Dissertation
Shades of White: How White Identity Shapes Attitudes About Racial Politics
My dissertation contributes to a growing scholarly conversation on white identification in American politics and introduces a new conceptualization and measurement of white identity that has explanatory power for the political behavior of white Americans. White identity has largely been conceptualizaed on one dimension which captures the salience of group identification for white individuals. My dissertation instead argues that there are two dimensions of white identity affecting political attitudes and consequently behavior. The first dimension is consciousness, which is the extent to which individuals recognize their whiteness and ensuing social, political, and economic privileges. This dimension is what political scientists generally mean when talking about white identity politics. However, I also identify a second dimension, called valence, that indicates how positively or negatively individuals view whiteness as part of the racial hierarchy, which I conceptualize as ranging from grievance to guilt. Where individuals fall on the dimensions of consciousness and valence is associated with distinct attitudes about racial justice policies and political participation.
These ideas are developed and tested with multiple methods. In February and March 2020, I interviewed 40 self-identified white residents of the Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN metropolitan area about their political identities, understandings of whiteness, and political views. Using an abductive approach to analyzing the interview data, I identify two dimensions of white identity associated with how individuals understand their own whiteness and position in society. The dissertation also advances a novel measurement strategy for capturing variations in consciousness and valence, called the white advantage scale. This survey measurement asks individuals to indicate whether being white has made their lives easier or harder on 8 items that cover social, political, and economic life. This survey allows me to test the theory of white identification on a nationally representative survey sample of 1,185 non-Hispanic white Americans.
In June 2020, Minneapolis erupted into protests after the murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin. The subsequent international and multiracial protests against racial injustice and police brutality shone a critical light on whiteness and white privileges. Leveraging this powerful moment, I recruited half of my original sample and re-interviewed them about their experiences being in the Twin Cities during the uprising and their changing understandings of whiteness and support for Black Lives Matter. I found both that the uprising increased white consciousness across the board, and that variations in consciousness and valence are associated with different responses to the political moment, both with regards to Black Lives Matter and the policies supported by the movement, like police reform and reparations.
My dissertation contributes to a growing scholarly conversation on white identification in American politics and introduces a new conceptualization and measurement of white identity that has explanatory power for the political behavior of white Americans. White identity has largely been conceptualizaed on one dimension which captures the salience of group identification for white individuals. My dissertation instead argues that there are two dimensions of white identity affecting political attitudes and consequently behavior. The first dimension is consciousness, which is the extent to which individuals recognize their whiteness and ensuing social, political, and economic privileges. This dimension is what political scientists generally mean when talking about white identity politics. However, I also identify a second dimension, called valence, that indicates how positively or negatively individuals view whiteness as part of the racial hierarchy, which I conceptualize as ranging from grievance to guilt. Where individuals fall on the dimensions of consciousness and valence is associated with distinct attitudes about racial justice policies and political participation.
These ideas are developed and tested with multiple methods. In February and March 2020, I interviewed 40 self-identified white residents of the Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN metropolitan area about their political identities, understandings of whiteness, and political views. Using an abductive approach to analyzing the interview data, I identify two dimensions of white identity associated with how individuals understand their own whiteness and position in society. The dissertation also advances a novel measurement strategy for capturing variations in consciousness and valence, called the white advantage scale. This survey measurement asks individuals to indicate whether being white has made their lives easier or harder on 8 items that cover social, political, and economic life. This survey allows me to test the theory of white identification on a nationally representative survey sample of 1,185 non-Hispanic white Americans.
In June 2020, Minneapolis erupted into protests after the murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin. The subsequent international and multiracial protests against racial injustice and police brutality shone a critical light on whiteness and white privileges. Leveraging this powerful moment, I recruited half of my original sample and re-interviewed them about their experiences being in the Twin Cities during the uprising and their changing understandings of whiteness and support for Black Lives Matter. I found both that the uprising increased white consciousness across the board, and that variations in consciousness and valence are associated with different responses to the political moment, both with regards to Black Lives Matter and the policies supported by the movement, like police reform and reparations.
