Racial Identity and Voting: Conceptualizing White Identity in Spatial Terms

Abstract

Recent political events have prompted an examination of the analytical tools and conceptual frameworks used in political science to understand voting and candidate choice. Scholars in the behavioral tradition have highlighted the empirical relationship between racial resentment and anti-black affect among white voters during and after President Obama’s successful run for re-election. The theoretical role of white identity within the context of the privileged status of this racial group has seen much less scholarly attention by political scientists, particularly with respect to racial group identification and its implications. To address this lacuna, we argue that racial identification among white voters can be conceived of as a utility-based trait relevant to candidate choice, combining a social-psychological approach of group membership together with a rational choice perspective. This conceptualization of the political utility of white racial identity provides wider conceptual latitude for empirical tests and explanations of voting in U.S. elections.

The Role of Whiteness in the 2016 Presidential Primaries

“…Taken together, this foundational theoretical and empirical research shows that framing racial inequality as either advantage or disadvantage has profound implications for how Americans behave interpersonally, socially, and politically. Understandably, the inequity-framing model is being gradually incorporated into political psychology and ethnic and racial politics research (Lopez Bunyasi 2015; Weller and Junn 2018).…”

“…In a related vein, Jardina’s (2014, 37) theory of dominant group identity asserts that white racial identity—or “a conscious favoritism for one’s ingroup and recognition that one’s group has shared interests”—predicts white political attitudes and behavior under conditions of threat to traditional status. More recently, Weller and Junn (2018) postulate that white racial identity may be a utility-based trait that rationally navigates white Americans toward a political candidate choice. Relatedly, a growing number of researchers are attempting to test the political utility of white racial identity in formulating racial attitudes by replicating Dawson’s (1994) “black utility heuristic,” or linked fate model, for the white population; at present, the concept of white linked fate yields less consistent findings than that of its original predecessor (Miller et al 1981; Sanchez and Vargas 2016; Fowler 2017).…”

A Review of the Popular and Scholarly Accounts of Donald Trump’s White Working-Class Support in the 2016 US Presidential Election

“…Jim-Crow style racism' [92] (p. 439). Weller and Junn [92] argue that there are other ways of thinking about white identity in light of Trump's support among white Americans. They do not see white voters as voting against their material interests by voting for the Republican Party.…”

“…They do not see white voters as voting against their material interests by voting for the Republican Party. Instead, by combining a rational choice voting perspective with a social psychological approach, they conceptualise white racial self-identification as a utility-based trait affecting voting and electoral candidate preferences [92] (p. 437). Seen in this way, White Americans perceptions of their own "whiteness" may be distributed across the cohort in ways identifiable and quantifiable in systematic survey data [92] (pp.…”

“…Despite Lyndon B. Johnson's promise to the contrary [92], no historical "wave" of immigration to the United States has changed the country's demographic makeup more so than the 1965 Immigration Act. Under the 1965 Immigration act, immigrants of nationalities were on an even footing for admittance into the United States whereas they had not been before.…”