Abstract Despite the tremendous influence politicians have over the lives of the growing number of people in interracial relationships in the United States, little is known about the political beliefs of interracially partnered individuals. Using nationally representative data from the Add Health Study, we find people in interracial relationships generally have more liberal political views than those in same-race relationships, but differences are moderated by the individual’s race/ethnicity, sex, and marital status. Specifically, interracially partnered women have liberal-leaning beliefs, but individuals who are Asian, Hispanic, and married have more conservative-leaning views. Three-way interactions further reveal interracially married Asian and Black persons both have more liberal-leaning political beliefs. The impact the growing prevalence of interracial relationships may have on the future evolution of American political representation and policies is discussed.
Abstract Do American voters of East Asian immigrant backgrounds decide their vote choice based on international issues related to their home countries, or are immigrant-dense communities focused on domestic issues like most American voters? We evaluate these questions using two state senate elections (2022 and 2024) in a highly dense immigrant district (17th State Senate District, Brooklyn, New York), comparing the electoral impact of a high-salience international issue (Taiwan) against a divisive domestic issue (a proposed homeless shelter). We develop measures for both factors and test them with precinct-level data. We find that despite the high share of immigrant-background voters and growing attention to the Taiwan issue in American politics in recent years, the homeless shelter issue dominated the subnational electoral politics of this district. We buttress these results with two analyses of East Asian CMPS respondents, finding that domestic economic issues are more important to these voters than international concerns.
Abstract Racial minority political influence may be jeopardized when constituent subgroups disagree on policy priorities and on the political parties that best represent their interests. In this study, we examine the prevalence of political fracturing— the formation of pluralistic subgroups that coalesce around political ideology, identity, trust, engagement, and issue opinions within broader racial groups—within the Asian American electorate, an increasingly influential minority group. We capitalize on granular data from the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey to assess the prevalence and characterizing features of political fracturing, and we test several possible explanations of political fracturing among Asian Americans, especially those that relate to ethnic variation within the Asian American electorate. Latent class analysis uncovers three distinct classes of roughly equal sizes that broadly align with liberal, conservative, and politically ambivalent groups. Logistic regressions reveal that class membership is predicted by respondent ethnicity, and that age, education, income, and religious identification partly explain effects from ethnicity. These findings uncover evidence of political fracturing among Asian Americans that is not captured by isolated analyses of issue opinion and political participation and suggest that a focus on broad racial categories in minority group politics research may mask considerable political subgroup heterogeneity within minority racial groups.
Abstract Queer people in the United States have been historically over-policed, in a long-standing history of criminalization and oppression by law enforcement. Despite scholars having extensively used administrative records of police stops to uncover racial disparities and bias in law enforcement practices, virtually no studies exist doing the same to examine the discriminatory policing of queerness—by itself, and in the intersection with race. In this article, I fill this gap by analyzing administrative records of ∼3,100,000 stops in the United States between 2018 and 2025, looking at whether civilians perceived as LGBTQ+ are disproportionately targeted by the police in post-stop decisions. Through multiple tests, I find consistent evidence that being queer is associated with a higher probability of being searched, arrested, and be victims of police use of force. Then, using an intersectional approach, I test whether the interaction of race with queerness worsens police discrimination. Results show that bias gets worse for racial minorities who are also LGBTQ+, indicating that a dynamic of intersectional, double disadvantage can be found in police discrimination. This research underscores the importance of applying an intersectional framework to police studies, and the ongoing role of policing in reproducing the marginalization of historically oppressed communities.
Abstract Among White Americans, have attitudes toward the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement become increasingly polarized between 2016 and 2020, and was that polarization sustained through 2024? This study conceptualizes BLM polarization as a growing divergence in attitudes toward the movement—both in overall evaluations and in widening gaps across key orientations such as partisanship, racial resentment, social dominance orientation (SDO), and authoritarianism. Building upon recent work on partisan polarization, I examine individual-level changes in racial attitudes toward BLM over an extended time period and determine if partisanship or other socio-psychological predispositions predict this change. Through the use of the American National Election Studies (ANES) 2016–2020–2024 panel data, I find that BLM polarization occurred from 2016 to 2020 and remained robust from 2020 to 2024. Racial resentment, SDO, and authoritarianism also served as important factors associated with BLM polarization, alongside party affiliation.