Work in Progress
How White Identity Shapes Support for Black Lives Matter: Evidence From Minnesota After George Floyd
What explains white racial attitudes about Black Lives Matter? While existing explanations rely on partisanship and personality traits to explain support, this paper argues that variations in white identification are important for understanding attitudes about racial justice. This paper makes a conceptual contribution by arguing that, in addition to variations in consciousness, there is a second dimension to white identity, called valence, which indicates how positively or negatively people view whiteness. Moreover, this paper argues that certain precipitating events, like the murder of George Floyd, can increase white consciousness across the board, thus making valence more salient for how whites understand racial politics associated with the key event. Using two rounds of interviews from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in Minnesota, this paper presents qualitative evidence for how variation in consciousness and valence shapes racial attitudes before and after protests for racial justice following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.. Working paper available upon request.
Contemporary Conservatism and Identity Politics: How American Identity Animates Conservative Identity
Donald Trump took the Republican party by storm when he announced his presidency in June 2015 and, despite strong party insider opposition, he swept the primary and became the figurehead for the contemporary Republican party. Economic and social conservatives shed their differences and coalesced behind the politics of Trump, forging a new conservative identity. I investigate the meaning of conservative identity to those who are intensely engaged in the conservative movement by attending the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Using a combination ethnographic observation from two years of attending the conference and semi-structured interviews with 35 conference attendees, I evaluate the extent to which contemporary conservative identity makes claims on American identity and what it means to be an American. Working paper available upon request.
Russia Today in America: Testing the Mechanisms of Foreign Interference with Evgenia Olimpieva and Ipek Cinar
What are the mechanisms through which international actors interfere with domestic politics on social media and what makes them successful? We theorize that successful interference unfolds in two stages. First, the outlet needs to reach the audiences. Second, the outlet needs to gain audience trust. We theorize that audience trust can be built on a smaller set of content that is important to the target audience, which is then used to expose the same audiences to other, biased and less trustworthy material. Using the case of Russia’s state-funded international broadcaster, RT, we test our theory of successful international interference focusing on the topic of police, which we argue contributes to both reach and trust. We provide evidence of the reach of RT using quantitative analysis of an original dataset of YouTube videos published on the channel from 2015-2017. Then we qualitatively analyze the framing of RT videos on police and propose a survey experiment to understand how the outlet gains trust among viewers. Working paper available upon request.
Racial Justice as Transitional Justice: Framing and Public Support for Racial Justice Initiatives in the United States with Genevieve Bates
How does the framing of racial justice issues affect support for policies? Recent media coverage of racial justice initiatives in the U.S. have been controversial. Even politicians who are ideologically sympathetic to the cause, like Barack Obama, have criticized demands like defund the police and reparations to Black Americans for injustices of the past and present. While controversial in the U.S., we argue first that these policies are transitional justice mechanisms similar to those employed in countries like those recovering from authoritarian rule, and that they operate in similar ways and encounter similar complexities. As with other transitional justice mechanisms, demand from below can play an important role in supporting or inhibiting the implementation of these policies. But the controversy surrounding the framing of racial justice initiatives may inhibit such support from developing. We use a survey experiment to test whether framing these initiatives as part of an international movement around transitional justice affects whether Americans support them. Our findings have important implications for both scholars and activists looking to garner support for the racial justice movement. Working paper available upon request.
What explains white racial attitudes about Black Lives Matter? While existing explanations rely on partisanship and personality traits to explain support, this paper argues that variations in white identification are important for understanding attitudes about racial justice. This paper makes a conceptual contribution by arguing that, in addition to variations in consciousness, there is a second dimension to white identity, called valence, which indicates how positively or negatively people view whiteness. Moreover, this paper argues that certain precipitating events, like the murder of George Floyd, can increase white consciousness across the board, thus making valence more salient for how whites understand racial politics associated with the key event. Using two rounds of interviews from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in Minnesota, this paper presents qualitative evidence for how variation in consciousness and valence shapes racial attitudes before and after protests for racial justice following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.. Working paper available upon request.
