ABSTRACT

This paper assesses the influence of racial outreach on Black political participation in the context of United States electoral politics. We argue that racial appeals should inspire higher levels of Black voter enthusiasm because they, in part, improve perceptions of empathy from politicians. However, we expect that racial outreach will matter more when it comes from non-descriptive representatives because Black representatives are perceived as empathetic regardless of their actions. We test these hypotheses using two separate experiments. We find that Black Americans are more politically active when non-Black politicians discuss their intentions to advance Black political interest. We also find that racial appeals provided by descriptive representatives is not a significant predictor of Black voter turnout. Our analysis demonstrates that under certain conditions racial outreach plays an important role in mobilizing underrepresented groups.

摘要

本文评估了美国选举政治背景下种族外展对黑人政治参与的影响。我们认为，种族诉求应该激发更高水平的黑人选民热情，因为它们在一定程度上提高了政治家对同理心的看法。然而，我们预计种族外展在来自非描述性代表时会更重要，因为无论他们的行为如何，黑人代表都被认为是善解人意的。我们使用两个独立的实验来检验这些假设。我们发现，当非黑人政治家讨论他们促进黑人政治利益的意图时，美国黑人在政治上更加活跃。我们还发现，描述性代表提供的种族诉求并不是黑人选民投票率的重要预测因素。