711 Discussion Questions for Readings on Are Policy Attitudes Driven by Racial Attitudes in the U.S.?

III. Are Policy Attitudes Driven by Racial Attitudes in the U.S.? (Note: lots of reading this week)

1. Donald R. Kinder and Lynn M. Sanders. 1997. Divided by Color: Racial Politics and Democratic Ideals. Univ of Chicago Pr., chs 1-7. 
2. Paul M. Sniderman and Edward G. Carmines. 1999. Reaching Beyond Race. Harvard Univ Pr.
3. Feldman and Huddy. “Racial Resentment and White Opposition to Race-Conscious Programs: Principles or Prejudice?” American Journal of Political Science, January 2005 - Vol. 49 Issue 1.
4. Martin Gilens “Racial Attitudes and Race-Neutral Social Policies: White Opposition to Welfare and the Politics of Racial Inequality.” In Hurwitz and Peffley, (Eds.), Perception and Prejudice. Yale, 1999.

1. Rivalry between authors is legendary. Mixture of Science, Ideology, and personal animosities. Mac: Divisions are even greater and more acrimonious in this field. Each of 4 sets of theorist promoting his own theory and trashing all others. Each looks at practically the same evidence and interprets it as supportive of his/her theory and trashing all others.

1. To what extent can the theoretical and empirical frameworks employed by the authors of this week’s readings be extended to study attitudes toward other groups, like gays, women, Asians, Christian fundamentalists, Arab Muslims, and so on? To what degree is a criticism of public opinion research, in general—that studies focus mainly on attitudes, not behavior—also hold true of these studies?

2. A question to ask at the end of our discussion: Do you feel more or less enlightened after reading these two books about the same topic, but authored by individuals with “subtly?” opposing views?

3. Here are a few questions about methods: Can we ever hope to uncover public opinion on something as complex, conflictual and controversial as race, when many times we don’t know how we ourselves feel? What are the strengths and weaknesses of survey experiments like those employed in Kinder and Sanders (K&S) and Sniderman and Carmines (S&C) compared to traditional survey methods and experimental designs? Are survey experiments the best of all worlds or are they limited in many respects? PS: remind me to talk about unobtrusive methods of measuring racial prejudice, a la Kuklinski and others (e.g., “Racial Attitudes and the New South."), as well as implicit racial bias (Implicit Association Test (IAT), see https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/ .

Kinder and Sanders:

4. Although K&S argue that “no single sovereign theory will do,” they find that racial resentment (a proxy for racial prejudice) plays a much greater role in shaping policy attitudes that self- or group-interests and principles, at least in their empirical analyses. Do all perspectives compete in the empirical analysis on a level playing field, in your view, or are some perspectives somehow (dis)advantaged by how they are measured and how they are assessed vis a vis other perspectives?

5. If group-interests don’t matter, how does one account for the inter-racial divide?

6. What are some of the most interesting and surprising findings with respect to the impact of values or principles on whites’ and blacks’ support for various racial and non-racial policies? If these race-neutral principles are important, does that mean that racial prejudice is not an important antecedent of such policy attitudes?

7. How would you evaluate K&S’s measure of racial resentment? Is it, in fact, a reasonable proxy for racial prejudice, as K&S suggest? Why or why not? What do K&S mean by their argument that other researchers have “whitewashed” the study of prejudice and racial attitudes?

Sniderman and Carmines:

8. This is just a “touchy-feely” question: Do you think S&C are sincere in assuming the role of liberals who are saddened about the divisiveness of affirmative action for the liberal or Democratic coalition, or is there something more at work here?

9. Is opposition to affirmative action driven by prejudice, according to the authors? Given the small variation that the authors report on affirmative action attitudes, is anything likely to be able to predict opposition to affirmative action, as measured this way? Are whites opposed to all race-specific (affirmative action-like) programs? See Figure 19, later in the book. Is opposition to affirmative action driven by economics and self-interest? Is the authors’ evidence convincing on this matter? Why or why not? Does it compare favorably with the evidence in K&S?

10. Is there another way to interpret the results of the Justification Experiment?

11. What are the implications of the “Mere Mention” experiment, according to S&C? S&C argue that the “Mere Mention” experiment is not, after all, a Willie Horton ad. What do they mean by this, and do you agree?

12. What does the unobtrusive List Experiment tell us that is different from attitudes measured in the usual way?

13. Is prejudice a weak predictor of whites’ racial policy views? In what way is the power of prejudice greater on the left than the right? Does this exonerate conservatives? Are liberals who dislike blacks really liberals? Are conservatives who say they like blacks really positive toward them? Do you draw the same conclusions from the Government Dependency Experiment, Integration experiment?

14. Does the very same policy framed in racially neutral terms get markedly more public support than race-specific policies? Do the authors provide compelling evidence for abandoning race-specific policies?

Feldman and Huddy:

15. What implications does Feldman and Huddy’s study have for Kinder and Sanders and the measure of racial resentment? Are there policies on which conservatives might exhibit some of the same asymmetries as liberals?

Gilens:

16. What implications does Gilens’ study have for Sniderman and Carmines’ conclusions about the likely levels of public support for racial-neutral policies versus race-specific policies?