This article recovers the international thought of Merze Tate, the first black woman to earn a Ph.D. in government from Harvard's Radcliffe College. I reconstruct Tate's classical realist approach and show how she applies it to the causes of disarmament failure and views race war as a challenge to global racial hierarchy. Tate's realist approach highlights an alternative approach to racism in international politics that centers the international distribution of power. I make my argument through a close reading of Tate's early writings in the 1930s and 1940s and compare it to contemporary writings by W.E.B. Du Bois, Alain Locke, and E.H. Carr. The article makes three contributions: it recovers Tate's intellectual legacy and advances recognition of early twentieth-century black women thinkers; it develops the Howard School of International Relations' contributions to IR theory; and it enriches our understanding of racism in the international system.
We possess a limited understanding of Indigenous electoral behavior, partisanship, and political attitudes. Previous research has mainly focused on explaining Indigenous electoral abstention and has faced constraints, mainly because of small sample sizes. Drawing on data from both the 2019 and 2021 Canadian Election Studies, which encompass an unprecedented number of First Nations, Inuit, and M & eacute;tis respondents, we explore Indigenous electoral behavior, partisanship, and attitudes toward public spending at the federal level in Canada. We show that while Indigenous respondents remain more likely to consider abstention, they can also be more supportive of third parties than their non-Indigenous counterparts and adopt views spanning the traditional left-right ideological spectrum. These findings encourage a redefinition of the expectations regarding the political behaviors and attitudes of Indigenous Peoples in order to fully engage with diverse political cultures.
Black constituents often receive lower-quality responsiveness from elected officials, particularly white representatives. This issue is exacerbated by partisan gerrymandering, which packs Black voters into districts with high majority populations. This trend has led to heightened concerns about increased vote dilution for minority and Democratic voters. This poses an important question: do legislators respond to shifts in their district's racial demographics? Using data from before and after the 2010 redistricting cycle, we examine whether MCs engaged in policy responsiveness to Black constituents. Consistent with prior research, MCs did not sponsor or cosponsor more civil rights bills in response to increases in their Black constituency. However, Democratic MCs are more likely to mention civil rights in floor speeches, and Republican MCs are more likely to vote on bills in a manner consistent with LCCR priorities. These findings provide new insight into the representation Black Americans receive in Congress.
Can economic crises erode ethno-racial solidarity? This study examines linked fate, the belief that one's life is intertwined with others, during the 2008 recession. Using 2004-2016 American National Election Studies data, we apply time-series analysis to test the racial utility heuristic among Black and Latino respondents. Linked fate declines after the recession, continuing through 2012, but the effect is statistically significant only for Black respondents. Financial hardship shows no direct association with linked fate, yet group trends vary by income and education. These findings suggest that while linked fate may be resilient to individual economic strain, macroeconomic downturns can selectively weaken group-based political cohesion.
Public support for judicial independence appears robust on principlein the abstract, but is it resilient? I argue that judicial rulings on identity-salient issues can weaken democratic forbearance by activating racial worldviews that motivate citizens to perceive judges as biased, rationalizing undemocratic penalties. I test this theory using two survey experiments (White and Latino samples) that randomly assign conditions varying the decision direction and the judge's race. A dual-baseline-design comparing a consensus policy control against a neutral decision shows that disliked decisions move both racial liberals and conservatives from undemocratic penalties' rejection toward ambivalence. The effects are symmetric within partisan groups. Perceived judicial bias mediates the relationship, but only among those with strong racial commitments. Among Latinos, the bias-to-penalty process generalizes, but the triggers differ: racial resentment captures anti-Black distancing not defense of White symbols. Findings suggest that public support for judicial independence is conditional on substantive agreement and vulnerable to elite exploitation.
On February 24, 2022, Russia escalated its aggression against Ukraine. In addition to a staggering civilian death toll (i.e., >= 14,383), the Russo-Ukrainian War had generated approximately 5,752,670 refugees as of October 31, 2025. While scholarship on the Russo-Ukrainian War's refugees has centered on the three largest EU destinations-Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic-Spain has emerged as the fourth major host. Given its unique history as a colonizer and that Spanish news outlets demonstrably dehumanized refugees from the Syrian Civil War, we ask: How have Spanish news outlets textually and photographically portrayed the Russo-Ukrainian War's refugees? Conceptually, we entwine Water Metaphors, Off-Whiteness, Orientalism and Sentence-Image. Through a Descriptive Content Analysis and a Visual Framing Approach, we examine the news coverage from El Mundo (n = 97) and El Pa & iacute;s (n = 119) between February 24 and March 15, 2022. We argue that, although both news outlets employed Water Metaphors that conventionally connote dangerousness (e.g., Avalanche), such meanings were textually and photographically disrupted through non-Orientalist, Off-White re-racializing lenses. Consequently, Spanish news outlets portrayed the Russo-Ukrainian War's refugees as "Oriental European Others" whose movement was compelled yet "civilized" and whose whitened visibility rendered them absorbable by the "Western European Us", thereby co-constructing distinctive "Contingent Safe Waters".
