Introduced by Ray Block Jr., Brown-McCourtney Career Development Professor in the McCourtney Institute and Associate Professor of Political Science and African American Studies (Pennsylvania State University).
The articles included in the American Political Science Review’s Special Collection on Voting Rights span a diverse array of disciplinary subfields and methodologies. I organize this important literature using a framework that emphasizes the core concepts of social identity and political involvement. The former is often discussed in terms of race, gender, sexuality, social class, ability, and the many other demographic categories people use to describe themselves and others; the latter captures psychological and behavioral forms of political expression by the elites and the masses. People can express their political involvement psychologically (e.g., via their trust in government, interest in politics, sense of efficacy) or behaviorally (e.g., by voting, donating to a candidate’s campaign, protesting). As Lee (2008) masterfully argues, identity correlates in complicated ways with involvement. I will therefore introduce the articles of this special issue with special attention to what these valuable contributions tell us about the role that identity plays in our understanding of voting and voting rights. While most of the articles in this collection explore this relationship at the mass-level (i.e., looking at identity and politics among the rank-and-file), several authors shift this focus, choosing instead to conduct elite-level studies of the identity-to-politics link among politicians, party leaders, lobbyists, and so on.
Social identity and mass-level political involvement
A host of mass-level studies in this collection can be cataloged using this framework. Consider the research on political empowerment, where social identity is often measured in terms of whether or not racial and ethnic minorities win elections. Political involvement typically records the turnout rates and candidate preferences of minority voters. Bobo and Gilliam (1996) wrote a foundational piece on Black Americans, and a burgeoning literature in global politics began to evaluate women’s empowerment (see, e.g., Leijenaar, 2013; Nelson, 2012; Sharma, 2020).
Political theorists often ponder the quality of citizens—debating, for example, about how successful a democracy can truly be if most of its residents are politically uninformed. Though seldom stated, the identity in question here is that of the good citizen. Abramson et al. (1992) join this debate by studying Americans' capacity to be “sophisticated” voters (i.e., to realize that it is sometimes best to abandon our initial preferences and cast a ballot for a less appealing but perhaps more electable candidate). They find that most citizens are capable of making these difficult choices. Like their colleagues who explore sophisticated voting, Lau and Redlawsk (1997) examine whether or not people are casting the vote that accords with their political interests (assuming that political information is necessary for voters to make an informed choice, and that for many reasons, not all citizens are able to access or process the requisite information). They find that most voters can make the correct decision: the candidates they often select are the ones they would choose if they had had fuller information about them at the outset.
Several authors in this collection explore the structural and institutional dynamics of the identity-to-politics link. For example, when people think of barriers to voting, poll taxes, grandfather/grandmother clauses, voter intimidation tactics and the like are what come to mind. Matthews and Prothro (1963a; 1963b) offer comprehensive analyses of these and other topics. These obvious barriers are less common today; however, that does not mean that everyone has equal access to voting. Squire et al. (1987) explain that people who have recently moved and therefore need to change their voter registration face a unique participatory burden. Rosenstone and Wolfinger (1978) demonstrate that changes like early deadlines for applying for a mail ballot and limited voter registration hours at city hall can have a disproportionately adverse impact on low-education voters and those living in the South. On a more optimistic note, Nagler (1991) demonstrates that, while restrictive voter registration laws can depress turnout, concerns over whether low-education voters are particularly susceptible to the demobilizing effect of such restrictions are overblown. In his comparative analysis of political institutions, Jackman (1987) attributes national differences in turnout rates to differences in electoral laws. Moving from voting laws to broader conversations about government, the ever-expanding work on politics and the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., Block et al. 2022) makes it clear that we need more research on the ways in which voters galvanize around national crises. While overall voter turnout is largely unaffected by mass shootings, Garcia-Montoya et al. (2022) show that Democratic candidates enjoy greater vote shares in the wake of such violent and catastrophic events.
