist civic dignitaries, tapped by whites as liaison spokesmen for the Negro subcommunity, to Negro pro fessional politicians, negotiating from positions of pivotal elec toral power both in Southern localities and Northern metro politan districts. The middle-class leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Urban League, moreover, has been supplemented and jostled into new militancy by the direct-action protest or ganizers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Student Nonviolent Co-ordinating Committee (SNCC). Full and mundane possession by Negroes of a reformulated place in the American polity depends, however, on the proliferation of community-level opportunities to learn new skills and roles in civic affairs.

Yesterday's Robin Hood: The Rise and Fall of Baltimore's Trenton Democratic Club

BALTIMORE'S Jack Pollock has never been a city-wide boss in the sense of old-fashioned bosses like Hinky Dink and Bathhouse John of early twentieth-century Chicago. Tom Pendergast of Kansas City, Boss Hague of Jersey City, Boss Crump of Memphis, Mayor Curley of Boston, and Baltimore's own Sonny Mahan; all these were types of urban bosses who are either gone or rapidly passing out. They often seemed quite romantic, these Robin Hood-like brokers of electoral power who organized the vote of the early undifferentiated immigrant masses. Jack Pollock has not the same type of power as these earlier bosses, nor does he serve the same functions. Yet, Pollock has had such absolute power in his home district-Baltimore's Fourth-and has had such a pervasive influence that he has served proper Baltimoreans for almost twenty years as a convenient scapegoat to be loaded down with responsibility for the crimes and civic failings of the community. And Pollock has, until just recently, borne up under the load with great eagerness and cheerfulness. Well he could. He was built of Promethean proportions, a great hulk of a man who grew up an orphaned street gamin in Baltimore's East-side slums and soon was fighting small-time bouts as a heavyweight. His rise was phenomenal. He became quickly a mythological figure. In the aura of mystery which surrounded him there was all the vicarious excitement of the tale of the dead-end kid become overlord. He was extremely good newspaper copy, and the Baltimore Sun fed the Pollock myth as it

Family Voting in France

One of the results of the federal form of government of the United States, under which suffrage and elections are made primarily the concern of the several states, has been the comparatively small part played in practical national politics by controversies relating to voters and voting. The great reform bills and representation of the people acts in England, as well as the conditions in that country under which the acts were adopted, have no close parallels in American political history. Still less closely does the history of this country in these matters resemble that of France. The experience of the Third Republic has been filled with controversy concerning the organization of the electoral power. The limits to this organization are indeed set by the stipulation of the constitution that “the Chamber of Deputies shall be elected by universal suffrage”; but within these limits considerable latitude for change is assured by the qualifying phrase, “in the conditions determined by electoral law.” Change has been frequent, and change has been attended by the controversy mentioned. Thus, there have been since 1875 no fewer than five alternate adoptions of scrutin uninominal and scrutin de liste; and since the separation of church and state was consummated in the beginning of the present century, the question of electoral reform has probably been the chief single issue of internal French politics.