Government & Politics Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2775
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Item Black Racial Grievance, Black American Identity, and Black Political Participation(2024) St Sume, Jennifer; Laird, Chryl; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores the relationship among Black racial grievance, Black American identity, and Black political participation. Black racial grievance is defined as the extent to which Black individuals believe their racial group is mistreated in the United States. This study is divided into three articles. The first article explores the link between Black racial grievance and Black American identity. Political science research has found that racial discrimination makes Black people feel less American (Huddy and Khatib 2007; Kam and Ramos 2008; Theiss-Morse 2009; Levundusky 2017). However, the consequences of discrimination and how they shape what it means to be a Black American remain underexplored. This paper addresses this critical gap, arguing that Black Americans consider their racial group’s treatment and the consequences of this treatment in their self-conception as Americans. I propose a new six-item measure of Black racial grievance, capturing Black perceptions of unfair treatment regarding their racial group, the current significance of racial grievance, and their awareness of these grievances across social, political, and economic domains. Using two national samples, I find that Black people who score higher on the racial grievance measure—indicative of a belief that the mistreatment of their racial group is a problem to be addressed across American society —feel less American. These findings underscore the importance of institutional inequality in Black politics. The second article examines the relationship between Black racial grievance and Black political participation. Previous research has employed measures such as relative deprivation, group consciousness, politicized collective identity, and linked fate to predict Black political participation. However, these measures fail to explain how individuals define their personal Black racial grievance, overlooking how these grievances shape Black participation. These shortcomings are driven by the assumption that little variation exists in Black political behavior. Accordingly, I argue that Black Americans rely on specific evaluations of racial grievance to determine whether to participate in politics. I develop a refined measure of Black racial grievance that captures the extent to which an individual perceives their racial group as being treated unfairly across various domains. I validate this measure through factor analysis and assess its robustness by comparing it to previous measures. As a proof of concept, I find that Black people who score higher on the racial grievance scale—those who feel their group is treated unfairly in more domains of society—and feel strongly attached to their racial group are more likely to participate in politics. The third article investigates the causal links among Black racial grievance, Black American identity, and Black political participation. Current research suggests that Black participation is motivated by perceptions of discrimination (Klandermans, 2014). To date, scant research has explored the interplay among Black racial grievance, Black American identity, and Black political participation. Therefore, this study addresses this gap by evaluating how Black racial grievance shapes political behavior among Black Americans. Using data from a national survey of 505 Black adults, I introduce a new measure of Black racial grievance and explore its impact on political engagement. The findings reveal that while experiencing racial discrimination increases racial grievance, it also complicates the relationship with political participation. Specifically, elevated levels of racial grievance correlate with decreased political participation in contexts where individuals feel disillusioned with the prospect of systemic changes. Thus, Black people with high Black racial grievance may choose not to vote or engage in political campaigns if they believe these actions will not lead to meaningful change. This article illustrates how Black racial grievance can sometimes hinder political action. Overall, this dissertation offers three significant contributions to the study of Black political behavior. First, it provides a novel framework to explain how Black people process racial mistreatment. Second, it highlights the intricate interplay among racial grievance, identity, and political action. Third, it lays the groundwork for future research on policy interventions tailored to the unique challenges faced by Black Americans. Ultimately, this work enhances the understanding of systemic marginalization and improves the ability to foster a more inclusive and equitable democracy.Item DUAL IDENTITY AND ETHNIC PROTEST IN DIVERSE SOCIETIES(2019) Ives, Brandon Jeffrey; Cunningham, David E; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)What are the conditions in which some countries experience ethnic protests, while others do not? What are the conditions in which an ethnic community member will protest? What explains why some ethnic community members initiate an ethnic protest and some join later? Ethnicity is a crucial societal cleavage and ethnic protest a critical subtype of protest. It is not gender or class that challenge the territorial sovereignty of states, but ethnic-based opposition groups, often in the form of self-determination movements, that make the most extreme demands in terms of separatist policies. This dissertation adjudicates between conflicting expectations in the literature for why ethnic community members protest and why countries experience ethnic protest. It argues that an ethnic member’s decision to join an ethnic protest is affected by whether the ethnic member identifies primarily with the ethnic group, or with the ethnic group and the national group (dual identity) as well as if the ethnic member resides in a democracy or non-democracy. An ethnic member’s likelihood of ethnic protest participation impacts a country’s likelihood of ethnic protest. A multimethod approach tests the theoretical expectations. Survey-experiments amongst Afro-Panamanians in Panama (which is a democracy), and Greek Orthodox in Lebanon (which is less democratic) examine the micro-level expectations. Interviews with Syrian refugees in Lebanon and with Syrians in Syria via Skype complement the survey-experimental work. The micro-level analysis finds that in non-democracies, dual identity is associated with a decrease in ethnic protest participation likelihood. The decrease is greater during later stages of an ethnic protest. In democracies, however, higher levels of dual identity do not associate with a decrease in ethnic protest participation likelihood. Event data and Afrobarometer survey data are used to examine the conditions in which countries experience ethnic protest. Consistent with the micro-level analysis, in non-democracies, dual identity is associated with a decrease in ethnic protest likelihood. The dissertation finds a previously unexplored conditional effect of identity. In non-democracies, even with a simultaneous ethnic identity, maintaining a national identity can decrease intent to protest.