American politics scholars have long argued for the centrality of Black group consciousness in political decision-making for African Americans, regardless of class. However, what has not been completely explored is whether there are specific circumstances in which class-based concerns are prioritized for middle-class African Americans over racial group considerations. This paper explores whether the specific circumstance of direct economic threat heightens the relevance of class considerations over racial group considerations for local redistributive policy preferences among Black homeowners. Utilizing a novel survey experiment, I directly pit economic self-interest against racial group solidarity to analyze the prioritized political consideration for affluent Black political decision-making. I argue that the strength of racial group solidarity will extend to African American homeowners foregoing their own economic self-interest, defined as their property value, for the benefit of the overall racial group. Findings support my hypotheses and demonstrate that Black homeowners higher in linked fate are most likely to show the highest levels of support for the redistributive policy when low-income tenants are explicitly described as Black, as compared to the White condition or the control. These findings point to the effects and non-effects of economic self-interest in Black political decision-making depending on the racialized context. Lastly, this inquiry points to the resilience of Black group racial solidarity and its role in the formation of Black policy preferences irrespective of class-based intra- group differences.
Using data from Afrobarometer surveys conducted across 39 countries (n approximate to 53,000), this study examines the relationship between ethnic identification and public attitudes toward interethnic marriage in Africa. Descriptive analyses indicate that most Africans are either supportive of or indifferent toward such unions. However, multivariate regression results show that individuals who identify more strongly with their ethnicity than their nationality are significantly less likely to support interethnic marriage. This negative association is particularly strong among rural residents. These findings suggest that strong ethnic identification can act as a barrier to social integration in multiethnic societies. They also highlight the importance of policies that foster inclusive national identities and encourage intergroup engagement through education and civic initiatives.
Previous studies indicate that in the United States, the effects of climate change disproportionately impact communities of color. Accordingly, we would expect racial/ethnic minorities to express greater concern over the environment than white Americans. However, racial/ethnic minorities are not monolithic. Therefore, we examine how intersectional identities within racial groups by partisanship and gender shape attitudes on the environment using the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey and the Climate Change in the American Mind (cross-sectional study 2008-2022). Our findings indicate that racial/ethnic minorities are more supportive of policies to combat climate change and are more likely to believe in climate change than white Americans. Latine and Asian American/Pacific Islanders also exhibit higher levels of anxiety about climate change compared to white Americans. In terms of intersectional identities, we find consistent partisan differences for Latine and White individuals, whereas gender and racial identity are inconsistent.
This article examines the Rio-based nonpartisan organization, the Marielle Franco Institute's digital strategies to appeal to Afro-Brazilian voters. The literature reveals that most Afro-Brazilian voters do not vote along racial lines. However, scholarship also reveals that politicians make racial appeals to Afro-Brazilian voters. I argue that the MFI uses digital media to mobilize Afro-Brazilian voters to support progressive political candidates. I find that it seeks to mobilize them in four ways. The first is the Marielle Franco Agenda, an interactive platform that features progressive political candidates with similar agenda issues as Franco. Second, they highlight political candidates that are practitioners of African-derived religions. The third is that it promotes coalition politics through its collaboration with another nonpartisan organization to promote progressive candidates, and lastly, the MFI highlights candidates with a pro-Black woman aesthetic that challenges the notion that political spaces are nonblack spaces.
The symbiotic relationships between Black politics and religious institutions have often been understood through the lens of the Civil Rights Era and the political significance of the Black Church. Today, religious organizations remain an important pillar of Black political organizing, with particular focus on Black Protestant Churches. Given the increasing Black Muslim population, we examine the relationship between Black religious socialization and political attitudes. We view these identities intersectionally and investigate how religion may produce within-group differences with respect to both religious and racial identity development, which in turn produces some variation in political attitudes. Using the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-election Survey (CMPS) and the 2020 PEW Survey of Black Faith, we demonstrate that perceptions of Black collective identity and religious identity differ for Black Christians and Black Muslims. Importantly, linked fate and identity importance differently predict political attitudes even if the political attitudes fundamentally remain similar.
