Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: For vote-maximizing candidates in two-party contests, basic Downsian theory argues for candidate convergence away from their own party’s supporters and toward the views of the median voter in the district, and it also leads us to expect these centripetal pressures to be strongest when elections are expected to be close. Yet, the available evidence from the U.S. Congress – both the work we report here using DW-NOMINATE scores over the 1952-2000 period and that of many other scholars using closely related methodologies – challenges these predictions. Drawing on and extending recent work of Adams, Merrill, and Grofman (2005), we propose a neo-Downsian model to explain non-convergence re-sults. Our model allows us to understand the complex interactions of political competi-tion, partisan loyalties, and incentives for voter turnout that can lead vote-maximizing candidates, even candidates in close elections, to seek to mobilize their voter base in terms of turnout by adopting positions attractive to the party faithful, rather than courting the median voter by moving towards the center. Furthermore, in our model, the winners from the party whose supporters are more ideologically concentrated (in the U.S., the Re-publicans) can be expected to display even less relationship between their ideological lo-cations and election competitiveness in their districts than is true for the representatives from the party whose voters are more ideologically dispersed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study focuses on women of color and their paths to elected office. A central question we pose in this paper is whether there may be distinctive paths to political office for black, Latina and Asian women in comparison to their male counterparts. We explore the paths to political office for women of color elected officials using new data from the Gender and Multicultural Leadership (GMCL) Survey of elected officials of color. The GMCL Survey is a national telephone survey of black, Latino, Asian American female and male officials who serve as state legislators, county commissioners/ supervisors, mayors, members of local governing councils (i.e., city/town councils, boards of selectmen/aldermen), and local school boards.
Drawing from the literature, we identify four dimensions for analysis of trajectories to public office: political socialization, political capital, social capital, and political structure/opportunity. Under each of our analytical dimensions, we find evidence of commonality among women of color, most especially with black and Latina women. Still, we have identified areas where men of color may differ significantly from women of color, such as on political ambition. Nevertheless, racial differences appeared more pronounced on a number of factors, suggesting that there is more evidence that race trumps gender than the other way around. Finally, there is also evidence that race and gender interact in important ways for these groups.
We conclude that the dominant paradigms in political science for understanding path to political office are male-centered, white-centered, and individually centered, and, hence, do not adequately capture the experience of people of color—women or men.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In February 2005 the United States Supreme Court ruled in Johnson v. California that the California Department of Corrections’ practice of racially segregating inmates in two-person cells in its reception centers is to be reviewed under the highest standard of constitutional review available, namely “strict scrutiny.” However, the Johnson case did nothing to explain the phenomena in question; we know very little about how racial segregation is enacted in California’s reception centers. For example, what precisely is the role of California’s policies and practices using race-based classifications in creating both racialized inmates and racialized prisons? To understand this process—what I will call a “negotiated settlement”—I conducted an ethnography in several reception centers in California. As I argue in this paper, the U.S. Supreme Court’s understanding of racial segregation fixates on the perceived threat of the state treating citizens differently on the basis of skin color at the price of ignoring how corrections officials and inmates alike engage in a series of interactions within a highly institutionalized context to produce observable racial segregation. Prison officials embrace and enact a de facto policy of assigning incoming inmates to same-race living environments; at the same time, inmates play a key role in how this process unfolds and what consequences it has.

Publication Type: Traditional Presentation
Abstract: This session will demonstrate how EE centers can become effective catalysts for sustainable practices in neighboring communities. Five pilot studies, that utilized a variety of methods and tools, will be presented to show how to implement and evaluate effective projects.