Minority Politics In Multi-Racial Democracies

30 Pages 7544 Words

ng more minorities in elected office may also be
empowering to minorities and, as a result, stimulate participation. Thus, elected officials may not
serve only to link policy preferences to outcomes, but also to facilitate the democratic process by
bringing constituents into the process and uniting them into a political group (Schwartz 1988).
Research on political participation in the U.S. shows that in districts where a minority is
elected, minority voters are more likely to be interested in and participate in politics, and have a
greater sense of political efficacy and competence. At the presidential level, research shows that
turnout among blacks was stimulated by Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign (Tate 1993). At
the congressional level, in separate studies Lawrence Bobo and Frank Gilliam (1990) and
2
Claudine Gay (1999) show that African-American participation rates are higher in districts where
represented by an African-American. The mechanism behind this increase in participation
appears to be the engagement of the margi...