- Related: Don't expect mass Black Lives Matter protests again this summer, Washington Post Monkey Cage. 2021.
- Related: Some context for why Minnepolis became the spark igniting so many protests, MinnPost. 2020.
Contemporary Conservatism and Identity Politics: How American Identity Animates Conservative Identity
Donald Trump took the Republican party by storm when he announced his presidency in June 2015 and, despite strong party insider opposition, he swept the primary and became the figurehead for the contemporary Republican party. Economic and social conservatives shed their differences and coalesced behind the politics of Trump, forging a new conservative identity. I investigate the meaning of conservative identity to those who are intensely engaged in the conservative movement by attending the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Using a combination ethnographic observation from two years of attending the conference and semi-structured interviews with 35 conference attendees, I evaluate the extent to which contemporary conservative identity makes claims on American identity and what it means to be an American. Working paper available upon request.
- Related: In 2020, conservatives believe they're battling to save America's soul by supporting Trump, Washington Post Monkey Cage. 2020.
Russia Today in America: Testing the Mechanisms of Foreign Interference with Evgenia Olimpieva and Ipek Cinar
What are the mechanisms through which international actors interfere with domestic politics on social media and what makes them successful? We theorize that successful interference unfolds in two stages. First, the outlet needs to reach the audiences. Second, the outlet needs to gain audience trust. We theorize that audience trust can be built on a smaller set of content that is important to the target audience, which is then used to expose the same audiences to other, biased and less trustworthy material. Using the case of Russia’s state-funded international broadcaster, RT, we test our theory of successful international interference focusing on the topic of police, which we argue contributes to both reach and trust. We provide evidence of the reach of RT using quantitative analysis of an original dataset of YouTube videos published on the channel from 2015-2017. Then we qualitatively analyze the framing of RT videos on police and propose a survey experiment to understand how the outlet gains trust among viewers. Working paper available upon request.
- Related: "Forcing Their Dirty Fingers into the National Wounds": How Russia Today Targets American Audiences with Content on Police Brutality, Reframing Russia. 2020.
Racial Justice as Transitional Justice: Framing and Public Support for Racial Justice Initiatives in the United States with Genevieve Bates
How does the framing of racial justice issues affect support for policies? Recent media coverage of racial justice initiatives in the U.S. have been controversial. Even politicians who are ideologically sympathetic to the cause, like Barack Obama, have criticized demands like defund the police and reparations to Black Americans for injustices of the past and present. While controversial in the U.S., we argue first that these policies are transitional justice mechanisms similar to those employed in countries like those recovering from authoritarian rule, and that they operate in similar ways and encounter similar complexities. As with other transitional justice mechanisms, demand from below can play an important role in supporting or inhibiting the implementation of these policies. But the controversy surrounding the framing of racial justice initiatives may inhibit such support from developing. We use a survey experiment to test whether framing these initiatives as part of an international movement around transitional justice affects whether Americans support them. Our findings have important implications for both scholars and activists looking to garner support for the racial justice movement. Working paper available upon request.
Publications
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Cole, Geneva (2020), Types of White Identification and Attitudes About Black Lives Matter. Social Science Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12837
Objective. Until recently, whiteness was not considered a politically significant social identity. This study builds on recent work and explores empirically the different ways in which white people understand their whiteness with the objective of recognizing how variations in white identification shape attitudes about the Movement for Black Lives. Methods. I use qualitative analysis of in-depth semistructured interviews to develop a theoretical framework for understanding how white Americans understand and identify with their whiteness and apply this typology to expressed attitudes about Black Lives Matter. Results. I find three distinct patterns of white identification that characterize how white people understand their own race and privilege. These patterns subsequently affect how white Americans understand the experiences of minorities, specifically analyzed through opinions about Black Lives Matter. Conclusion. Variations in the way that white Americans understand their whiteness have tangible effects on the way they approach racial politics, with this paper focused specifically on white attitudes about the Movement for Black Lives. As the movement engages a broad multiracial coalition it is very possible that those who were previously unaware of their whiteness will come to see it as important, with potentially wide-ranging impacts on the future of racial politics in the United States. |