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.
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Working Papers
White Identity and Support for Racially Inclusive Political Projects job market paper
What explains white support for racially inclusive political projects, such as welfare, affirmative action, police reform, and movements like Black Lives Matter? I argue that white identity is an important determinant of support in both opinion and behavior. Specifically, I advance a theory of white identity that varies along two key dimensions. The first, consciousness, reflects the cognitive centrality of racial group membership for individuals. The second, valence, indicates how an individual interprets this group membership in the broader social, political, and economic context, and ranges from disadvantage to advantage. Valence, a previously overlooked component of white identity, is an especially powerful predictor of white support for advancing racial inclusion—those with an advantaged valence are more supportive of these political projects while those with a disadvantaged valence remain opposed. To do this, I draw upon a national survey of white Americans from 2022 and an interview evidence from the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area in Minnesota both before and after the 2020 uprising. I find that valence is indeed a powerful determinant of white support for the Black Lives Matter movement, and to a lesser extent police reform and financial reparations for Black Americans. 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
Does framing racial justice policies as part of a broader movement for transitional justice increase public support for enacting reforms? Recent media coverage of racial justice initiatives in the U.S. has been controversial. Even ideologically sympathetic politicians 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 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. In this paper, we focus specifically on racial justice policies associated with defunding the police that reallocate police budgets to things like community and social services. 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 results largely confirm that framing racial justice policies a transitional justice can increase support, especially among Democrats and Independents. This has important implications for scholars by providing a framework for addressing state-centered approaches to justice in the United States, and for activists seeking to garner support for such racial justice policies. Working paper available here.
Mobilizing Middlemen: The Conservative Political Action Conference and the Creation of Party Activists
What role does the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) play in the contemporary two-party system? This paper argues that this conference, and others like it, act as a site for mobilizing "middlemen" to act as the connective tissue between party elite and the mass public. I focus on two related questions: why do individuals attend the conference? And how does the process of mobilization unfold in the context of the conference? Using two rounds of interviews and participant observation from CPAC in 2019 and 2020, this paper typifies the routes to participating that are undertaken by the attendees of CPAC and presents qualitative empirical evidence for the process of mobilization. I find that highly engaged members of the mass public are brought to the conference through multiple routes and are then presented both with ideological information wrapped in the mobilizing language of identity and provided with the tools to be effective middlemen in the conservative movement. Operating outside of formal party structures, events like CPAC play a crucial role in producing cultural and ideological content that connect elites and members of the mass public. Working paper available upon request.
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.
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.
What explains white support for racially inclusive political projects, such as welfare, affirmative action, police reform, and movements like Black Lives Matter? I argue that white identity is an important determinant of support in both opinion and behavior. Specifically, I advance a theory of white identity that varies along two key dimensions. The first, consciousness, reflects the cognitive centrality of racial group membership for individuals. The second, valence, indicates how an individual interprets this group membership in the broader social, political, and economic context, and ranges from disadvantage to advantage. Valence, a previously overlooked component of white identity, is an especially powerful predictor of white support for advancing racial inclusion—those with an advantaged valence are more supportive of these political projects while those with a disadvantaged valence remain opposed. To do this, I draw upon a national survey of white Americans from 2022 and an interview evidence from the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area in Minnesota both before and after the 2020 uprising. I find that valence is indeed a powerful determinant of white support for the Black Lives Matter movement, and to a lesser extent police reform and financial reparations for Black Americans. 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
Does framing racial justice policies as part of a broader movement for transitional justice increase public support for enacting reforms? Recent media coverage of racial justice initiatives in the U.S. has been controversial. Even ideologically sympathetic politicians 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 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. In this paper, we focus specifically on racial justice policies associated with defunding the police that reallocate police budgets to things like community and social services. 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 results largely confirm that framing racial justice policies a transitional justice can increase support, especially among Democrats and Independents. This has important implications for scholars by providing a framework for addressing state-centered approaches to justice in the United States, and for activists seeking to garner support for such racial justice policies. Working paper available here.
Mobilizing Middlemen: The Conservative Political Action Conference and the Creation of Party Activists
What role does the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) play in the contemporary two-party system? This paper argues that this conference, and others like it, act as a site for mobilizing "middlemen" to act as the connective tissue between party elite and the mass public. I focus on two related questions: why do individuals attend the conference? And how does the process of mobilization unfold in the context of the conference? Using two rounds of interviews and participant observation from CPAC in 2019 and 2020, this paper typifies the routes to participating that are undertaken by the attendees of CPAC and presents qualitative empirical evidence for the process of mobilization. I find that highly engaged members of the mass public are brought to the conference through multiple routes and are then presented both with ideological information wrapped in the mobilizing language of identity and provided with the tools to be effective middlemen in the conservative movement. Operating outside of formal party structures, events like CPAC play a crucial role in producing cultural and ideological content that connect elites and members of the mass public. 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.
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.
- 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.
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.
Works in Progress
- Racial Justice is Transitional Justice with Genevieve Bates
- Messaging "Defund the Police": Building Public Support for Police Reform with Genevieve Bates
- Redlining, Restrictive Covenants, and Residential Segregation: the Roots of Racial Attitudes in Minneapolis-St. Paul
- American Public Opinion about Foreign Aid and the Characteristics of Recipient Nations with Avi Ahuja
- Evolving Understandings of Defunding the Police: Evidence from Twitter with Genevieve Bates and Andres Uribe