Steadfast Democrats - (Princeton Studies in Political Behavior) by Ismail K White & Chryl N Laird

About the Book

"Over the last half century, there has been a marked increase in ideological conservatism among African Americans, with nearly 50% of black Americans describing themselves as conservative in the 2000s, as compared to 10% in the 1970s. Support for redistributive initiatives has likewise declined. And yet, even as black Americans shift rightward on ideological and issue positions, Democratic Party identification has stayed remarkable steady, holding at 80% to 90%. It is this puzzle that White and Laird look to address in this new book: Why has ideological change failed to push black Americans into the Republican party? Most explanations for homogeneity have focused on individual dispositions, including ideology and group identity. White and Laird acknowledge that these are important, but point out that such explanations fail to account for continued political unity even in the face of individual ideological change and of individual incentives to defect from this common group behavior. The authors offer instead, or in addition, a behavioral explanation, arguing that black Americans maintain political unity through the establishment and enforcement of well-defined group expectations of black political behavior through a process they term racialized social constraint. The authors explain how black political norms came about, and what these norms are, then show (with the help of survey data and lab-in-field experiments) how such norms are enforced, and where this enforcement happens (through a focus on black institutions). They conclude by exploring the implications of the theory for electoral strategy, as well as explaining how this framework can be used to understand other voter communities"--

Book Synopsis

A groundbreaking look at how group expectations unify Black Americans in their support of the Democratic party

Black Americans are by far the most unified racial group in American electoral politics, with 80 to 90 percent identifying as Democrats--a surprising figure given that nearly a third now also identify as ideologically conservative, up from less than 10 percent in the 1970s. Why has ideological change failed to push more Black Americans into the Republican Party? Steadfast Democrats answers this question with a pathbreaking new theory that foregrounds the specificity of the Black American experience and illuminates social pressure as the key element of Black Americans' unwavering support for the Democratic Party.

Ismail White and Chryl Laird argue that the roots of Black political unity were established through the adversities of slavery and segregation, when Black Americans forged uniquely strong social bonds for survival and resistance. White and Laird explain how these tight communities have continued to produce and enforce political norms--including Democratic Party identification in the post-Civil Rights era. The social experience of race for Black Americans is thus fundamental to their political choices. Black voters are uniquely influenced by the social expectations of other Black Americans to prioritize the group's ongoing struggle for freedom and equality. When navigating the choice of supporting a political party, this social expectation translates into affiliation with the Democratic Party. Through fresh analysis of survey data and original experiments, White and Laird explore where and how Black political norms are enforced, what this means for the future of Black politics, and how this framework can be used to understand the electoral behavior of other communities.

An innovative explanation for why Black Americans continue in political lockstep, Steadfast Democrats sheds light on the motivations consolidating an influential portion of the American electoral population.

Review Quotes

"a great book . . . which really talks about the ways in which we would have expected Black voters to move -- more away from the Democratic Party -- based on changes in their ideological beliefs, based on changes in their views of different policy issues over the years. . . . I . . . read and reread [it] to really understand . . . the missing puzzle piece of this Republican racial realignment."-- "Patrick Ruffini on the Ezra Klein Show"

"Co-Winner of the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section Best Book Award, American Political Science Association"

"Finalist for the PROSE Award in Government and Politics, Association of American Publishers"

"Provocative."---Charles Lane, Washington Post

"Winner of the American Political Science Association Best Book Award"

About the Author

Ismail K. White is professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University. White is the coeditor of African-American Political Psychology: Identity, Opinion, and Action in the Post-Civil Rights Era. Chryl N. Laird is assistant professor of political science at the University of Maryland. Twitter @chryllaird