Others examine the identity-to-politics link from the perspective of the criminal justice system. Several papers provide clear evidence in support of the “racial threat” hypothesis, showing that increases in mass incarceration as a measure of “social control” often accompany Black political gains. While providing historical evidence of the relationship between an area’s racial composition and the political decision making of its White residents (see, e.g., Key 1949; Matthews and Prothro 1966), Fording (2001) discovers that an increase in incarceration rates is often a state’s response to Black-led protests. Likewise, Eubanks and Fresh (2022) show that mass incarceration as a measure of anti-Black social control tends to be highest in jurisdictions that had not been covered by the now-defunct Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Taking a more contemporaneous look at the carceral state, White (2019), demonstrates that the potentially demobilizing effect of being incarcerated, even briefly, is disproportionately pronounced for Black Americans. And even when a state takes the initiative to remove barriers, these measures may be insufficient. Morris (2021) illustrates that Florida’s Amendment Four, which re-enfranchised voters who had previously been disenfranchised felons, did not increase turnout in neighborhoods and households where formerly incarcerated individuals live.
Many of these mass-level studies focus on partisanship as a social identity. Abramson and Aldrich (1982) investigated the post-1960 decline in voter turnout, attributing it to corresponding dips in voters’ identification with a political party and to a loss of faith that their government is responsive to their needs. In their study of gubernatorial elections, Patterson and Caldeira (1983) urge readers to appreciate more fully the role of the mobilization activities of campaigns and competitive elections in voter turnout.
Social identity and elite-level political involvement
Brady (1973) departs from other studies to explore the identity-to-politics link at the elite level. Brady connects the competitiveness of the Democratic and Republican parties in Congress and party discipline in Congress, operationalized as the likelihood of members to support party-consistent legislation. Not surprisingly, discipline is strongest when competition is greatest.
While many of these partisanship studies in this collection focus on the role of party identification in the electorate, Crotty (1971) studies parties as political organizations, asking, “How successful are parties at affecting election outcomes?” He finds the answer in the efforts of local party leaders and party workers: to get their candidates elected, members of party organizations must navigate their unique institutional arrangements, their resources or lack thereof, the competitiveness of the election, and voter sentiment.
Proctor (2022) offers a case study of the formation of gay and lesbian electoral constituencies. Through rich qualitative analyses of archival data, the author demonstrates that party activists and elites can shape group identity just as much as identity exists exogenously to political parties (as pre-existing and fully formed things along which partisanship sorts). Like the other authors in this section, Proctor reminds us that appreciating the complex construction of identity boundaries is important not only in the context of LGBTQ politics but also elite-level efforts can ultimately affect mass-level political outcomes.
Concluding remarks
In this introductory essay, I propose a framework that not only consolidates multiple literatures, particularly those pertaining to the identity-to-politics link and voting behavior but that also draws connections between studies that are often discussed separately. Through a review of the research in the APSR’s Special Collection on Voting Rights, I offer evidence of the usefulness of this framework. The broader fertility of this framework is an open question, for future research can and should explore the degree to which other lines of scholarship can be organized according to what they have to say about social identity and political involvement. I therefore invite readers to use this framework to generate new research questions and test them in novel ways.
I hope that this essay serves as a resource for those who want a thematic introduction to the articles showcased in this prestigious journal.
The articles below are available free of charge until the end of November 2022.
African Voting Articles
American Voting Articles
Asian Voting Articles
Comparative Voting Article
European Voting Articles
Latin American Voting Articles
References
Block Jr, Ray, Michael Burnham, Kayla Kahn, Rachel Peng, Jeremy Seeman, and Christopher Seto. 2022. Perceived Risk, Political Polarization, and the Willingness to Follow COVID-19 Mitigation Guidelines. Social Science & Medicine 305: 115091.
Key Jr, Valdimer O. 1949. Southern Politics in State and Nation. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
Lee, Taeku. 2008. Race, Immigration, and the Identity-To-Politics Link. Annual Review of Political Science 11: 457-478.
Matthews, Donald R., and James Warren Prothro. 1966. Negroes and the New Southern Politics. New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace & World,
Morris, Kevin. 2021. Turnout and Amendment Four: Mobilizing Eligible Voters Close to Formerly Incarcerated Floridians. American Political Science Review, 115(3), 805-820.
Nelson, E. E. 2012. Democracy and the Struggle for Political Empowerment of Women in Nigeria. International Journal of Advanced Legal Studies & Governance 3: 85-99.
Sharma, E. 2020. Women and Politics: A Case Study of Political Empowerment of Indian Women. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 40(7 & 8): 607-626.
The author would like to thank Lee Ann Banaszak, Kathryn Sophia Belle, Christina Haynes, Sona Golder, Matt Golder, and Jennifer Hamer for comments their feedback and encouragement on an earlier draft of this introduction.