This study explores how four prominent Indian American Republican leaders: Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Kash Patel, and Harmeet Dhillon navigate and represent their ethnic, religious, and immigrant identities within a party shaped by conservative and assimilationist norms, and the strategies they employ to downplay their differences with conservative ideologies while reinforcing their alignment with conservatism. Using Postcolonial Theory and DesiCrit, this qualitative, multiple case study examines their rhetorical and visual strategies, speeches, debates, interviews, news, and imagery. The analysis uncovers patterns of representation and ideological framing that these leaders use to mobilize or erase ethnic and cultural identities. Findings indicate that while these figures project racial diversity, their calibrated performances rarely disrupt dominant power structures, exposing the paradox of representation in conservative politics. This inquiry foregrounds the conditional nature of inclusion and the constraints placed on racialized subjects within systems that remain tethered to normative whiteness and Christian hegemony.
The European Union stands at a crossroads. Its founding promises of peace, convergence, and multilateralism are increasingly strained by debt, migration, sovereignty, and militarization. The introduction to this Special Issue begins with the question: who is the EU for? To stretch this question analytically we move beyond conventional debates on globalization and sovereignty foregrounding the colonial and racialized conditions that shape European integration. Colonialism, we argue, remains operative, structuring the production of race, racism, and anti-Blackness within and beyond Europe. Drawing on radical traditions of thought on colonialism and anti-Blackness, critical political economy, postcolonial theory, and institutional analysis, the introduction reframes the analytic of who the EU is for by showing how the Union's commitment to universal values coexists with practices that reproduce hierarchies of life and death. We argue that the EU operates as a form of global power that mobilizes race and racism as constitutive mechanisms of legitimacy, authority, mobility, and value. Contemporary militarization, through defense integration, rearmament, and strategic autonomy, intensifies these dynamics by recoding racial hierarchies as security imperatives. Competing responses, from right-wing sovereign internationalism to left critiques of neoliberalism, rarely confront Europe's colonial and racialized constitutive role in sustaining global inequalities. These unresolved contradictions and failures open up urgent questions about how Europe's political and economic order continues to reproduce global hierarchies of power. It is precisely this tension that the special issue takes up, responding by engaging the intertwined colonial and racist projects in the EU. The contributors collectively frame crisis as a key site through which colonial violence is reconfigured, displaced, and normalized in contemporary EU governance. In so doing, they reposition the EU not as a neutral arbiter of order, but as an active geopolitical site where racialized and imperial forms of power are continuously produced, contested, and reimagined.
Ideological diversity has long characterized the Black community, yet this diversity has historically manifested as political homogeneity in electoral participation. While Black men vote for Democratic candidates at lower rates than Black women, they continue to support Democrats at higher rates than Latino, Asian, and white men and women. Despite their comparatively high turnout, Black men are frequently scapegoated for Democratic losses, even while the party has acknowledged Black women's loyalty. We argue that Black men's political leanings reflect a complex interplay of gendered, racial, and ideological forces, particularly their attitudes toward Black women, white men, and broader policy concerns. We also argue that, compared with Black women, Black men disproportionately use Black-led podcasts as counterpublics, spaces outside mainstream consciousness to discuss issues internal to the Black community. Using content analysis of Black male-hosted podcasts from 2014-2025 and data from the 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS), we show that Black men's Democratic party support, although not as strong as Black women's, remains robust. We introduce the Black Patriarchy Index, which captures dimensions of hostile sexism, bootstrap racial uplift ideology, and rejection of intersectional solidarity. Our findings demonstrate that the modest but significant rise in conservatism among Black men relative to Black women can be partially explained by higher scores on this index, illustrating how Black men's conservative attitudes shape political ideology and party loyalty within the Black electorate.
Population resettlement, an integral part of settler colonialism, has also been practiced in post-colonial countries to obtain territorial control over the contested territories. Studies analyze resettlements in relation to settler-colonial and post-colonial states. The resettlement policies of the Nepali state, which has remained independent throughout its history, are outside their attention. Nepal relocated its dominant Hill Hindu high-caste people to the Tarai region to enhance economic growth and development. However, settlement projects hindered languages, cultures, customary laws, and natural resources of the Madhesi and the Tharu Indigenous Peoples, ultimately displacing them from their ancestral territories. In response, ethnic and Indigenous Peoples intensified their demands for autonomy and self-rule, which they considered as measures to prevent further erosion of their collective rights. This finding contests the prevailing theoretical explanations that population resettlement projects weaken ethnic solidarity, illustrating that settlement projects can also become a reason for heightening autonomy movements.
