theatlantic | The
recent unrest in Baltimore, Ferguson, and other cities is puzzling in
one important respect. Unlike in earlier eras, when African Americans’
political exclusion drove them to protest, blacks today are as likely
to vote as whites and are well represented at all levels of government.
The mayor of Baltimore and a majority of its city council are black. So
are forty-five
members of Congress—an all-time high. And, at the other end of
Pennsylvania Avenue, so is the current occupant of the White House. Why
all the turmoil, then, at a time when blacks—finally—seem to be enjoying
the fruits of American democracy?
One answer is that the appearance of
black political clout is deceiving. Despite their gains in participation
and representation, blacks continue to fare worse than whites in
converting their policy preferences into law. This poor performance is
more revealing than statistics on turnout or black electoral success.
And even though its causes remain mysterious, it is very much a
rationale for frustration with the status quo.
In a recent study, I analyzed group political power at the federal and state levels. At the federal level, I relied on a remarkable database
compiled by Princeton political scientist Martin Gilens. It includes
responses to thousands of survey questions from the last few decades.
Crucially, it also tracks whether each policy referred to by a question
was adopted by the federal government over the next four years. At the
state level, I measured people’s ideologies using exit polls that asked whether they are liberal, moderate, or conservative. And I assessed state laws using an index of overall policy liberalism created by another pair of scholars.
At both levels, I found that blacks hold much less sway
than whites. For example, a federal policy with no white support has
only a 10 percent chance of being enacted, while one with universal
white support has a 60 percent shot of adoption. But while a proposal
with no black support has a 40 percent chance of becoming law, one
enjoying unanimous approval has only a 30 percent probability of
enactment. In other words, as support for a policy rises within the
black community, the odds of it being achieved actually decline.
Likewise, whether most black voters are
conservative or liberal, state legislative outcomes barely budge. But
vary the views of white voters to an equivalent degree, and a state’s
policies go from looking like Alabama’s to resembling Michigan’s, even
controlling for black and white population size.
The story is similar for several other groups. The more that women, the poor, or Hispanics support a federal policy, the less
likely the policy is to be enacted. Strikingly, as women move from
universal opposition to a proposal to universal support, its odds of
adoption plummet from 75 percent to 10 percent. Changes in the ideology
of female or poor voters also have no effect on state legislative
outcomes (although shifts in the views of Hispanic voters do). In
contrast, both federal and state laws are acutely sensitive to the
preferences of whites, men, and the rich.
